Chinese Religious Life ed. by David A. Palmer, Glenn Shive, Philip L. Wickeri (review)

Abstract

DAVID A. PALMER, GLENN SHIVE, and PHILIP L. WICKERI, eds., Chinese Religious Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. xii, 277 pp. US$29.95/£18.99 (pb). ISBN 978-0-19-973138-1 Studies of religious activity in Chinese societies have proliferated over the past twenty years, with a large and growing number of books, articles, and edited volumes by anthropologists, sociologists, and religious studies scholars. Recent edited books include State, Market, and Religions in Chinese Societies (2005), Chinese Religiosities (2008), Making Religion, Making the State (2009), Social Scientific Studies of Religion in China (2011), and Religion in Contemporary China (2011).1 Some of the chapter authors of Chinese Religious Life have recently published books, articles, and chapters in other edited books on various aspects of religion in China. David Palmer’s own recent work with co-author Vincent Goossaert includes The Religious Question in Modern China (2011),2 a broad and deep historical account of development and change in religious life in China over the past century, up to the 2000s, including a review of a wide array of published research in several languages by sociologists, anthropologists, and historians. One of the chapter authors, Fenggang Yang, also has published a very useful review and analysis in Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule (2012).3 There are also rich ethnographic studies by anthropologists (e.g.: The Temple of Memories [1996], Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China [2006], and Constructing China’s Jerusalem [2011]),4 available in paperback and highly readable even for non-specialists. Many readers of this journal are already familiar with much of this literature. One way to approach a review of a new edited book such as Chinese Religious Life is to ask: What does it contribute to this growing collection of work on religions in China which has not already been covered in the previous published work of these chapter authors or other scholars? Should you add this book to readings that you assign to students, or consult it for material relevant to your own research? 2 Vincent Goossaert and David A. Palmer, The Religious Question in Modern China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). 3 Fenggang Yang, Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 4 Jun Jing, The Temple of Memories: History, Power, and Morality in a Chinese Village (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996); Adam Yuet Chau, Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006); Nanlai Cao, Constructing China’s Jerusalem: Christians, Power, and Place in Contemporary Wenzhou (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011). 1 Fenggang Yang and Joseph Tamney, eds., State, Market, and Religions in Chinese Societies (Leiden: Brill, 2005); Mayfair Mei-hui Yang, ed., Chinese Religions: Afflictions of Modernity and State Formation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008); Yoshiko Ashiwa and David L. Wank, eds., Making Religion, Making the State (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009); Fenggang Yang and Graeme Lang, eds., Social Scientific Studies of Religion in China (Leiden: Brill, 2011); Adam Yuet Chau, ed., Religion in Contemporary China: Revitalization and Innovation (London: Routledge, 2011). BOOK REVIEWS 169 In the Introduction, Philip Wickeri outlines the scope and aims of Chinese Religious Life as follows: ‘‘This book is an introduction to [contemporary] Chinese religious life in its great diversity [. . . ] for the general reader [. . . ] by [. . . ] scholars who approach their subject from a variety of different disciplines [. . . with] an emphasis on religious practice [and on public collective religious activities]’’ (p. 4). This suggests that the book would be suitable for an introductory course. Does the book meet this aim? If so, will the chapters be engaging also for specialists? The answers vary from chapter to chapter. To illustrate, I briefly review some (but not all) of these chapters. The first chapter—‘‘Spirituality in a modern Chinese metropolis’’ by Lizhu Fan and James D. Whitehead—begins with an account of lunch at a vegetarian restaurant in Shenzhen 深圳 that also hosts Buddhist rites in a back room along with occasional Buddhist lectures. The authors ask, ‘‘what is going on here?’’ and then explore the eclectic ‘‘spiritual search’’ of migrants in Shenzhen for meaning and morality, using the abundance of choices...