The Relational and Intra-active Becoming of Non-government-initiated Organizing in the People's Republic of China

TY - JOUR

T1 - The Relational and Intra-active Becoming of Non-government-initiated Organizing in the People's Republic of China

AU - Milwertz, Cecilia Nathansen

PY - 2011/11

Y1 - 2011/11

N2 - In this article, we propose a theoretical framework for understanding a type of organizing in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) which is often defined as “non-governmental.” We are inspired by critical feminist writings on the production of knowledge. We draw on geographer Doreen Massey’s conceptualization of space, physicist Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism and notion of “intra-action,” and grounded theorist Adele Clarke’s understanding of context. Our analysis is based on the case of the Yunnan Reproductive Health Research Association, an organization approaching the issue of gender from the perspective of reproductive health. We contend that the organization is entangled with foreign development aid donor organizations and party-state institu-tions and that the three entities (the association, donor organizations, and party-state institutions) lack independent, self-contained existence in their joint involvement in performatively bringing the knowledge and practice of what we call nongovernment-initiated organizing into being. Our position is that, while donors and party-state, respectively, may have vested interests in claiming separation from nongovernment- initiated organizations, academic analysis need not, and should not, uncritically replicate that particular representation of separation. Nongovernment-initiated organizing is local and “Chinese,” in the sense that it is territorially situated in the PRC. We argue that the “local” phe-nomenon of bottom-up organizing is not closed or self-constitutive. On the contrary, it is relational, and the relations involve the intra-active entanglement not only with the domestic party-state but also with for-eign development aid donors.

AB - In this article, we propose a theoretical framework for understanding a type of organizing in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) which is often defined as “non-governmental.” We are inspired by critical feminist writings on the production of knowledge. We draw on geographer Doreen Massey’s conceptualization of space, physicist Karen Barad’s theory of agential realism and notion of “intra-action,” and grounded theorist Adele Clarke’s understanding of context. Our analysis is based on the case of the Yunnan Reproductive Health Research Association, an organization approaching the issue of gender from the perspective of reproductive health. We contend that the organization is entangled with foreign development aid donor organizations and party-state institu-tions and that the three entities (the association, donor organizations, and party-state institutions) lack independent, self-contained existence in their joint involvement in performatively bringing the knowledge and practice of what we call nongovernment-initiated organizing into being. Our position is that, while donors and party-state, respectively, may have vested interests in claiming separation from nongovernment- initiated organizations, academic analysis need not, and should not, uncritically replicate that particular representation of separation. Nongovernment-initiated organizing is local and “Chinese,” in the sense that it is territorially situated in the PRC. We argue that the “local” phe-nomenon of bottom-up organizing is not closed or self-constitutive. On the contrary, it is relational, and the relations involve the intra-active entanglement not only with the domestic party-state but also with for-eign development aid donors.

U2 - 10.1177/097185241101500307

DO - 10.1177/097185241101500307

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0971-8524

VL - 15

SP - 457

EP - 483

JO - Gender, Technology and Development

JF - Gender, Technology and Development

IS - 3

ER -