The Anthropology of Chinese Kinship. A Critical Overview
TL;DR: In this paper, a critical overview of the anthropology of Chinese kinship focusing on the twentieth-century Euro-American literature is presented, focusing on early literature of the period before the foundation and closure of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949.
Abstract: This is a critical overview of the anthropology of Chinese kinship focusing on the twentieth-century Euro-American literature. I first deal with the less well-known early literature of the period before the foundation and closure of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. I then show how the thematic and theoretical heterogeneity of this early literature was superseded during the 1960s and 1970s by a powerful but reductive paradigmatic lineage model of Chinese kinship and society, largely derived from documentary-based studies of lineage organisation in the late imperial period and consolidated through field research in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Inspired by earlier critics of this lineage-model, tuned in to new anthropological trends in the field of kinship studies and triggered by the post-Mao opening of the PRC, the 1990s marked the beginning of a very heterogeneous cycle of renovation generated by new field research. Seen as a whole, this current cycle of renovation has been undertaking a revision of the older descent-centred comparative view of Chinese kinship and is giving important insights to current anthropological debates about the nature of human kinship.
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TL;DR: The authors draw attention to a little-known Chinese idiom and institution of close relatedness between non-kin persons of the same sex, which they call friendship, and give a post-Mao update to the traditional picture of this region as a place in which friendship cannot thrive owing to the dominance of agnatic kinship and territory.
Abstract: This article draws attention to a little-known Chinese idiom and institution of close relatedness between non-kin persons of the same sex. Instead of focusing primarily on the ideology of fictive/ritual kinship behind it, the article proceeds from the ego-centred perspective of the practical/affective phenomenon that leads to its strategic deployment in the first place. This shift of focus to friendship opens the way for the presentation of data on contemporary rural South China that will both counter and give a post-Mao update to the traditional picture of this region as a place in which friendship cannot thrive owing to the dominance of agnatic kinship and territory. These data give support to recent anthropological claims that friendship is a key universal phenomenon of human relatedness.
15 citations
01 Jan 2020
13 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored the premises of exchange underlying discourses of care, reproduction, and kinship in Chinese culture, and showed that such care is not simply nurturing but can also become coercive and competitive.
Abstract: Revisiting the notion of relational personhood from a Chinese perspective, this article explores the premises of exchange underlying discourses of care, reproduction, and kinship in anthropology. Grandmothers contribute much of the care needed for reproduction of the next generation of children in the Chinese countryside. Their motivation to contribute care to secure offspring stems from the frustration of their past familial desires, and their hopes for transcendence through reproduction in the future. Grandmothers secure claims to offspring through their care between the interstices of the state bureaucracy and patrilineal norms. This care is not simply nurturing but can also become coercive and competitive. As Chinese grandmothers overcome past reproductive hardships by claiming future offspring through care, their selfhood not only becomes distributed through exchange with others, but also is dispersed across time in relation to past experiences and future aspirations of the self.
11 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the significance of kinship and kinship-related rituals in sustaining the local social fabric through turmoil and uncertainty during and after the Cold War is demonstrated. But, despite some salient changes, the ways that people define their social roles and relate to one another are largely framed by values and morals from the sphere of kinships.
Abstract: During the Cold War era, the island of Jinmen was the frontline of the Republic of China in its military standoff with the People’s Republic of China. From 1949 to 1992, the life of the islanders was profoundly disturbed and altered by wars and militarization generated by the bipolar politics. Despite this, the localized patrilineages dating from imperial times remain central to the organization of local social life. Grounded on fifteen months of fieldwork in a patrilineal community, this dissertation demonstrates the significant roles of kinship and kinship-related rituals in sustaining the local social fabric through turmoil and uncertainty during and after the Cold War.
The first part of this thesis focuses on lineage ancestral sacrifices, domestic worship, and funerals. The continuation of rituals that sustain patterns of interpersonal relationships is argued to constitute a means of negating the destruction of social order experienced in the period of military control and conflict. Yet, against the background of these ritual continuities, the thesis also examines how they have been adapted to shifting circumstances, such as the involvement of military and political authorities in folk ritual practices as a means for securing their legitimacy, and the material changes in rituals that have accompanied rapid commercialization from the 1990s.
The second part focuses on the impact of the Cold War on local political and economic life and state-society relations. Despite some salient changes, the ways that people define their social roles and relate to one another are shown to have remained largely framed by values and morals from the sphere of kinship. Kinship therefore actually continues to constitute a distinctive feature of the local political-economic structure, countering an often-seen formula assuming causal relations between the dramatic political-economic changes and the declining role of kinship or “traditional” values in orienting people’s life and action.
11 citations
Cites background from "The Anthropology of Chinese Kinship..."
...Patrilineal descent and kinship organization In an overview of the anthropology of Chinese kinship, Santos (2006) notes that kinship emerged as a primary subject of inquiry as soon as China became an object of modern anthropological study....
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...Relatedness: beyond the fixed and given system of kinship As mentioned above, Freedman’s lineage theory has profound influence over subsequent anthropological studies of Chinese kinship, which has been described as a “lineage paradigm” (cf. Watson 1982a; Santos 2006)....
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TL;DR: How households in a rural village in Southwest China contend with economic impacts of serious illness is examined, and how development agencies can help to alleviate the situation is discussed.
Abstract: Today, some 10 million Chinese peasants fall below China's official poverty line annually because of illness. Currently, more than 80 percent of China's rural residents do not have any health insurance, and most of those who do still have to pay up to 90 percent of their medical costs. Despite the grave situation, very little is known about the strategies rural Chinese utilize to cope with the economic costs of illness. In this paper, I examine how households in a rural village in Southwest China contend with economic impacts of serious illness, and I discuss how development agencies can help to alleviate the situation. I first describe the study site and my research methods. Next, drawing on qualitative and quantitative data, I analyze 10 strategies rural households use to cope with the economic costs of serious illness. In the last section, I discuss the implications of this case study for health policy makers and development agencies in China and elsewhere in the developing world.
10 citations