Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand

Friederike Fleischer is Associate Professor at the Department of Anthropology, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. She was previously a post-doctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany. She is the author of Surburban Beijing (2010), and co-editor of Ethnographies of Support (2013).

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsMapList of Main InterlocutorsIntroductionPART I: SOUPChapter 1. “If Not His Child, Who Will Pay for His Living?”: Household and Kin-Based SupportChapter 2. Neighbors and FriendsChapter 3. Support and ReciprocityPART II: LOVEChapter 4. Religious RevivalChapter 5. The Church: Social and Religious ServicesChapter 6. Love: A Community of BelieversPART III: A HELPING HANDChapter 7. Philanthropy, Charity, and VolunteerismChapter 8. Inspirations and Motivations to VolunteerChapter 9. Volunteering: Governmentality and AgencyConclusion: Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand: Urban Transformations and the Ethics of Social SupportBibliographyIndex

“Soup, Love, and a Helping Hand is a very good introductory text for those who have never been to China, because it delineates contemporary forms of social support and the general context of this modern society.” • JRAI (Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute)“The ethnography throughout is solidly empirical and also delicately sensitive to multiple nuances of meaning, the myriad of considerations that enter into each act of support, whether in reciprocity or in generalized gift, and the weight of consequences in precarious circumstances…The volume is well-written, concise, and readable, valuable for readers in the field and accessible for both informed general readers and university students.” • Anthropos“This excellent monograph will be of great use to both scholars of contemporary China as well as to students at both graduate and undergraduate levels.” • Ellen Oxfeld, Middlebury College