The Modern Chinese Family: In Light of Economic and Legal History
Most social science theory and the currently powerful Chinese ideology of modernizationism assume that, with modern development, family-based peasant farm production will disappear, to be replaced by individuated industrial workers and the three-generation family by the nuclear family. The actual record of China’s economic history, however, shows the powerful persistence of the small family farm, as well as of the three-generation family down to this day, even as China’s GDP becomes the second largest in the world. China’s legal system, similarly, encompasses a vast informal sphere, in which familial principles operate more than individualist ones. And, in between the informal-familial and the formal-individualist, there is an enormous intermediate sphere in which the two tendencies are engaged in a continual tug of war. The economic behavior of the Chinese family unit reveals great contrasts with what is assumed by conventional economics. It has a different attitude toward labor from that of both the individual worker and the capitalist firm. It also has a different structural composition, and a different attitude toward investment, children’s education, and marriage. Proper attention to how Chinese modernity differs socially, economically, and legally from the modern West points to the need for a different kind of social science; it also lends social–economic substance to claims for a modern Chinese culture different from the modern West’s.
Feet and Fabrication: Footbinding and Early Twentieth-Century Rural Women’s Labor in Shaanxi
The early twentieth-century transformations of rural Chinese women’s work have received relatively little direct attention. By contrast, the former custom of footbinding continues to fascinate and is often used to illustrate or contest theories about Chinese women’s status. Arguing that for rural women at least, footbinding needs to be understood in relation to rural economic conditions, the authors focus on changes in textile production and in footbinding in two counties in Shaanxi province. Drawing on historical sources and their own interview data from rural women who grew up in this period, the authors find evidence that transformations in textile production undercut the custom of footbinding and contributed to its rapid demise.
Feet and Fabrication: Footbinding and Early Twentieth-Century Rural Women’s Labor in Shaanxi
The early twentieth-century transformations of rural Chinese women’s work have received relatively little direct attention. By contrast, the former custom of footbinding continues to fascinate and is often used to illustrate or contest theories about Chinese women’s status. Arguing that for rural women at least, footbinding needs to be understood in relation to rural economic conditions, the authors focus on changes in textile production and in footbinding in two counties in Shaanxi province. Drawing on historical sources and their own interview data from rural women who grew up in this period, the authors find evidence that transformations in textile production undercut the custom of footbinding and contributed to its rapid demise.
Text, Practice, and Life Narrative: Bridal Lamentation and a Daughter’s Filial Piety in Changing Rural China
This article explores, through the lenses of text, practice, and life narrative, how Chinese peasant women as daughters manage patrilocality and carry out—or fail to carry out—filial piety toward their parents. Based on field research in a locale in southern China conducted since 1992, this article focuses on four women’s life histories and juxtaposes how these women articulated filial piety as daughter-brides in wedding lamentations and how they practiced it after marriage. This research illuminates how peasant women perceive daughterly filial piety as a complex entailing not only emotional attachment but also peace of mind, tolerance, and material support. For these women, concerns about filial piety emerge as a focus of their maneuvering and negotiating among the strategic possibilities in their lives—their social responsibilities, personal conditions, the broader social–political milieu, and above all, the male support that is often ignored but indispensable in these women’s stories.
Queering Taiwan: In Search of Nationalism’s Other
This article deals with the formation of Taiwan’s homosexual cultural politics in the 1990s, the impact and implications of which are yet to be examined within the larger context of Taiwan’s cultural and political development and ethnic relationships. It is argued that the rise of this cultural politics is both a reflection and a source of a growing sense of identity crisis on the island. By examining the configurations of “queer” in various discursive domains, this interdisciplinary study seeks to delineate the cross-referencing ideological network of this cultural movement and its entanglement with the complexity of Taiwan’s nationalism. At the same time, to the extent that this movement tends to present itself as a radical politics from a privileged epistemological and cultural standpoint, this claimed radicalism is also scrutinized for its problematics and ironies.
What Determines Migrant Workers’ Life Chances in Contemporary China? Hukou, Social Exclusion, and the Market
Shaohua Zhan<br />May 1, 2011; 37:243-285<br />
Feet and Fabrication: Footbinding and Early Twentieth-Century Rural Women’s Labor in Shaanxi
The early twentieth-century transformations of rural Chinese women’s work have received relatively little direct attention. By contrast, the former custom of footbinding continues to fascinate and is often used to illustrate or contest theories about Chinese women’s status. Arguing that for rural women at least, footbinding needs to be understood in relation to rural economic conditions, the authors focus on changes in textile production and in footbinding in two counties in Shaanxi province. Drawing on historical sources and their own interview data from rural women who grew up in this period, the authors find evidence that transformations in textile production undercut the custom of footbinding and contributed to its rapid demise.
What Determines Migrant Workers’ Life Chances in Contemporary China? Hukou, Social Exclusion, and the Market
It is widely believed that household registration (hukou) continues to play a fundamental role in determining migrant workers’ life chances in contemporary China. This article contends, on the contrary, that the importance of hukou has declined substantially, and that migrant workers’ life chances would not be significantly improved even if China were to abolish the hukou system. Based on an investigation of migrant workers in Beijing and Chifeng City in Inner Mongolia, the author shows that in addition to hukou, two other mechanisms—social exclusion and the market—also limit migrant workers’ life chances. Moreover, it is not hukou but social exclusion and market resources that most concern the majority of migrant workers when they strive to find a better job, move up the social ladder, and secure opportunities to settle in the city.
What Determines Migrant Workers’ Life Chances in Contemporary China? Hukou, Social Exclusion, and the Market
It is widely believed that household registration (hukou) continues to play a fundamental role in determining migrant workers’ life chances in contemporary China. This article contends, on the contrary, that the importance of hukou has declined substantially, and that migrant workers’ life chances would not be significantly improved even if China were to abolish the hukou system. Based on an investigation of migrant workers in Beijing and Chifeng City in Inner Mongolia, the author shows that in addition to hukou, two other mechanisms—social exclusion and the market—also limit migrant workers’ life chances. Moreover, it is not hukou but social exclusion and market resources that most concern the majority of migrant workers when they strive to find a better job, move up the social ladder, and secure opportunities to settle in the city.
Unfinished Proletarianization: Self, Anger, and Class Action among the Second Generation of Peasant-Workers in Present-Day China
Pun Ngai, Lu Huilin<br />Sep 1, 2010; 36:493-519<br />
