These acts agency is constructed as originating from and oriented back toward the other: I harm myself bodily because your excellence(of feeling, virtue, behaviour, speech, etc), acting involuntarily on my moral feelings, compels me to drink. My acts derive from you; your acts ought to derive from me. These actors accrue social power to their persons-but not as individuals The dispositional skills trained in the ritual complex--pose, prosody, word choice, topic, affective mood--occupy a central place in public culture at large, even beyond the broad scope of feasting itself. Therefore, I consider feastings speech habitus a well-defined register, a ' linguistic repertoire.. associated with particular social prac tices and with persons who engage in such practices,, which socialises urbanites into the conduct of power relationships(Agha 2006: 24). I would add that the feast register is also associated with a complex, historically rooted form of agency. Using the agency concept, I analyse the competitive dynamic of feasting(with dri ver Yang, above, as an example)as simultaneously self-aggrandising and de-individu ating. In other words, successful feasters raise their profiles, amass social capital, and bend others to their will, but only by radically cross-circuiting' subjective agency: I am only doing this because you did that-I have subjected myself to your will-and you ought to have the courage to follow my selfless example. Driver Yang refusing to eat when he noticed me not eating-and staging(ethical) self-denial to coerce me to eat-is a small example of this ritually constructed, intersubjective agency From the perspective of society more broadly, feasting is an institution that medi- ates power, with initiative always shifting competitively from person to person, but culturally each initiative is circuited through others, and materially each person is sus- ceptible to others' demands. With the ritual complex in mind, the relevant question becomes not"'Is urban Chinese society individualising?but ' What are the contours of individualisation where urban power structures are still dominated by relational self- hood and intersubjective agend RE-EMBEDDING IN LUZHOU'S POLITICAL ECONOMY Yan argues that with the removal of the socialist safety net, and the lack of state struc tures guaranteeing livelihoods or rights, socially disembedded individuals are quickly forced tore-embed', falling back on the family and personal network or guanxi, the Indiv g nt where disembedment begins'Yan 2009: 288). For many Luzhou residents, individual agency is an aspiration impinged by a stark reality: for those whose incomes derive directly or indirectly from the state and who hope for advancement, socialis tion into ritual speech habitus is mandatory. For the majority unable to live off the state, business earnings are tied directly to one's ability to cultivate guanxi relation ships in which the line between instrumental and affective components is deliberately blurred. Therefore, would-be individuals of either sector find themselves consigned (to varying degrees) to the discipline of feasting, whose normative ethic forcibly locates agency outside the self, and whose economic function is to facilitate production. e 2014 Australian Anthropological SocietyThese acts’ agency is constructed as originating from and oriented back toward the other: I harm myself bodily because your excellence (of feeling, virtue, behaviour, speech, etc), acting involuntarily on my moral feelings, compels me to drink. My acts derive from you; your acts ought to derive from me. These actors accrue social power to their persons—but not as ‘individuals’. The dispositional skills trained in the ritual complex—pose, prosody, word choice, topic, affective mood—occupy a central place in public culture at large, even beyond the broad scope of feasting itself. Therefore, I consider feasting’s speech habitus a well-defined register, a ‘linguistic repertoire … associated with particular social prac￾tices and with persons who engage in such practices’, which socialises urbanites into the conduct of power relationships (Agha 2006: 24). I would add that the feast register is also associated with a complex, historically rooted form of agency. Using the agency concept, I analyse the competitive dynamic of feasting (with dri￾ver Yang, above, as an example) as simultaneously self-aggrandising and de-individu￾ating. In other words, successful feasters raise their profiles, amass social capital, and bend others to their will, but only by radically ‘cross-circuiting’ subjective agency: I am only doing this because you did that—I have subjected myself to your will—and you ought to have the courage to follow my selfless example. Driver Yang refusing to eat when he noticed me not eating—and staging (ethical) self-denial to coerce me to eat—is a small example of this ritually constructed, intersubjective agency. From the perspective of society more broadly, feasting is an institution that medi￾ates power, with initiative always shifting competitively from person to person, but culturally each initiative is circuited through others, and materially each person is sus￾ceptible to others’ demands. With the ritual complex in mind, the relevant question becomes not ‘Is urban Chinese society individualising?’ but ‘What are the contours of individualisation where urban power structures are still dominated by relational self￾hood and intersubjective agency?’ RE-EMBEDDING IN LUZHOU’S POLITICAL ECONOMY Yan argues that with the removal of the socialist safety net, and the lack of state struc￾tures guaranteeing livelihoods or rights, socially disembedded individuals are quickly forced to ‘re-embed’, falling back on ‘the family and personal network or guanxi, the same point where disembedment begins’ (Yan 2009: 288). For many Luzhou residents, individual agency is an aspiration impinged by a stark reality: for those whose incomes derive directly or indirectly from the state and who hope for advancement, socialisa￾tion into ritual speech habitus is mandatory. For the majority unable to live off the state, business earnings are tied directly to one’s ability to cultivate guanxi relation￾ships in which the line between instrumental and affective components is deliberately blurred. Therefore, would-be individuals of either sector find themselves consigned (to varying degrees) to the discipline of feasting, whose normative ethic forcibly locates agency outside the self, and whose economic function is to facilitate production. 362 © 2014 Australian Anthropological Society B. D. Harmon and B. Harmon