[Commlist] New book: Ageing with Smartphones in Urban China (UCL Press)

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Ageing with Smartphones in Urban China >From the cultural to the digital 
revolution in Shanghai
Xinyuan Wang
Free download: https://bit.ly/48Cr0Na


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If we want to understand contemporary China, the key is through 
understanding the older generation. This is the generation in China 
whose life courses almost perfectly synchronised with the emergence and 
growth of the ‘New China’ under the rule of the Communist Party (1949). 
People in their 70s and 80s have double the life expectancy of their 
parents’ generation. The current oldest generation in Shanghai was born 
in a time when the average household could not afford electric lights, 
but today they can turn their lights off via their smartphone apps.

Based on 16-month ethnographic fieldwork in Shanghai, Ageing with 
Smartphones in Urban China tackles the intersection between the ‘two 
revolutions’ experienced by the older generation in Shanghai: the 
contemporary smartphone-based digital revolution and the earlier 
communist revolutions. We find that we can only explain the smartphone 
revolution if we first appreciate the long-term consequences of these 
people’s experiences during the communist revolutions.

The context of this book is a wide range of dramatic social 
transformations in China, from the Cultural Revolution to the 
individualism and Confucianism in Digital China. Supported by detailed 
ethnographic material, the observations and analyses provide a panoramic 
view of the social landscape of contemporary China, including topics 
such as the digital and everyday life, ageing and healthcare, 
intergenerational relations and family development, community building 
and grassroots organizations, collective memories and political 
attitudes among ordinary Chinese people.

Free download: https://bit.ly/48Cr0Na

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uclpress.co.uk | @uclpress

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