“Shoppers' Republic of China”: Orientalism in Neoliberal U.S. News Discourse

Peasant traders, migrant workers and “supermarkets”: Low‐cost provisions and the reproduction of migrant labor in China

“…As in Asia's other late socialist contexts, it is the doing of both the market and a Communist party state (Wilcox et al, 2021) that is supposed to represent the peasants. This state sponsors a discourse that constructs a social hierarchy deeming them as lacking in “human quality” (Ban, 2018; Hsu, 2006; Yan, 2003) while promoting self‐entrepreneurship as a path for them to lift themselves out of that status, as also does the Vietnamese state (Nguyen, 2023). These discourses help to naturalize social hierarchies and inequalities in the post‐reform economy.…”

“…For decades, this discourse has been produced and reinforced by the construction of rural migrants as strangers in the city (Yan, 2003;Zhang, 2001) who are deemed to be occupying the lower rungs of a hierarchical social order underpinned by what Ban (2018) terms "cultural urbanism." This defines the countryside as the underside of progress and rural people as a homogeneous group (Nguyen, Vo, & Wei, n.d.;Zavoretti, 2016), which is "backward, unsophisticated, homogeneous, conservative, poor, and otherwise lacking in various ways" (Ban, 2018, 11, citing Thompson, 2013. In combination with the social and administrative mechanisms associated with household registration (hukou), the discourse helps to hold down the value of migrant labor and the social costs of reproducing it (Jacka, 2018a, b;Lin & Nguyen, 2021), facilitating value extraction from migrant labor for the sake of accumulation in urban centers (Yan, 2003).…”

“…In China today, nongmin as a formal classification continues to indicate backwardness and low level of “ suzhi ” (literally “human quality,” i.e., the human capital and cultural knowledge necessary to be worthy members of modern China) (Chu, 2010; Hsu, 2006; Zavoretti, 2016). For decades, this discourse has been produced and reinforced by the construction of rural migrants as strangers in the city (Yan, 2003; Zhang, 2001) who are deemed to be occupying the lower rungs of a hierarchical social order underpinned by what Ban (2018) terms “cultural urbanism.” This defines the countryside as the underside of progress and rural people as a homogeneous group (Nguyen, Vo, & Wei, n.d.; Zavoretti, 2016), which is “backward, unsophisticated, homogeneous, conservative, poor, and otherwise lacking in various ways” (Ban, 2018, 11, citing Thompson, 2013, 161). In combination with the social and administrative mechanisms associated with household registration ( hukou ), the discourse helps to hold down the value of migrant labor and the social costs of reproducing it (Jacka, 2018a, b; Lin & Nguyen, 2021), facilitating value extraction from migrant labor for the sake of accumulation in urban centers (Yan, 2003).…”

Surveillance of Global Corruption by Transparency International: Construction of a ‘Corrupt’ South and ‘Clean’ North Discourse

“…It investigates how Bangladesh is produced by TI when it comes to discourses of corruption that covertly echo with the 'Othering modalities of Euroamerican colonial discourses' (Parameswaran, 2002). This study aligns with the argument that a postcolonial critique challenges contemporary hegemonic neocolonial and neoliberal global discourses where Orientalism 'has been reinvigorated, resurrected in the backdrop of neoliberalism -the zeitgeist of global capitalism today (Ban et al, 2013). The literature review in the following section provides a description of TI's activities and a postcolonial understanding of corruption in a neoliberal economy before moving on to analysis of TI's documents through a postcolonial lens, concluding with theoretical implications.…”

Sinological-orientalism in Western News Media

“…In fact, the academic study of Chinese games and game cultures is still at its early stage and not so much involved with the topics that gain attention in the media. It is not unusual, however, to deploy orientalism with popular media or news journalism (e.g., Ban, Sastry, & Dutta, 2013). Other scholars before me have also studied games' representational content from the point of view of orientalist analysis (Höglund, 2008;Komel, 2014).…”