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26 results

Page 1 of 2

  • “That British Sound”: Talk of Nationalness in Global Capitalism

  • Kwai Hang Ng, Tad Skotnicki
  • Journal:
    Signs and Society / Volume 4 / Issue 1 / Spring 2016
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    01 January 2025, pp. 1-29
    • Article
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  • This article proposes the concept of “nationalness” to account for the persistent circulation of national labels as a tool of distinction. We argue that the concept expands on the traditional conception of nation as country of origin to include cultural notions of sensuous and aesthetic qualities that are semiotically tied to national “essence.” Nationalness connects products to nations not only through indexicality but also iconicity. It is made possible through “rhematization,” the process of appropriating signs whose interpretants are taken to be iconic. Talk of nationalness enables consumers to make sense of national labels in today’s world where the both ends of capitalism—manufacturing and consumption—are thoroughly global. Instead of confining our analytical focus to top-down national branding projects, we examine how consumers invoke the idea of a nation to describe their uses of industrial products. Our case study is the popular concept of “British sound” circulated among audiophiles. Drawing on online discussions of an internet community, the article shows that audiophiles refer to Britishness as a key mechanism to distinguish their consumption experiences from mass market consumption. We further show how the label “British sound” can be used to describe the experiences of consumer products that are no longer manufactured in Britain.

  • 8 - Blood Money and Negotiated Justice in China

  • Edited by Björn Ahl
  • Book:
    Chinese Courts and Criminal Procedure
    Published online:
    25 June 2021
    Print publication:
    08 July 2021, pp 208-234

  • Summary

    Legal commensuration is a complex mechanism of valuation. Its complexity has much to do with the relational nature of the monetary exchange involved between parties in the litigational context. The chapter offers a framework to understand its process and outcome by focusing on the institutional and cultural logics of the practice. The criminal reconciliation process in China is used as a real-world empirical illustration. Drawing mainly on data collected from fieldwork investigation of two basic-level courts, this chapter identifies two factors that affect the process and outcome of legal commensuration: institutional interests favouring reconciliation and cultural meaning of money. Political considerations play a decisive role in incentivising judges to facilitate a settlement. The cultural meanings of money serve as another factor shaping the outcome of reconciliation. In particular, blood money is valued both for its practical certainty and its symbolic value as a token of apology. Through a brief comparison of the Chinese and US systems, the chapter shows that this framework represents a step towards a more systematic and theoretical conception of legal commensuration.

  • “What Gets Measured Gets Done”: Metric Fixation and China’s Experiment in Quantified Judging

  • Kwai Hang Ng, Peter C. H. Chan
  • Journal:
    Asian Journal of Law and Society / Volume 8 / Issue 2 / June 2021
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    05 March 2021, pp. 255-281
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  • This article analyzes the ambitious Case Quality Assessment System (CQAS) that the Supreme People’s Court of China (SPC) promoted during the first half of the 2010s. It offers a case-study of Court J, a grassroots court located in an affluent urban metropolis of China that struggled to come out ahead in the CQAS competition. The article discusses how the SPC quantified judging and the problems created by the metricization process. The CQAS project is analyzed as a case of metric fixation. By identifying the problems that doomed the CQAS, the article points out the challenges facing the authoritarian regime in subjecting good judging to quantitative output standards. The CQAS is a metric that judges judging. It reveals how judging is viewed by the party-state. The article concludes by discussing the legacy of the CQAS. Though it nominally ended in 2014, key indicators that it introduced for supervising judges are still used by the Chinese courts today. The CQAS presaged the growing centralization that the Chinese judicial system is undergoing today. Though the SPC has terminated the tournament-style competition that defined the CQAS, the metric remains the template used to evaluate judging.

Embedded Courts
  • Judicial Decision-Making in China
  • Kwai Hang Ng, Xin He
  • Published online:
    20 October 2017
    Print publication:
    26 October 2017
  • Embedded Courts is laden with tension. Chinese courts are organized as a singular and unified system yet grassroots courts in urban and rural regions differ greatly in the way they use the law and are as diverse as the populations they serve. Based on extensive fieldwork and in-depth interviews, this book offers a penetrating discussion of the operation of Chinese courts. It explains how Chinese judges rule and how the law is not the only script they follow - political, administrative, social and economic factors all influence verdicts. This landmark work will revise our understanding of the role of law in China - one that cannot be easily understood through the standard lens of judicial independence and separation of powers. Ng and He make clear the struggle facing frontline judges as they bridge the gap between a rule-based application of law and an instrumentalist view that prioritizes stability maintenance.

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