Anomaly as a Method: Collecting Chinese Micro-Theories of Transition

The teleology of transition to capitalism in general and China’s turn to capitalism in particular prescribe for observers of China an academic agenda preoccupied with the conditions of establishing capitalism. Studies of transition in China have up to this point lacked bottom-up, past-oriented, and inside-out perspectives that would allow the formation of discourse for the masses, presumably driven by the force of transition to respond from their indigenous positions. To find what possible stories there could be if such perspectives that are not intellectually intelligible from the transition point of view are to be translated into transition narratives is the purpose of this paper. Epistemologically speaking, interpreting the case at hand as an anomaly could be a useful methodology to ameliorate the deterministic and teleological proclivity in the current literature on transition. In this way, agents of transition are more than agents. They gain subjectivity through acquiring micro-perspectives on transition that are not allowed in the teleology toward liberalism. Agents of transition could participate in transition research by articulating, consciously as well as subconsciously, how they have strategically practiced transition, reducing researchers of macro-transition to equal partners in transition.