EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Sociology & Anthropology 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 186 Sino-Tibetan border area, and also include insights I have gained on return trips in 2011 and 2014. During most of my stays in the field, I have carried out my research without official permission — I performed “guerrilla-fieldwork”. With this term I refer Gold, who suggested “guerilla-interviewing” as a method to circumvent the limitation of state-controlled research (Gold 1989). As a matter of fact, I frequently had to adapt my research design in response to circumstances, and that is why I will highlight some difficulties as well as accomplishments which have emerged in course of my stays in the field. I will examine how the ethical guidelines give me access to and credibility in local communities. Furthermore, I discuss the need as well as the complexity of maintaining a clear boundary between my work, my research and my personal life. But at the same time, I emphasize the importance of one’s transparency, openness and reflexivity which leads to the discussion of identity and its continuity and change in the attitudes of “Qinghai” Mongols toward “mainstream Mongols” as well as towards the nation of China. Hence, I state that the researcher has to have the capacity to engage her/himself in the process of (self-)reflexivity, an important fact besides connecting research ethics with methodological issues. My paper contributes to the current discussion on the requirements of the maintenance of ethical integrity, standards for proper research and the safety of the people who are studied. Wemheuer Felix (University of Cologne) Embedded in Factionalism? Interviewing Eyewitnesses of the Chinese Cultural Revolution Key words: Cultural Revolution, Rebels, interviews, methods, embeddedness During the early Cultural Revolution (1966–68), factional struggles broke out at all levels of Chinese society. Several scholars have argued that these factionalism has a strong impact on memories of eyewit- nesses today. Memories of the Cultural Revolution are very fragmented and the Chinese society did not find any stable consensus how to evaluate these movements. This paper will discuss methodological chal- lenges to hold interviews with former rebels that I am facing in my field work in Shandong and Shanxi province. These former students and workers followed Mao’s call in late 1966 to overthrow local party authorities, but there were victimized in the late stage of the Cultural Revolution, and again after the fall of the “Gang of Four”. Because many former rebels feel mistreated by the Communist Party, they are willing to share their memories with a foreign scholar and consider him or her as a messenger of their narratives on the Cultural Revolution. However, the question is whether or not a foreign scholar is able to avoid to become embedded in the networks and agenda of eyewitnesses. It will be argued that it is of curtail importance to understand the role of the agenda in the narration of individual lives and collective identities. Furthermore, the paper is raising the question whether or not it is possible to use written archi- val sources to confront the eyewitnesses with facts that contradicts their self-serving narratives of “Mao’s loyal followers” or “innocent victims”. Wu Ka-ming (Chinese University of Hong Kong) Volunteering and the Making of Citizens in Beijing Key words: volunteering, urban identities, public culture, citizen-making, Beijing Existing research on civic engagement in China has examined volunteering in terms of individual motivation, in relation to party-state mobilization campaigns and to the growth of civil society. Atten- tion has yet paid to examine volunteering in relation to the production of new urban identities and urban public culture. This paper is a based on a two-year ethnographic study of volunteer practices and the ways it is related to the construction of urban citizen identities and civic practices in Beijing, China. In Beijing alone, there are over 3 million residents registered with the city government volunteer system. This paper focuses on two popular types of urban volunteering: “museum volunteers” who deliver guided tours for free and “NGO volunteers” who provide services for the needy. This paper asks these questions. Does volunteering provide avenues for groups to express specific urban, gender and class