Dados Bibliográficos

Resumo

Faced with glaring economic inequality within China, and the need to grow soft power globally, president Xi Jinping has identified the urgent need to usher in a 'new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics,' and has specifically called for the expansion of 'xin cishan' (新慈善), or 'new philanthropy.' Both as a new phenomenon in the prc, and as a novel type, 'new philanthropy' represents an opportunity for the nation to envision and cultivate charitable practice that mediates between market economics and socialist ethics, and grants China a moral authority that is legible to a Western gaze yet resistant to cultural imperialism. Based on yearlong ethnographic research inside an elite philanthropy training program, this article outlines three different visions that were found to coexist: philanthropy-as-new-revolution, philanthropy-as-new-legacy, and philanthropy-as-new-tradition. I also examine how wealthy participants responded to these various interpellations—part of a process I call 'philanthropic subjectification.'