Exploring "Localism" vis-a-vis Central Strategy: A Study of Cultural Schema Pertinent to the 2010 "Save-Cantonese" Protests

This is an exploratory study on one of the least touched upon dimensions in the study of grassroots politics in contemporary China: the cultural schema that frames the experience of grassroots movements/resistance. This dimension is conceptually distinguished from the well-explored nexus of power and resources. The vantage point of this study was a series of self-initiated “Save-my-mother-tongue” street protests in Guangzhou in July/August 2010, which has been largely neglected by sociologists. The movement, which involved over a thousand protesters and later 20 arrests by police (including several journalists), was to oppose a state proposal to switch television broadcasts from Cantonese (a popular dialect in southern China) to Mandarin as a way to “forge a good language environment” for non-Cantonese-speaking Chinese visitors during the Asian Games in November.This short-lived movement of seemingly no significance carries itself unique theoretical interests as the struggle was neither class-based, nor concerned with material needs. Instead, it involved a place-based identity politics through which participants ostensibly did not seek economic benefits, but maintain a mode of culture. These features possess comparative theoretical resonance as they akin to what is called “new social movements” as observed in Europe and South America since the 1970s with the focus of struggle being switched from factories/farmlands to the society, and from material needs to identity politics. The event thus offers a new angle to understand Chinese urban grassroots movement/resistance as to explore how cultural schema, including the cultural anxiety of being Guangdong/Guangzhou people (Guangdongren/Guangzhouren), geographic identity of Guangdong/Guangzhou (vis-a-vis, e.g., Shanghai), and traditional cultural values (e.g., Confucian ethics), is interwoven into grassroots politics, and affects the tactics, dynamics and consequence of the movements/resistances in the post-socialist context.Adopting the case study approach, this study endeavours to examine a unique set of localized and localistic accounts solicited from dozens of informants. While “localized” means to grasp the informant’s subjective point of view; “localistic,” is the narrower but more precise horizon of the informants who use their immediate locality (i.e., Guangdong/Guangzhou) as a frame of reference. The informants covered will include participants/witnesses of the “Save- Cantonese” protests, urban and rural residents directly or indirectly affected by the protests and other state strategies to ensure the “smooth implementation” of the Asian Games, and other stakeholders involved, including journalists, minibloggers, and critics/scholars.