Resistance, Chaos and Control in China: Taiping Rebels, Taiwanese Ghosts and Tiananmen

by Robert P. Weller

This study stakes out a new position on how and when potential resistance may be transformed into an actual social movement. Its three cases - the Taiping Rebellion in the 1840s and 1850s, ghost worship in modern Taiwan and the aftermath of the 1989 demonstrations in Tiananmen Square - contribute to ongoing debates among historians, social scientists and literary theorists on the relationship between culture and resistance.
Resistance, Chaos and Control in China compares active resistance movements with everyday actions that imply unspoken resistance. It shows how certain areas of life defuse attempts at cultural domination by dissolving official interpretations. At the same time, these cultural "free spaces" nurture ambiguous and multiple alternatives of their own, including the possibility of erupting into open political resistance. The three cases demonstrate how attempts to push such ambiguous meaning into a single, explicit interpretation as resistance succeed or fail.
The material on the Taiping Rebellion offers new views of the role of spirit possession in the movement, and the section on surging ghost worship in Taiwan addresses the reproportioning of religion as the island's economy and political structure have been transformed in the last two decades. The Tiananmen chapters examine the nature of cultural control and resistance in China and other socialist societies.

Genres: China

255 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting book about forms of popular resistance at three points in chinese history. in particular, his analysis of the taiping rebellion and taiwanese popular religion are very interesting in light of the ideas of saturation and precipitation he puts forth. the tiananmen chapter feels a bit of a stretch from the conceptual framework he sets up, but sparks some interesting thought nonetheless.