The ordinary and the extraordinary

An anthropologist caught up in a momentous historical event presents a unique study in which the unprecedented 1989 Chinese People's Movement is analyzed against the background of eight months of anthropological fieldwork in Beijing. The fieldwork began as a study of the dynamics of Chinese state socialist society under the impact of ten years of reform, approaching the problem from the perspective of the common Beijing resident. Pieke established that the increased role of the market economy and the use of personal connections forced Beijing citizens to engage in actions going against the grain of socialist ideology in which many still believed. Ideology and practice had increasingly little to do with each other and a deeply-felt moral crisis of society was the result. Then came the People's Movement, a 'total event' which sucked people into its vortex and which cut them off from all other concerns, suspending them in a state of disequilibrium. Commonplace activities which normally filled their day were replaced by an active involvement in the affairs of the nation. The People's Movement gave the opportunity to translate mounting frustration into focused political action. In the e