Adam Yuet Chau, Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China

Adam Chau's work has resonated widely among English-speaking Sinologists following the publication of his book, Miraculous Responses -Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China. Chau, currently a lecturer in modern Chinese anthropology in the Department of East Asian studies at Cambridge University, has examined the reemergence of popular beliefs and practices in China. A long ethnographic study -18 months -between 1995 and 1998, carried out as part of his doctoral research, enabled him to observe the organisation of a temple dedicated to the Black Dragon King (heilong wang miao) in the prefecture of Yulin, in the heart of the Valley of the Dragon King in the Shaanbei region (north of Shaanxi province). Basing his approach on concepts drawn from classical and contemporary sociology, Chau develops in this book an analysis of the popular religious activities that he witnessed. The body of theory within which he proposes to analyse the socio-cultural process of what he calls "doing popular religion" aims at moving beyond the study of "purely religious" practices and beliefs such as prayer or burning incense: he includes a more general reflection on participation and on the organisation of religious activities, as well as on the sociality they give rise to. Chau deploys his observations to show how the practice of religion is a phenomenon deeply rooted in its political and social context. He explains, through the medium of a remarkable ethnographic study, how the field of popular Chinese religion forms an interactive space between the elite, the local authorities, and peasant society. The writer points out the "political, economic and symbolic resources" created by religious institutions and activities, a real theatre of the ambitions and interests of a diverse local range of social forces. His book can thus be read as an ethnographical study of the balance of power within the Chinese village, and of the changing relationship between the state and society since the beginning of the reform era.