The concept of individualization has been developed by Ulrich Beck, among others, to account for social change and emergent forms of individual experience in Europe subject to recent globalizing trends. The concept has also been used to explain the massive transformations of post-Mao China. This presentation will show that the generalizability of such concepts is limited and that arguments by Yunxiang Yan in a number of publications concerning Chinese individualization both distort the factual situation and are theoretically ill-conceived. An alternative account of post-Mao social and emotional configurations will be presented in the paper.

Jack Barbalet is Professor of Sociology and Head of the Sociology Department at Hong Kong Baptist University, HKSAR, China. He was previously Foundation Professor of Sociology at the University of Western Sydney, Australia and prior to that Professor of Sociology at the University of Leicester, England. His research interests include the sociology of emotions, sociological theory, and the sociology of greater China. Recent publications include ‘Action Theoretic Foundations of Economic Sociology’, Wirtschaftssoziologie. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie. Sonderheft. 2009. 49: 143-57, ‘Market Relations as Wuwei: Daoist Concepts in Analysis of China’s Post-1978 Market Economy’, Asian Studies Review. 2011. 35(3): 335-354, and ‘Self-Interest in Chinese Discourse and Practice: Temporal Distinctions of Self’, Sociological Review, forthcoming.