 Ethan
Michelson
Assistant Professor, Sociology Department and EALC
Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2003
emichels@indiana.edu
Ballantine Hall 768
(812) 856-1521
Research Interests
- Contemporary Chinese society
- Social conflict
- Justice systems
- Lawyers
- Globalization
- Institutions and institutional change
Courses Recently Taught
- EALC E204, Contemporary Chinese Society
- SOC S315, Work and Occupations
- SOC S326, Law and Society
-
SOC S346, Topics in Cross-Cultural Sociology: Work in Global
Perspective
- SOC S660, Law and Globalization
Awards and Distinctions
- Hopkins-Nanjing Center, Institute for International Research,
In-Residence Research Fellowship, 2006-2007
- Obermann Center for Advanced Studies Interdisciplinary Research, The University of Iowa, 2005
- American Bar Foundation, Doctoral Fellowship, 2001-2003
- Fulbright-Hays, Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship,
1999-2000
- National Science Foundation, Law and Social Science Program, Grant
for Improving Doctoral Dissertation Research, 1999-2000
- Social Science Research Council, International Dissertation Field
Research Fellowship, 1999-2000
Publication Highlights
-
2008. "Dear Lawyer Bao: Everyday Problems,
Legal Advice, and State Power in China."
Social Problems 55.
-
2007. "Lawyers, Political Embeddedness, and
Institutional Continuity in China's Transition from Socialism."
American Journal of Sociology
113(2).
-
2007. "Justice from Above or Justice from
Below? Popular Strategies for Resolving Grievances in Rural China."
The China Quarterly
192.2
-
2007. "Climbing the
Dispute Pagoda: Grievances and Appeals to the Official Justice
System in Rural China." American
Sociological Review 72(2): 459-85.
-
2006. "The Practice
of Law as an Obstacle to Justice: Chinese Lawyers at Work." Law &
Society Review 40(1).
Websites
My interest in China started with studying the language as an undergraduate student at McGill University. After struggling for a year, I abandoned Chinese language study in frustration. But it was an anthropology class on contemporary China (with Laurel Bossen) the following year that renewed my interest and pushed me to give Chinese language study another chance. I devoted the summer of 1991 to intensive language training at Xiamen University. (The moral of the story: it's a difficult language to learn, but don't give up!) After graduating in 1992, I spent a year studying Chinese at Nanjing University before pursuing graduate studies in sociology at the University of Chicago. Since the early 1990s I have lived in China for over five years, three of which were spent in Beijing collaborating with scholars at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Renmin University of China.
My current research is divided into three separate but closely related projects. First, my research on the revival and development of the Chinese legal profession focuses on the paradoxical consequences of the bar's rapid privatization. Rather than serving to advance judicial autonomy and rule of law, the bar's growing autonomy from the state has done more to buttress the authority of the Chinese Communist Party by heightened lawyers' socioeconomic and political insecurity and vulnerability. Second, I am studying the reasons why and the methods by which Chinese lawyers screen cases. This project focuses on (1) how the institutional structure of legal practice discourages lawyers from representing some of China's most aggrieved citizens and (2) lawyers' micro-level discursive methods of deflecting legal needs away from the legal system. Third, I am studying the sources of popular grievances and what ordinary people do about them in both urban and rural China.
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