On a visit to eastern Hui'an in 1994, Sara Friedman was surprised
to see a married woman reluctant to visit her conjugal home. The
author would soon learn that this practice was typical of the area,
along with distinctive female dress styles, gender divisions of
labor, and powerful same-sex networks. These customs, she would
learn, have long distinguished villages in this coastal region of
southeastern China from other rural Han communities.
"Intimate Politics" explores these practices that have
constituted eastern Hui'an residents, women in particular, as an
anomaly among rural Han. This book asks what such practices have
come to mean in a post-1949 socialist order that has incorporated
forms of marriage, labor, and dress into a developmental scale
extending from the primitive to the civilized. Government reform
campaigns were part of a wholesale effort to remake Chinese society
by replacing its "feudal" elements with liberated socialist ideals
and practices. As state actors became involved in the intimate
aspects of Huidong women's lives, their official models of progress
were challenged by the diversity of local practices and commitment
of local residents. These politicized entanglements have generated
what the author calls "intimate politics," a form of embodied
struggle in which socialist civilizing agendas--from the
state-sponsored reforms of the Maoist decades to the market-based
"reform and opening" of the post-Mao era--have been formulated,
contested, and, in some cases, transformed through the bodies and
practices of local women.
General
Imprint: |
Harvard University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Harvard East Asian Monographs |
Release date: |
June 2006 |
First published: |
June 2006 |
Authors: |
Sara L Friedman
|
Dimensions: |
235 x 156 x 30mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover
|
Pages: |
344 |
Edition: |
First ed. |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-674-02128-0 |
Categories: |
Books >
Social sciences >
Sociology, social studies >
General
|
LSN: |
0-674-02128-2 |
Barcode: |
9780674021280 |
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