Willful times
Unpredictability, planning, and presentism among entrepreneurs in a central Chinese city
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2048915 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Megan Steffen (0000-0002-9046-5033, Tsinghua University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 251-262 |
| Publication date | 2017-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Economic Anthropology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2330-4847 • E-ISSN: 2330-4847 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/sea2.12092 |
| OpenAlex | W2620591412 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 24 |
On the basis of more than twenty-four months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted between March 2013 and March 2016 in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province, this article examines the reasons why three different generations of entrepreneurs continue to make what appear to be risky economic decisions in the face of what they admit is an economic downturn. I argue that in Zhengzhou, recent historical experiences of sudden, unexpected outcomes have resulted in a preference for presentist practices that allow people to leave decisions unmade until the last minute. In the wake of the unprecedented liberalizing policies that transformed the People's Republic of China, people were often arbitrarily and unexpectedly rewarded; even success appeared to happen by accident. My research indicates that as a result of these unexpected personal outcomes, people have begun to cultivate willfulness (renxing), an orientation that allows them to place opportunity in opposition not to risk but to other people's opinions. Finally, observing that risk grows out of a specific conception of time that directly links present actions to future consequences, I argue that unpredictability is a better analytic concept for events and decision making in Zhengzhou
Business · China · Economics · Ethnography · Political science · Recession · Social science · Sociology · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Law · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
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The Empire of Chance
Classical Probability in the Enlightenment
Oedipus and Job in West African religion
China since Tiananmen
Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More
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Risk society
Uncertain Times
Explaining the Present
Accounting for Belief
Prophecy and the near future
The Method of Hope
The Ghost in the Financial Machine
Neoliberalism reified
Managing the margins
Do Risk and Time Experimental Choices Represent Individual Strategies for Coping with Poverty or Conformity to Social Norms
On postsocialist capitalism
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,4 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2022 (2) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |