Obedient Autonomy: Chinese Intellectuals and the Achievement of Orderly Life

Gary Watson is a former lecturer in Chinese studies at Queen’s University and is now a multimedia developer in Mississauga.

In this original if sometimes disjointed monograph, Erika Evasdottir
analyzes the complex world of Chinese archeologists. Through a largely
ethnographic approach, Evasdottir shows how this academic discipline,
its students, and its professors align with the highly bureaucratized
Chinese state—a process that requires both finesse and accommodation
to obtain and secure status, advancement, and reputation.

The principal strength of Evasdottir’s study lies in its central
chapters, which detail the micro-social and micro-political processes
involved in teacher–student relations, excavation management, and
rivalries among faculties and university departments. Although Chinese
universities are no less complicated places than their Canadian
counterparts, their organization differs markedly, due chiefly to the
survival of the “work unit” or danwei. This awkward but durable
administrative construct defines not just a workplace but also a system
that manages nearly every aspect of one’s life. The danwei amounts to
a form of institutionalized collegiality, making close connections
with—and intimate knowledge of—one’s colleagues are inescapable.
One result is an unavoidable interdependence that requires great
discretion, particularly from administrators, whose decisions on
resource allocations and appointments can create firm friends and
determined enemies for years to come.

What detracts most from Evasdottir’s discussion is the idea that
forms its title, “obedient autonomy.” While admitting that the idea
is awkward and intended to irritate readers into considering forms of
intellectual autonomy other than those grounded in Western intellectual
traditions, she oversimplifies the larger history of resistance and
opposition to authority by Chinese intellectuals. Even if the
archeologists’ behaviour fits her construct of accommodation with
China’s state system, Evasdottir leaves unclear why other Chinese
intellectuals rebel through open and sustained criticism of state
policy, often at the cost of imprisonment and exile.