In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

>> 91 3 Navigating Mobile Networks of Sociality and Intimacy If you have a mobile phone, your life is much richer. —Cui Yiping, Beijing, December 4, 2006 Jia Zhangke’s 2005 film The World (Shijie) revolves around the story of two young adult migrants, Tao and her boyfriend Taisheng, who are both employed at the World Park, an amusement park on the outskirts of Beijing, where superficial cosmopolitanism is embodied in scaled-down, kitschy replicas of famous tourist sites such as the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, and even the (still-standing) Twin Towers. The fake attractions draw visitors from all over China, giving them and the employees at the park a false sense of having “seen the world.” Working as a dancer in the park, Tao appears to live like a liberated, urban young woman: dressing in exotic costumes, dating Taisheng without the blessing of her parents, owning a mobile phone, and spending her free time as she pleases. Yet, while Tao can sit in a grounded airplane at the park, she flies only in her mind, with escape in the film imagined through text-messaged anime sequences. In reality, however, despite the 92 > 93 as most women now regularly access the mobile Internet. While this online access via the phone is an important aspect of digital inclusion, I argue that it demonstrates a form of “necessary convergence” because few migrant women have computers and Internet connections in their homes. I also ask whether in the midst of opening up new possibilities for sociality and intimacy, certain practices possibly reify women’s marginalization, through solidifying their status as rural “Others” in the city. To frame this analysis, I first discuss Chinese concepts of selfhood and guanxi (relationship) and then relate these to Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of social capital. My goal is to illuminate how local socio-techno practices are articulated to larger social and cultural structures and meaning. The Egocentric Self, Guanxi, and Social Capital Although any culture is widely variegated, and China is in the midst of a profound transformation, Chinese social organization has often been called relationship-oriented, in contrast to the individual-oriented nature of western cultures. In traditional Chinese culture, “the individual is never an isolated , separate entity,” and there is no unique “self” outside of one’s social relationships and the personal responsibilities they bring.2 Fei Xiaotong, one of the founders of modern Chinese sociology, thus compared the pattern of Chinese social structure to “the circles that appear on the surface of a lake when a rock is thrown into it,” where each person “stands at the center of the circles produced by his or her own social influence.”3 He used the term “differential mode of association” (chaxugeju) as an ideal type to describe this pattern and to emphasize that the more distant the circles of relationships from the center (oneself) are, the less significant they are in a person’s social network. Liang Shuming, a contemporary of Fei’s, wrote that China has a “relationship-based (guanxi benwei) social order,” where those who are closest are at the center and have a large degree of mutual affection and obligation.4 Both of these scholars formulated their theories of Chinese selfhood before 1949, when China was a predominantly rural society. However, despite various transformations as a result of communism, industrialization, and urbanization, as well as increasing individualization, many scholars still argue for the persistence in China of a sense of self that is predominantly relationally focused.5 In numerous conversations, my informants confirmed this relational orientation. 94 > 95 In contrast to a purely instrumental view of guanxi, scholarship on guanxi in the countryside has emphasized its expressive features and its association with friendship and feelings. In rural contexts, the cultivation of guanxiwang (personal networks) has been understood as producing one’s subjectivity, because a relationally based notion of the self implies that “relationships are constitutive of one’s self.”13 Yan Yunxiang argues that one’s guanxi networks of personal relations can also be thought of as one’s local world, made up of concentric circles of relationships categorized into three zones: the “personal core” made up of family members and very close friends; the “reliable zone” consisting of good friends; and the “effective zone,” which is larger and more open and can include all friends, coworkers, relatives, and even potentially (but not likely) all fellow villagers.14 Some scholars believe that more traditional notions of guanxi still prevail in the countryside...

Share