Miracle of backwardness: a lay Daoism for young people in contemporary China
Embargo Date
2027-02-12
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
This dissertation examines young people’s engagement with the newly established lay Daoism in contemporary Shanghai. It begins with an ethnographic question: Why do well-educated urban young people commit to Daoism, a traditional Chinese religion that has been described as backward and feudalistic in mainstream discourse for more than a century, and under a social environment that worships modernization and economic development? Based on twenty-one months of fieldwork, this dissertation portrays the interactive dynamics between institutional Daoism, young lay Daoists, and the state, as the social matrix that has facilitated the emergence of an innovative lay Daoism. By doing so, the dissertation moves away from previous approaches that describe young people’s engagement with religion primarily as a solution for or alternative to the unsettled lives they live under conditions of rapid economic development and social change. It explores the ironic process that an anti-religious society coincidently facilitates a youth culture affined with religion, showing that the newly established lay Daoism is profoundly intertwined with contemporary youth culture, as well as with the life experiences and social relations of a particular generation of Chinese youth in urban China. Using this optic, this dissertation investigates how Daoism’s cosmology and practice correspond to young people’s lives, thoughts, and aspirations. It introduces the metaphor of “convergence” to describe this dynamic process.
This dissertation suggests five aspects to explain how “convergence” between young people’s modern urban life and their commitment to Daoism takes place. Firstly, as social background, the current state’s political agenda -- which promotes national identity, the rapid expansion of markets for traditional Chinese fashion, and young people’s widespread nostalgia for an imagined past national glory -- encourages young people to embrace the cultural tradition that Daoism represents. Secondly, in the context of frantic urban life, young people embrace a Daoist temporality to reorganize their everyday lives. The dissertation documents multiple patterns in which Daoist and modern temporalities co-exist dynamically: overlapping, resettling, decoding, and converging. Thirdly, young women, who are identified as the “empowered daughters” of contemporary China, and who pursue equal gender relations with their partners, find a source of affirmation for their identity in Daoism’s theology of yin-yang equality, even though men dominate many Daoist institutions. Fourthly, Daoism’s philosophy that insists on “assisting the state and the people” fits comfortably with young people’s patriotic tendencies and asserts Daoism’s position as a valuable asset in a modern state. Lastly, young people discover their potential through exploring life’s complexity in the Daoist dialectical cosmology. Through this view, they explore several strategies to achieve the co-existence of multiple ontologies in daily life.
In tracing these developments in a new Chinese lay Daoism, this dissertation contributes to anthropological discussions about traditionalism, temporality, gender, state-religion relationships, and multiple ontologies. In addition, it explores a new approach to understanding young people’s religious inspiration and practice under China’s secularist, even anti-religious, policy. In so doing, it contributes to a broader and important discussion on religion in modern secular societies worldwide.
Description
2024