Author's Keywords: Cultural performance, social movement, China	Convention Need a solution for abstract management? All Academic can help! Contact us today to find out how our system can help your annual meeting. Submission - Custom fields, multiple submission types, tracks, audio visual, multiple upload formats, automatic conversion to pdf. Review - Peer Review, Bulk reviewer assignment, bulk emails, ranking, z-score statistics, and multiple worksheets! Reports - Many standard and custom reports generated while you wait. Print programs with participant indexes, event grids, and more! Scheduling - Flexible and convenient grid scheduling within rooms and buildings. Conflict checking and advanced filtering. Communication - Bulk email tools to help your administrators send reminders and responses. Use form letters, a message center, and much more! Management - Search tools, duplicate people management, editing tools, submission transfers, many tools to manage a variety of conference management headaches! Click here for more information.
Association: Name: American Sociological Association Annual Meeting URL: http://www.asanet.org
Citation: URL: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p240459_index.html Direct Link: HTML Code:

Gao, Rui. "The Anti-Japanese Protest in China: A Case Study of Cultural Performance" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Sheraton Boston and the Boston Marriott Copley Place, Boston, MA, Jul 31, 2008 <Not Available>. 2009-05-23 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p240459_index.html>

Gao, R. , 2008-07-31 "The Anti-Japanese Protest in China: A Case Study of Cultural Performance" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Sheraton Boston and the Boston Marriott Copley Place, Boston, MA Online <PDF>. 2009-05-23 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p240459_index.html

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript Abstract: A continuous ripple of anti-Japanese protests broke out in China in April 2005. This paper aims at offering an empirical account, perhaps the first of its kind, of these protest events. Taking these events as cultural performance, I analyze the protests from the perspective of cultural pragmatics (Alexander & Mast 2003; Alexander 2004). I also integrate into my analysis concepts and theories borrowed from social movement literature. I focus on how the Chinese protestors project their meanings by the creation of a foreground script through the identification of an antagonist, the construction of a collective identity and a narrative of grievance and redress that rings true to the background representation. I draw special attention to a hidden script that has been encoded within this foreground script which conveys message of opposition that is to be recognized by part of the audience yet missed by the others. I then elaborate on the meaning interpretation that different sections of the audience made of these protests, arguing that the ambiguity and ambivalence of the hidden script has played a key role in determining the different readings of these different audience. My conclusion is that success of a cultural performance, or whether it could produce what Alexander calls the “psychological identification and cultural extension” (Alexander 2004), is contingent on all the elements that are involved and its effects would differ dramatically for different audience who may or may not share the collective background representation with the actors.

Social Movement Performance: Cultural pragmatics and the failure of the pro-hunting movement

Social Movements and Collective Action as Complex Adaptive Systems: Incorporating Relaxed Rationality and Multiple Identities into Decision-Making