ECU Libraries Catalog

Recovering histories : life and labor after heroin in reform-era China / Nicholas Bartlett.

Author/creator Bartlett, Nicholas, 1978- author.
Format Book and Print
Publication Info Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2020]
Descriptionxv, 204pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Subject(s)
Series Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institue, Columbia University
Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University. ^A593434
Contents Introduction : towards a phenomenology of recovery -- Mayhem on the mountains : the generational rush of heroin's arrival -- Recovery as adaption : catching up to the post-rush private sector -- Absence of a future : narrative, community and obsolescence -- Idling in Mao's shadow : contesting the therapeutic value of socialist labor -- Wedding for the future : ritual, relationships and the elusive quest for "return" -- "From the community": civil society careers and the limits of phenomenology.
Abstract "Heroin first reached Gejiu, a Chinese city in southern Yunnan known as Tin Capital, in the 1980s. Widespread use of the drug, which for a short period became "easier to buy than vegetables," coincided with radical changes in the local economy caused by the marketization of the mining industry. More than two decades later, both the heroin epidemic and the mining boom are often discussed as recent history. Middle-aged long-term heroin users, however, complain that they feel stuck in an earlier moment of the country's rapid reforms, navigating a world that no longer resembles either the tightly-knit Maoist work units of their childhood or the disorienting but opportunity-filled chaos of their early careers. Overcoming addiction in Gejiu has become inseparable from broader attempts to re-imagine laboring lives in a rapidly shifting social world. Drawing on more than eighteen months of fieldwork, Nicholas Bartlett explores how individuals' diverging experiences of recovery highlight shared challenges of inhabiting China's contested present"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references and index.
Issued in other formOnline version: Bartlett, Nicholas, 1978- Recovering histories. Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2020] 9780520975378
Genre/formHistory.
LCCN 2020014434
ISBN9780520344112 hardcover
ISBN0520344111 hardcover
ISBN9780520344136 paperback
ISBN0520344138 paperback
ISBNelectronic publication

Available Items

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Joyner General Stacks HV5840 .C62 G453 2020 ✔ Available Place Hold