Date: 2013
Type: Thesis
"Tied to a boat by the sound of a gong" : world, work and society seen through the work songs of Sichuan boatmen (1880s 1930s)
Florence : European University Institute, 2013, EUI, HEC, PhD Thesis
CHABROWSKI, Igor Iwo, "Tied to a boat by the sound of a gong" : world, work and society seen through the work songs of Sichuan boatmen (1880s 1930s), Florence : European University Institute, 2013, EUI, HEC, PhD Thesis - https://hdl.handle.net/1814/28031
Retrieved from Cadmus, EUI Research Repository
This thesis, based on Eastern Sichuan boatmen's work songs, haozi, analyzes the way river workers understood and interpreted the world, work and society that they lived in. Spanning the period between 1880s and 1930s, it explains how such professional groups dealt with the dissolving social and economic order of the late-Qing China and the chaotic republican decades. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part reconstructs the social history of Sichuan boatmen, discusses the methodological issues connected with working on popular song traditions, and explains the importance of work songs as tools of boatmen's work. The second part is devoted to reading, analysis and discussion of these traditions. Three fundamental topics are analyzed in this section: boatmen's understanding of the social world they lived in the way they perceived their work and the manner in which they comprehended their social position. The thesis demonstrates that boatmen created representations of the Sichuan river towns to claim their own social, cultural and physical spaces. Boatmen largely refused elite aesthetics and shaped their own ones, corresponding to their tastes, habits and forms of socialization. Analyzing the issue of work and labor relations, the thesis demonstrates that boatmen resisted exploitation by stating their moral superiority enshrined in the ideal of brotherhood and by bemoaning their harrowing labor, cruelty of the bosses and lack of family life. Finally, by examining boatmen's imagination of death, the thesis unveils how culturally potent representations were exploited in order to protest against the social injustice, at the same time expressing vulnerability, weakness and lack of control over one's destiny. The thesis provides us with deeper understanding of the way early twentieth century non-industrial Chinese workers conceptualized their social standing, interpreted surrounding reality and struggled to adjust to oppressive social conditions.
Additional information:
Examining Board: Professor Stephen A. Smith (EUI/All Souls, Oxford) (supervisor) Professor Mark Gamsa (EUI) Professor Joshua H. Howard (University of Mississippi) Professor Vibeke Børdahl (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen).; Defence date: 24 June 2013; First made available online on 10 July 2014.
Cadmus permanent link: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/28031
Full-text via DOI: 10.2870/13065
Series/Number: EUI; HEC; PhD Thesis
Publisher: European University Institute
LC Subject Heading: Sichuan Sheng (China); Sichuan Sheng (China) -- History; Popular culture -- China -- Sichuan Sheng; Popular music -- China -- Sichuan Sheng
Published version: http://hdl.handle.net/1814/37460
Files associated with this item
- Name:
- 2013_Chabrowski_OA.pdf
- Size:
- 10.91Mb
- Format:
- Description:
- Full-text in Open Access