Volunteer Work by Chinese for China: Preliminary Thoughts on Confucian Self-Transformation at the Individual and National Levels

• In Event: Cross-Cultural Dialogues on Public Scholarship: Rethinking Self-Other, Community, and Social Change

Abstract

Objectives
I aim at articulating ways in which volunteering activities of US educated Chinese undergraduate students in rural China reflect a Confucian ethos of selfhood amidst the rapid individualization of contemporary Chinese selfhood. How do Chinese students envision and enact educational development in their homeland when the homeland is imagined both as a global political and economic power and as a quintessential Third World laborer on the global stage? Moreover, how does such development work reflect emerging tensions, trends, and shifts within the contemporary Chinese self, as it is positioned within the local, national, and global arenas?
Theoretical framework
This study operates under the premise that self is a culturally patterned way of relating to others, to the material, natural, and spiritual worlds, and to time and space including notions of agency, mind, person, being, and spirit (Hoffman, 1996). The self can be conceived as a particular way of being and acting endowed with reflexivity and agency. In this study, I take on the task of describing ways in which specific cultural discourses and practices both create selves and provide them with the resources to respond to the problematic situations in which they find themselves.
Modes of Inquiry/Data Sources
I employ an ethnographic approach for this study with detailed fieldnotes and interviews. From May to July 2015, I conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork with a group of Chinese volunteers in China, where they spent six weeks building a library and leading reading activities in Dazeng Primary School. In September 2015, I will return to Dazeng Village to conduct a second round of interviews with local teachers and students in that school on ways in which they see the volunteers after their departure.
Findings
The New Chinese reflect on volunteering as a means for self-transformation, and see themselves as role models for children in rural schools. Through presenting oneself as – sometimes performing – the ideal person to the rural children, the New Chinese evoke a concentric selfhood model in volunteering activities, in the hope of fostering advancements in rural China. Other themes will be added with ongoing fieldwork and data analysis.
Significance
This study makes a contribution to an alternative understanding of volunteering activities shaped by Eastern philosophical ideas. It explores ways in which Confucian selfhood is evoked and served as a guide in volunteering activities. Hence, it seeks out the contributions of Eastern philosophical traditions to foster social transformations in the modern world. Moreover, as China is both imagined as a First World leader and a Third World laborer (Pieke, 2014), my study is a timely exploration at a critical juncture of contemporary Chinese society, as it explores the distinctiveness of Chinese people’s idea about development and globalization.

Hoffman, D. (1996). Culture and self in multicultural education: Reflections on discourse, text, and practice. American Educational Research Journal, 33(3), 545-569.
Pieke, F. N. (2014). Anthropology, China, and the Chinese century. Annual Review of Anthropology, 43(1), 123-138.

Author

• Chenyu Wang, University of Virginia