The ordinary and the extraordinary1996
an anthropological study of Chinese reform and the 1989 People's Movement in Beijing
by Frank N. Pieke
An anthropologist caught up in a momentous historical event presents a unique study in which the unprecedented 1989 Chinese People's Movement is analyzed against the background of eight months of anthropological fieldwork in Beijing.
The fieldwork began as a study of the dynamics of Chinese state socialist society under the impact of ten years of reform, approaching the problem from the perspective of the common Beijing resident. Pieke established that the increased role of the market economy and the use of personal connections forced Beijing citizens to engage in actions going against the grain of socialist ideology in which many still believed.
Ideology and practice had increasingly little to do with each other and a deeply-felt moral crisis of society was the result.
Then came the...