Cooperation in Chinese Communities ― Morality and Practice

When humans cooperate, what are the social and psychological mechanisms that enable them to do so successfully? Is cooperativeness something natural for humans, built in to our species over the course of evolution? This work addresses these central questions concerning human nature and the nature of cooperation.

In this book, Stafford and the contributors present a wide range of vivid anthropological case-studies focused on everyday cooperation in Chinese communities: for example between children in Nanjing playing a ballgame together, parents in Edinburgh organising a community school together, villagers in Yunnan dealing with 'common pool' resource problems together, and families in Kinmen in Taiwan worshipping their dead together. On the one hand, these case studies illustrate some uniquely Chinese cultural factors (e.g.those related to kinship ideals and institutions) that shape the experience and practice of cooperation for those we have met during our anthropological fieldwork. They also illustrate, on the other hand, how China's recent history, not least the rise and fall of collectivism in various forms, continues to shape the experience of cooperation for ordinary people in China today. Finally, they show that in spite of the cultural and historical particularity of Chinese cooperation, it does share some underlying features that would be familiar to people coming from radically different backgrounds. The case studies presented are about Chinese communities but also about the social life of humans much more generally.

Charles Stafford is Professor at the London School of Economics, UK.
Ellen R. Judd is Distinguished Professor at the University of Manitoba, Canada.
Eona Bell is Affiliated Lecturer in Social Anthropology at Cambridge University and Research Officer at the London School of Economics, UK.