An intimate look at twenty-first century households in rural China
Gonçalo Santos is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Coimbra and coeditor of Transforming Patriarchy: Chinese Families in the Twenty-First Century.
"[A]n excellent record of the effects of Chinse-style modernization
on families and relationships in a representative rural
area...Anyone interested in the modernization of rural areas, in
China or elsewhere, should read this book."
*Choice*
"Chinese Village Life Today is a concise and persuasive read, and
the author effectively conveys his findings from nearly 20 years of
fieldwork. Among the book’s many interventions, three innovative
aspects of it stand out: first, its analytical shift to the “rural”
for studying migration and the world of work; second, its focus on
the negotiation of “intimate choices” and how changing economic and
political relations shape this process; and third, its longitudinal
and multi-sited methodology that offers a template for other
scholars researching social change in developing countries."
*Society for the Anthropology of Work*
"[T]he book makes a distinct contribution to ongoing efforts in
social science to respect the perspectives of marginal groups and
to present the complexities of social structural
transformation."
*The China Journal*
"Beautifully written...Interweaving vibrant stories of the lives of
Harmony Cave villagers with insightful analyses of processes of
social, cultural, political, and economic transformation and
sophisticated engagement with anthropological theories, Santos
shows that it is still possible to write a rich, vivid village
ethnography that is also contemporary and deeply intertwined with
broader national and global processes."
*Anthropos*
"Gonçalo Santos paints a vivid portrait of a village in northern
Guangdong . . . The strengths of this book lie in the profound
involvement of the researcher in his fieldwork. Twenty years of
paying visits to the villagers and sharing life with them have the
merit of building a consistent dataset that allows for a detailed
report of rural life, which is much needed in the literature on
social change in China."
*China Perspectives*
"In terms of the ethnography of China, or even rural China,
Santos’s research stands out not only for the length of his
research but also for the particular type of people he
investigates. . . The book is written in jargon-free language and
has many detailed descriptions of intimate familial decisions. It
could profitably be read not only by those with a particular
interest in rural China but also by anthropologists interested in
rural–urban migration and connections, anthropologists interested
in the relationship between technological change and familial life,
and undergraduates learning how excellent ethnography can enhance
our understanding of the world."
*American Ethnologist*
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