discourse in Luzhou, was present--but only as a tabooed behaviour to be overcome by ethical ritual coercion. Ethnographically, I argue that the 'ritual complex' of feast ing events, habitus, models of selfhood, and institutional functions, limits and frames Luzhou's individuating tendencies. Analytically, I propose that the concept of agency an help clarify practices of personhood and individuation in culturally specific ways INTRODUCTION: INDIVIDUALISM AND AGENCY The extent and nature of China's social change has in recent years received significant attention in the social sciences, with some scholars arguing that individualising pro cesses are fundamentally changing the nature of social life( Davis 2000; Yan 2009; Yan 2010), and with others emphasising the dominance of new forms of social relationality and control(Kipnis 2012; Ong and Zhang 2008). My position in this paper is that social personhood, a moral construct which frames and legitimises social agency, is often overshadowed ethnographically by the larger processes described (individuation guanxi networking, etc. ) making social life seem mechanistic and thin. A recent eth- nography describes how do[ing] away with protocol in entertaining is meant to cre ate sentimental attachments between participants(Osburg 2013: 56-7). Early toasts over dinner tend to reflect hierarchy. Juniors usually initiate toasting with seniors by deferentially holding their glass lower.. by the end of the evening, toasting is likely to be freer flowing. The author-accurately--analyses such ritual action as essentially instrumental 'modes of exchange within informal networks. But by not sufficiently attending to their personhood, or the ritual logic informing it, the author inadver- tently treats actors as de facto individuals, effectively rendering the feast in procedural terms but leaving mysterious the affective, moral, and discursive logics which give the Social persons may be built in relation to multiple models of agency. I take mean the culturally-defined sources and ends of human action. Individualism,one model of agency which emerged only with modernity(see Taylor 2004), posits the self as the source and goal of action. Before modernity persons could act on their own ini tiative, but not as individuals, culturally defined: their persons were culturally and nor- atively framed as inhabited by sources of agency--gods, kings, lineage forefathers, tribal totems--that lay beyond the single body. In Luzhou, the influential ritual model of agency, which shapes social life in families and networks, normatively posits social person A's action as animated by the agency of social person b(whose action in turn is animated by person A). My conceptualisation here attempts to further Mayfair Yangs theorisation of the relational subject and the cultural logic of its 'manufac tured' indebtedness(Yang 1994: 85) In short, acts by social persons in Luzhou, in the context of ritual, are not cultur ally constructed as originating in the self, but rather in another. The self ideally becomes a medium. Driver Yang, theatrically refusing to eat when he saw me not eat ing, was invoking just this agentively intersubjective personhood. While he was using this ritual stance to score a point against me in the feast's competitive context, he was 358 e 2014 Australian Anthropological Societydiscourse in Luzhou, was present—but only as a tabooed behaviour to be overcome by ethical ritual coercion. Ethnographically, I argue that the ‘ritual complex’ of feast￾ing events, habitus, models of selfhood, and institutional functions, limits and frames Luzhou’s individuating tendencies. Analytically, I propose that the concept of agency can help clarify practices of personhood and individuation in culturally specific ways. INTRODUCTION: INDIVIDUALISM AND AGENCY The extent and nature of China’s social change has in recent years received significant attention in the social sciences, with some scholars arguing that individualising pro￾cesses are fundamentally changing the nature of social life (Davis 2000; Yan 2009; Yan 2010), and with others emphasising the dominance of new forms of social relationality and control (Kipnis 2012; Ong and Zhang 2008). My position in this paper is that social personhood, a moral construct which frames and legitimises social agency, is often overshadowed ethnographically by the larger processes described (individuation, guanxi networking, etc.), making social life seem mechanistic and thin. A recent eth￾nography describes how ‘do[ing] away with protocol’ in entertaining is meant to cre￾ate sentimental attachments between participants (Osburg 2013: 56–7). ‘Early toasts over dinner tend to reflect hierarchy. Juniors usually initiate toasting with seniors by deferentially holding their glass lower … by the end of the evening, toasting is likely to be freer flowing’. The author—accurately—analyses such ritual action as essentially instrumental ‘modes of exchange’ within informal networks. But by not sufficiently attending to their personhood, or the ritual logic informing it, the author inadver￾tently treats actors as de facto individuals, effectively rendering the feast in procedural terms but leaving mysterious the affective, moral, and discursive logics which give the actions meaning. Social persons may be built in relation to multiple models of agency.2 I take agency to mean the culturally-defined sources and ends of human action. Individualism, one model of agency which emerged only with modernity (see Taylor 2004), posits the self as the source and goal of action. Before modernity persons could act on their own ini￾tiative, but not as individuals, culturally defined: their persons were culturally and nor￾matively framed as inhabited by sources of agency—gods, kings, lineage forefathers, tribal totems—that lay beyond the single body. In Luzhou, the influential ritual model of agency, which shapes social life in families and networks, normatively posits social person A’s action as animated by the agency of social person B (whose action in turn is animated by person A). My conceptualisation here attempts to further Mayfair Yang’s theorisation of the ‘relational subject’ and the cultural logic of its ‘manufac￾tured’ indebtedness (Yang 1994: 85). In short, acts by social persons in Luzhou, in the context of ritual, are not cultur￾ally constructed as originating in the self, but rather in another. The self ideally becomes a medium. Driver Yang, theatrically refusing to eat when he saw me not eat￾ing, was invoking just this agentively ‘intersubjective’ personhood. While he was using this ritual stance to score a point against me in the feast’s competitive context, he was 358 © 2014 Australian Anthropological Society B. D. Harmon and B. Harmon