20th century chinese history
20th century chinese society
A01=Lisa Rofel
anthropology
asian history
Author_Lisa Rofel
authority
Category=JBSF
Category=JBSF11
Category=JHM
Category=JHMC
Category=NHF
china
chinese history
chinese women
communism
communist revolution
cross generational
cultural revolution
culture
deng era
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnography
factory work
gender
gender studies
hangzhou
history
labor
liberation
marriage
modernism
modernity
postmodernism
postmodernity
postsocialism
power
productivity
silk factory
socialist nostalgia
society
subjectivity
women
women and labor
women workers
Product details
- ISBN 9780520210790
- Weight: 544g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Mar 1999
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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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.
Lisa Rofel is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
