The essays in this volume present contemporary anthropological perspectives on Chinese kinship, its historical complexity and its modern metamorphoses. The collection draws particular attention to the reverberations of larger socio-cultural and politico-economic processes in the formation of sociality, intimate relations, family histories, reproductive strategies and gender relations – and vice-versa. Drawing on a wealth of ethnographic material from the late imperial period and from contemporary Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China, from northern and southern regions as well as from rural and urban settings, the volume provides unique insights into the historical and spatial diversities of the Chinese kinship experience. This emphasis on diversity challenges the classic ‘lineage paradigm’ of Chinese kinship and establishes a dialogue with contemporary anthropological debates about human kinship reflecting on the emergence of radically new family formations in the Euro-American context. Chinese Kinship will be of interest to anthropologists and sinologists, as to historians and social scientists in general.
Author(s): Susanne Brandtstadter, Goncalo D. Santos
Series: Routledge Contemporary China Series
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 279
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 6
Copyright......Page 7
Contents......Page 8
List of illustrations......Page 10
List of contributors......Page 11
Acknowledgements......Page 14
Introduction Chinese kinship metamorphoses......Page 16
Part 1 Motion, Migration and Urbanity......Page 42
1 Families we create’: Women’s kinship in rural China as spatialized practice......Page 44
2 Living a single life: The plight and adaptations of the bachelors in Yishala......Page 63
3 Practicing connectiveness as kinship in urban China......Page 82
Part 2 Intimacy, Gender and Power......Page 108
4 The ties that bind: Female homosociality and the production of intimacy in rural China......Page 110
5 The stove-family’ and the process of kinship in rural South China......Page 127
6 Actually existing Chinese matriarchy......Page 152
7 Gendered work and the production of kinship values in Taiwan and China......Page 169
Part 3 State, Body and Civilization......Page 194
8 Becoming a mother in late imperial China: Maternal doubles and the ambiguities of fertility......Page 196
9 Education and the governing of child-centered relatedness......Page 219
10 Disruption, commemoration and family repair......Page 238
Afterword......Page 261
Index......Page 264
