This book examines how gender and heterosexuality structure the lived experiences of people in living apart together (LAT) relationships in contemporary Chinese society. Using in-depth interview data with Chinese LAT people of different ages, the author explores why they live apart; how they construct and make sense of their everyday family lives and negotiate their gender roles; and how they experience intimacy while being physically apart. This text sheds new insights on non-cohabitating intimate partnerships by bringing together themes of gender, family, intimacy, and relationality. Through looking at people’s lived experiences in LAT relationships, it argues that practices of family and intimacy are closely implicated with doing gender, and consequently, that gendered family lives and heterosexuality are reconstructed, rather than deconstructed, in order to reclaim conventional forms of family and gender norms in Chinese social, historical and cultural contexts.
This book will be of interest to scholars across Gender and Sexuality Studies as well as Family Studies, in addition to scholars of contemporary Chinese culture and society.
Author(s): Shuang Qiu
Series: Genders and Sexualities in the Social Sciences
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 190
City: Cham
Acknowledgements
Contents
About the Author
List of Tables
Chapter 1: Understanding ‘Living Apart Together’ (LAT) Relationships
Introduction
What Is an LAT Relationship and Why Does It Matter?
Who Lives Apart from Their Partner and Why?
Is LAT a New Family Form or a Temporary Stage?
Researching People in LATs in China
Approaching LAT People
Reflexivity, Power Dynamics and Positionality
Getting Familiar with the Data and Data Analysis
Structure of the Book
References
Chapter 2: Detraditionalisation and Retraditionalisation of Family Lives: Gender, Marriage and Intimacy
Introduction
The Grand Theories: Modernity, Gender and Transformations of Intimacy in the West
Contextualising Social Change in China
Gender Relations and Family Life in China
Women, Love and Family
Changing Marital Practices
Conclusion
References
Chapter 3: Reconsidered Agency: Why Do People Live Apart?
Introduction
Conceptualising Agency and Relationality
Structural Constraints
Labour Mobility: Out-Migration of Men and Left-Behind Women
External Authoritative Forces
Negotiated Agency: Family Values and Hegemonic Ideas About Marriage
Relational Bonds with Family Members
Friendship
Relational Individualism: Reflexivity and Life Stages
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: Doing Family at a Distance: How Different Are LAT Relationships to ‘Conventional’ Partnerships?
Introduction
The Stories of Six Study Mothers
Continuity in Family Practices
Reciprocal Family Practices: ‘I Hope My Children Can Do Things That I Might Not Have the Chance to Do’
Gendered Family Practices: ‘I’d Like to More or Less Make It Up to Him’
Everyday Family Practices and Identity Construction
Everyday Practices of Doing Gender: ‘His Three Meals a Day Had Me Trapped’
Negotiating Gender Roles and Identity Construction
Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: Doing Intimacy While Being Apart: Practices of Mobile Intimacy, Emotion and Filial Piety
Introduction
Doing Intimacy in a Mediated Digital Age
Practices of Mobile Intimacy
Potential Risks
Emotional Intimacy
Embodied Practices of Intimacy
Practices of Gift-Giving
Practices of Filial Piety
Parent–Child Intimacy
Conclusion
References
Chapter 6: Conclusion
References
Appendices
Index
