Transformation of Private Life: Love, Family, and Intimate Relationships in a Chinese Village, 1949-1999 (Chinese-English)

Author: Yan Yunxiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: This book has just won the "Levin Book Award for the Study of Contemporary China" from the Association for Asian Studies in 2005. The author's previous monograph, The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity and Social Networks in a Chinese Village, published in 2000, received positive responses from academia. This book can be seen as a continuation of the author's earlier fieldwork. Focusing on Xiama Village in Northeast China, it examines changes in the local moral world, shifts in the process of rural youth marriage, the details of this transformation, the evolution of three interrelated customs in family property division, and the significant changes reflected in the practice of betrothal gifts. It discusses the emergence and development of individuals as independent entities and the crucial role the state plays in the transformation of private life and the formation of individual subjectivity. The conclusion is that over the past half-century, farmers' private lives have undergone a dual transformation, with the rise of the individual as an independent subject at its core. This book explores a topic rarely addressed before—private emotions and family life in Chinese rural areas. In the 1970s, Yan Yunxiang worked as a farmer in a rural area in Northeast China for seven years. In 1989, he returned to the same place for nearly a decade of anthropological fieldwork, studying the private lives and moral world of increasingly affluent rural villagers. His research scope extends from public domains such as social relationships, family property, and the care of the elderly to private emotions, sexuality, contraception, and gender choices. This topic is highly meaningful.