http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/3806 2013-04-30T10:20:17Z 2013-04-30T10:20:17Z Hua, Zhiya ( 華智亞) http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/6503 2012-08-07T07:43:15Z 2011-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Revitalization of folk religion in contemporary China : a case study of Dragon Tablet Festival in central and southern Hebei Province Authors: Hua, Zhiya ( 華智亞) Abstract: This dissertation is an empirical study of the revival and development of folk religion in contemporary central and southern Hebei Province, North China. Community-based local cults prevail in the rural areas of central and southern Hebei Province, and xinghao de, namely, local folk religious believers, are enthusiastic in holding religious festivals to worship their deities. Those folk religious activities were prohibited in the Maoist era, but they have been revived and have thrived after the reform and opening up. After a general introduction to the folk religion and its revival in this region, this dissertation focuses on the story of the revitalization and development of Dragon Tablet Festival, a religious festival held annually dedicated to Dragon Tablet, a public deity in a village in Zhao County. Considered as "a typical example of feudal superstition," Dragon Tablet Festival was banned in the Maoist era. After it was revived in the reform era, Dragon Tablet Festival attracted lots of researchers after a local scholar accidently discovered it and in turn introduced it to academia. Subsequently, Dragon Tablet and Dragon Tablet Festival were reinterpreted as Dragon," the common ancestor and totem of the Chinese Nation, and "the living fossil of Dragon Culture," respectively. Accordingly, Dragon Tablet Festival acquired a great success: a temple to Dragon Tablet was officially permitted to build in the name of "Dragon Culture Museum," and Dragon Tablet Festival was listed as a provincial level "intangible cultural heritage" and hence protected by the local government. The revival process is generalized as "culturalization of a local cult, which may represent a developmental tendency of folk religion in contemporary China. The completion of this process depends on the cooperation among local people, outside researchers, local government officials, and journalists. Based on ethnographic research, this dissertation examines three intertwined themes and proposes some arguments. Firstly, the revitalization of folk religion is the outcome of various factors. Both internal factors, such as the pursuit of renao (heat-noise) by folk religious believers and the resilience of folk religion caused by the flexibility of religious festivals, and some external factors, such as the enthusiasm of outside researchers and local government officials' pursuit of local economic interests, contributed to the revival and prosperity of Dragon Tablet Festival. Secondly, legitimization is an important goal for these folk religious groups and believers in the gray religious market," a transitional area existing between the legal and illegal religious groups which is mainly caused by the current religious policy in China. To achieve this goal, folk religious groups utilize different strategies to legitimize their religious activities. Thirdly, the researchers who do field research on folk religion need to adopt some strategies to legitimize their research due to the religious policies and the related regulations of academic affairs in China, but meanwhile, their research on folk religion can be utilized by folk religious believers and local government officials to achieve their own interests. So eventually, the researchers and local government officials are also involved into the process of the revitalization of folk religion and to some extent promote this process. This research not only provides a vivid picture of the revival of a local cult, but also reveals some rules in the "gray religious market" in contemporary China. At the same time, it illustrates that the revival and development of folk religion is not a process of folk resistance" but involves and requires cooperation among various actors and stakeholders. The fundamental rule behind the cooperation is the rational choices of different actors in this complicated and important process. Notes: CityU Call Number: BL1945.H43 H83 2011; vii, 330 leaves : ill. 30 cm.; Thesis (Ph.D.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2011.; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 299-326)

2011-01-01T00:00:00Z Hanlon, Robert James. (0) http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/6130 2011-05-25T01:14:47Z 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Corporate social responsibility, corruption and human rights : multinational corporations in China and Southeast Asia Authors: Hanlon, Robert James. (0) Abstract: This study examines how multinational corporations (MNC) are engaging the human rights and anti-corruption discourse in China and Southeast Asia. The purpose is to understand how industry perceives human rights and corruption within the corporate social responsibility (CSR) paradigm. This research presents a theoretical framework that argues elite business stakeholders are driving and engineering regional CSR practice. While this study largely focuses on foreign business in China and Southeast Asia, findings are derived from comparative analysis based on field work carried out in Cambodia, China and Thailand. Conclusions are drawn from 60 semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders including business leaders, nongovernmental organizations, international organizations and government officials. Research is also founded on empirical data compiled and collated from six major industry conferences held in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Paris and Singapore. Results are also based on five years of observed behaviour working with several chambers of commerce, non-profit organizations and social enterprises in Hong Kong. Findings suggest that although social responsibility is an increasingly important corporate strategy, human rights and corruption remain marginalized CSR issues in China and Southeast Asia for three reasons. First, MNCs see the structural causes of human rights violations and corruption as outside their sphere of influence and responsibility. Second, divergent stakeholder interests are sidelining human rights and corruption as CSR issues. Finally, industry is constrained by structurally embedded business practice that is shaped by neoliberalism. This study concludes that human rights and corruption will remain a peripheral business issues until elite stakeholders agree on how the concepts should enter the social responsibility framework while being vigorously promoted as a global best practice. Notes: CityU Call Number: HD2891.85 .H37 2010; x, 313 leaves 30 cm.; Thesis (Ph.D.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2010.; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 285-313)

2010-01-01T00:00:00Z Chen, Yun (陳贇) http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/5510 2010-03-21T23:36:22Z 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Revitalization of Chinese rural Christian church since the 1980s : a case study of Shuizhai Church, Wuhua County, Eastern Guangdong Authors: Chen, Yun (陳贇) Abstract: After almost thirty years of religious suppression in PRC, Christianity in China achieves rapid revitalization since the 1980s. Owing to the great population of peasants and broad rural area, rural Christian churches contribute much to the growth. This study chooses a rural Christian church with a history of over one hundred years and its adherents as the research object, unfolds the complex social ecology of the church in both synchronic and diachronic dimensions, and represents the interactions between Christianity(churches), the state(government) and society(local society). It applies a theoretical framework of sociology of religion, Religious Economy Theory (RET), to seek for the explanation of religious revitalization and growth in the transition period of politics and economy. In the meanwhile, it applies the approach of “thick description” to represent the church’s social functions by delineating the complicated relation of local government, local society (traditional culture) and religions. Chinese religious market is neither monopolistic nor free, which could be regarded as a complement of RET. Deregulation liberates the possibility of religious growth. Regulation from the government molds the religious market and promotes the religious growth as well. Gaining more chances and resources for self-development is always the first consideration of the religious groups in any political and social contexts. For that purpose, Christian church sets up its role in the local society as the spiritual mentor, the theological school and a community entertainment center. These social functions facilitate the church’s development. Notes: CityU Call Number: BR1290.W78 C44 2008; vi, 242 leaves : ill. 30 cm.; Thesis (Ph.D.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2008.; Includes bibliographical references (leaves 218-231)

2008-01-01T00:00:00Z Ahsan Ullah, A. K. M http://dspace.cityu.edu.hk:80/handle/2031/5080 2008-02-11T07:09:23Z 2007-01-01T00:00:00Z

Title: Rationalizing migration : Bangladeshi migrant workers in Hong Kong and Malaysia Authors: Ahsan Ullah, A. K. M Abstract: In view of the growing significance of migration as one of the defining elements of contemporary globalization, there has been an abundance of studies that are carried out to explore the many facets and dynamics of population migration. With the scaling up of the volume of migration flows worldwide, Bangladesh has likewise seen considerable expansion in its flows of labour migration. Today, migration has become a public policy matter for Bangladesh and the countries receiving Bangladeshi migrants – among which are Hong Kong and Malaysia, which are being explored in this study. Although Hong Kong is not among the best destination of choice for most Bangladeshi potential migrants, this study confirms that a small but a significant group of Bangladeshi labourers have been in this metropolis since the last three decades. Malaysia, on the other hand, have been a major host to Bangladeshi migrant workers since it came into an agreement, during the nineties with the Bangladeshi government, of hiring around fifty thousand skilled and unskilled manpower annually to cover the severe shortage in its labour market. The present study examines how Bangladeshi migrant workers in Hong Kong (HKRs) and Malaysia (MRs) go about their decisions to migrate and how they rationalize their migration decision, by looking at two perspectives in the migration process. The first is the migration decision-making; and the second is the rationalization of post-migration experiences. While decisions for working overseas are often based on expectations and promises of better jobs, opportunities, economic gains and, eventually, a better future, such assumptions may not always be realized, and even when they are - partially, migrants suffer numerous adversities in the migration process. The major hardships are problems in paying back the exorbitant migration costs obtained from borrowing and selling of assets and properties; under-payment by employer, anxieties and real threats arising out of their illegal stay, forced confinement in their work places resulting to problematic emotional health, subhuman living and working conditions, employers who withhold or give late, if not irregular payment of salaries and seize the travel documents of their employees, among others. Apart from the financial costs migrants incur, social and psychological costs, while difficult to measure in absolute terms, are also things that migrant workers pay at a steep price. These sticky situations place migrant workers in a state where they justify their migration decision. While theories and the treatment of migration issues in various researches have addressed these factors of rationalization in migration decision, most were presented in a dispersed manner. This study tried to come up with a unified understanding of rationalization of migration decision. While different circumstances have different effects on individual’s migration choice, economic considerations have always registered a high influence throughout the migration process. However, networking, financial cost, living and working condition, income benefit, remittances and its impact on the well-being have been taken into account as the key variables of rationalization. While networking and household strategy play a stronger role at the decision-making stage, economic and assimilationist factors have strong influence on both the processes. This research reflects on the role of networks in providing support to the migrant during both pre and post-migration periods. Both the formal and informal migration networks provide information about the labor market in the host country, which, in most cases, make it possible for the migrants to negotiate or seek for better paid and more stable jobs, like in the case of the Hong Kong respondents. Conversely, the deadly combination of “shady” networks i.e. illegal recruiting agencies; the unemployed who are desperate to take any job at any cost, lax government regulations, and corrupt immigration officers lead to a long, dangerous, and costly journey for the Bangladeshi respondents in Malaysia. The research shows that the migrants borrowed from a number of sources, often in the form of fat commissions from the migrants’ future salaries, or by the loans they incur from multiple sources. Data show that majority of the respondents in Malaysia took a long time, varying from 6 months to three years after they migrated to pay off the loan, often continuing to bear the burden of paying off their loans until they return to Bangladesh. What follows after the financial factor is the living and working conditions in the host country, as the intention to stay is largely dependent on the extent and process by which migrant workers can assimilate culturally, economically or socially to the receiving society. The assimilation of migrants into the Malaysian and Hong Kong labour market is influenced by factors such as their holding of valid work permits, working arrangements and how they are arranged, the type of work they normally manage to acquire, the neighborhood they work in, and finally by their living conditions. The research shows that the respondents in Malaysia take up riskier and more dangerous jobs with less income benefits than those of the migrants in Hong Kong. While both the migrants in Hong Kong and in Malaysia were both subjected to varying degrees and forms of vulnerabilities and exploitations, the level of suffering among the migrants in Malaysia were higher than the former. Despite being offered similar categories of job, the income level of the migrants in Hong Kong was significantly higher than that of those in Malaysia. Similarly, the Hong Kong migrant workers remitted higher amounts than the migrants in Malaysia. This study has demonstrated that a large amount of remittances are being transferred to Bangladesh through informal channels due to the relative inefficiency associated with the process of the formal systems. Although the remittances significantly contribute to the country’s GNP, however this is not equally contributing at the micro level as the study revealed that the major portion of remittances goes to unproductive expenses. However, despite all adversities the migrant workers suffer, they still intend to stay abroad because they cannot revive their decision as they already moved. Their primary concern now is to realize their hope to gain back the money incurred to finance their migration. This research claims to have comprehended a broad spectrum of migration perspectives and it shows the would-be migrant workers the means of rationalizing their migration decision. Notes: CityU Call Number: HD8753.A47 2007; Includes bibliographical references (leaves [250]-279); Thesis (Ph.D.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2007; xvii, 328 leaves : ill. (some col.) ; 30 cm.

2007-01-01T00:00:00Z