I n On the Edge: Feeling Precarious in China (Columbia University Press, 2023), Margaret Hillenbrand probes precarity in contemporary China through the lens of the dark and angry cultural forms that chronic uncertainty has generated. She... more
I n On the Edge: Feeling Precarious in China (Columbia University Press, 2023), Margaret Hillenbrand probes precarity in contemporary China through the lens of the dark and angry cultural forms that chronic uncertainty has generated. She argues that a vast underclass of Chinese workers exist in a state of 'zombie citizenship'-a condition of dehumanising exile from the law and its safeguards. Many others also feel their lives are precarious, sensing that they live on the edge of a precipice, with the constant fear of falling into an abyss of dispossession, disenfranchisement, and dislocation. Examining the volatile aesthetic forms that embody stifled social tensions and surging anxiety over zombie citizenship, Hillenbrand traces how people use culture to vent taboo feelings of rage, resentment, distrust, and disdain in scenarios rife with cross-class antagonism.
Research Interests:
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought the whole world to its knees. Yet, this coronavirus is only the latest in a number of zoonosis events originating in different parts of the globe, and especially within Asia, over the last 20 years. For... more
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought the whole world to
its knees. Yet, this coronavirus is only the latest in a number
of zoonosis events originating in different parts of the globe,
and especially within Asia, over the last 20 years. For this
reason virologists commonly refer to places like China, Hong
Kong, or Singapore as reservoirs of potential viral threats. The
combination of advanced logistic infrastructures, industrial
farming, and the progressive disappearance of wild ecologies in
these places arguably facilitates animal-to-human transmission
of zoonotic diseases. In Avian Reservoirs: Virus Hunters and
Birdwatchers in Chinese Sentinel Posts (Duke University Press
2020), Frédéric Keck challenges the idea of zoonosis as an
Asian problem, and shows us how attending to both the wild
and domesticated behaviour and physiology of birds reveal the
multiple and often contradictory ways in which virologists and
citizen scientists make sense of epidemics and inform their
policy advice.
its knees. Yet, this coronavirus is only the latest in a number
of zoonosis events originating in different parts of the globe,
and especially within Asia, over the last 20 years. For this
reason virologists commonly refer to places like China, Hong
Kong, or Singapore as reservoirs of potential viral threats. The
combination of advanced logistic infrastructures, industrial
farming, and the progressive disappearance of wild ecologies in
these places arguably facilitates animal-to-human transmission
of zoonotic diseases. In Avian Reservoirs: Virus Hunters and
Birdwatchers in Chinese Sentinel Posts (Duke University Press
2020), Frédéric Keck challenges the idea of zoonosis as an
Asian problem, and shows us how attending to both the wild
and domesticated behaviour and physiology of birds reveal the
multiple and often contradictory ways in which virologists and
citizen scientists make sense of epidemics and inform their
policy advice.