Other Modernities: Gendered Yearnings in China after Socialism

By Lisa Rofel

Book Overview

In this analysis of three generations of women in a Chinese silk factory, Lisa Rofel brilliantly interweaves the intimate details of her observations with a broad-ranging critique of the meaning of modernity in a postmodern age. The author based her study at a silk factory in the city of Hangzhou in eastern China. She compares the lives of three generations of women workers: those who entered the factory right around the Communist revolution in 1949, those who were youths during the Cultural Revolution of the 1970s, and those who have come of age in the Deng era. Exploring attitudes toward work, marriage, society, and culture, she convincingly connects the changing meanings of the modern in official discourse to the stories women tell about themselves and what they make of their lives. One of the first studies to take up theoretically sophisticated issues about gender, modernity, and power based on a solid ethnographic ground, this much-needed cross-generational study will be a model for future anthropological work around the world.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520210794
• ISBN13: 9780520210790
• Release Date: March 1999
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 321 Pages
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

She knows real china

I do not know why the rating is so low here. Yes, it has some parts dealing with theories. But in fair, her interviews and field works have done really well . Rofel, as an anthropologist, brought back many valuable materials from the interviews with chinese women workers in 1980's China. She is very sensetive to pick up the conversations with the woemn she interviewed, besides, her interpretations on these women are precise, and they are the real images of woman workers as I, a Chinese, knew in 1980s. Skipping the introduction part, which is about theory, you will find lively and interting China women of 1980s to pride on their equality to men.