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Slums, Squats, or Hutments? Constructing and Deconstructing an In-Between Space in Modern Shanghai (1926–65)
Christian Henriot
Front Hist Chin. 2012, 7 (4): 499-528.
https://doi.org/10.3868/s020-001-012-0030-5
Hutments—a term used to designate “beggars’ villages,” “straw- house villages” or more bluntly “slums”—became a standard feature of Shanghai’s urban landscape in the early 1920s. Located in peripheral areas, they became a central object of concern by the authorities that governed the foreign settlements in the city. Over time, due to economic crisis and above all war, “hutments” slowly colonized the whole urban space and became a massive housing issue and a problematic historical legacy after 1949. This paper argues that hutments arose mostly from the turmoil of the Civil War period. Their nature changed little from the time of their appearance in the 1920s to the early 1950s. Yet, perceptions and policies over three major periods under study here varied significantly. They were strongly influenced by the discursive constructions and distorting lenses the local administrations formulated around issues of nuisance, public health, and city beautification. Each era carried over the concerns and prejudices of the previous period. Yet, each municipal institution also brought in new cultural and political postures that changed the overall discourse and treatment of hutment dwellers.
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Co-optation and Its Discontents: Seventh-Day Adventism in 1950s China
Joseph Tse-Hei Lee
Front Hist Chin. 2012, 7 (4): 582-607.
https://doi.org/10.3868/s020-001-012-0033-6
Most studies of Christianity in the early PRC have focused on the politicization of religious practices under the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, explaining how the Christian faith empowered people to resist the state’s atheistic propaganda. In fact, both Communist officials and Christians invoked ideas about transcendent power and moral purpose, blurring the boundary between secular and religious concerns. The state-sanctioned patriotic religions had greatly impacted the political and theological orientations of Chinese Christians in the Maoist era. This article looks at the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Shanghai, one of the first Protestant denominations to be denounced in the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. When the state infiltrated the Adventist institutions, some of the pro-government Adventist leaders worked with the officials to bring the church closer to the socialist order. Most of the Adventists, however, resisted the state and organized themselves into a diffused network of house churches. This study highlights the fluid and complex political environment that the Adventists experienced, and the ways they interacted with the Maoist state. The reorientation of theological concerns, the new strategies for evangelization, and the growth of autonomous church networks enabled the Adventists to be a fast-growing religious movement.
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