In search of the heart of a heartless world: Chinese youth, house-church Christianity and the longing for foreign Utopias

Bregnbæk, Susanne

doi:10.4324/9780429331831-4

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…So strong is the inculcation of spiritual capital that none of the students interviewed aspired for global opportunities through secular educational institutions. A similar pattern is observed by Bregnbæk (2018), where the combined effect of competition within Chinese society, the solace offered through evangelical house churches, and the restriction on attending these churches result in young Chinese Christians longing for a better life abroad. The students' preference is encouraged by Pioneer Academy's ability to provide them with networks to tap into Christian universities in the USA, e.g., through talks by the president of the John Paul University.…”

Section: From Alternative Education To Alternative Visions Of Lifesupporting

confidence: 76%

“…Although these parents are affluent, they signalled a distinction between Pioneer Academy and international schools that cater for expatriates' children. In Chan's (parent's) words: “other international schools enrol children from privileged or rich families, so we worry about the school ethos and discipline; in those schools, it's a bit anarchic.” These parents' tendency to view evangelical Christianity as solution to the “moral vacuum” and “feeling of an inner emptiness as a result of the constant striving for outer success” resonates with research on Chinese working‐age youth (Bregnbæk, 2018, p. 180).…”

Section: From Alternative Education To Alternative Visions Of Lifementioning

confidence: 88%

“…Despite being sanctioned, religious activities are restricted to the premises of registered religious institutions. Yet, in reality, many religious practices and gatherings occur underground; for example, McDonald's restaurants have been identified as clandestine meeting places for Bible study (Yang, 2005) and house‐churches are a growing trend (Bregnbæk, 2018). Since the Chinese government bans religious education to children under 18 years, Christian churches are prohibited from conducting Sunday school (Sun, 2017).…”

Section: The Place Of Alternative Education In China's Educational Lamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Alternative education spaces and pathways: Insights from an international Christian school in China

Silva

Woods

Kong

2020

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The nascent scholarship on geographies of alternative education focuses on alternative education spaces, mostly located in the UK, that resist and/or negotiate neoliberal restructuring of education, some of which cater to socially marginalised groups. In contrast, through an ethnographic focus on an underground Christian international school in China, we examine an alternative education space that responds to parents' aspirations for their children to be inculcated with global cultural capital, Chinese values, and Christian beliefs. These aspirations are not fulfilled in mainstream state schools or international schools in China, but are demanded by parents looking for a “superior” set of skills for their children to navigate the increasingly neoliberal, and global, higher education and employment landscapes. The discussion reveals the incongruities in the school's claim to simultaneously instil global, local, and spiritual forms of cultural capital, which leads to two visions of the pathway to higher education. The paper expands the geographies of alternative education in three ways. First, it shows how international and faith‐based schools can provide alternative schooling. Second, it shows how the departure of alternative education spaces from their mainstream counterparts can reveal the inadequacies of the latter. Third, it draws attention to how the cultural capital inculcated through alternative education can lead to alternative international higher education pathways within and beyond China.

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Section: From Alternative Education To Alternative Visions Of Lifesupporting

confidence: 76%

Section: From Alternative Education To Alternative Visions Of Lifementioning

confidence: 88%

Section: The Place Of Alternative Education In China's Educational Lamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Alternative education spaces and pathways: Insights from an international Christian school in China

Silva

Woods

Kong

2020

Area

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“…In post-reform China where self-development has been imposed as a normative temporal orientation, scholars have examined how present-tense experiences among the youth nonetheless come to be valued in their own right rather than as vehicles to an uncertain future. Young Chinese Christians, for example, seek to regain a sense of a meaningful existence outside of materialistic pursuits (Bregnbaek 2018). In like manner, aspiring Chinese students in Scandinavia momentarily embraced not-yet-purposeful time during their sojourn abroad.…”

Section: Dwelling In the Comfort Of The Nowmentioning

confidence: 99%

Malaise of Indolence: (Dis)Engagements with the Future among Young Migrants in Shanghai

Richaud¹

2022

Ethos

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Rural-to-urban migrants in China have often been portrayed as striving subjects, living in "suspension" for the sake of the entrepreneurial futures they desire. Drawing on fieldwork conducted alongside young café workers in Shanghai, this article highlights more ambivalent engagements with the future obscured by emphases, within the social sciences, on the intentional, active aspects of subjectivity. Relatedly, it analyzes moments of purposelessness as more than emotional downsides of precarity, in a context where official discourses of the "Chinese Dream" coexist with vernacular celebrations of indolence. Purposelessness is a form of refusal, allowing young migrants to dwell in the present, if only momentarily. Yet, the very act of articulating unwillingness through playful idioms of indolence does not mean embracing disengagement as a norm. Rather, it nurtures a sense of ethical discomfort and self-responsibility. This malaise of indolence might prevent the translation of temporary disinvestment into a clear politics of refusal. [ambivalence, aspirations, neoliberal subjectivity, post-reform China, purposelessness]

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“…As with many scholars working on social life in times of uncertainty, Giroux (2016) suggests that economic precarity leads to the weakening of democratic institutions and the rise of authoritarianism (see also Standing 2016). In contexts from jihadism in Islam (Mura 2019) and Chinese Christianity (Bregnbæk 2018) to Nigerian Pentecostalism (Davie‐Kessler 2016), scholars argue that religious engagement offers a sense of certainty for youth in a precarious world.…”

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confidence: 99%

Aimless Agency: Religious Engagement in an Uncertain World

Cassaniti

Chladek

2022

Ethos

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Bronislaw Malinowski suggested nearly a century ago that a key purpose of religious engagement is to provide a sense of stability in the face of uncertainty. This close relationship between religion and stability is often presumed by scholars today, but, we argue, it is not as universal as is often supposed. Drawing on over 15 years of ethnographic research in Northern Thailand, we show how Thai Buddhists actively and strategically remind themselves of the inherent precarity of the future, rather than seek to minimize it. Analyzing rhetoric that draws on shared understandings of the uncertain in day-to-day religious practice, we show how Thai Buddhists strive for what we call "aimless agency": a psychological acceptance of future unknowability. We use this ethnographic example to suggest further work on the social implications of impermanence and the importance of paying greater attention to cultural variability in religious approaches to an uncertain world.

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In search of the heart of a heartless world: Chinese youth, house-church Christianity and the longing for foreign Utopias

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Alternative education spaces and pathways: Insights from an international Christian school in China

Alternative education spaces and pathways: Insights from an international Christian school in China

Malaise of Indolence: (Dis)Engagements with the Future among Young Migrants in Shanghai

Aimless Agency: Religious Engagement in an Uncertain World

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