Rich, dense, but eminently readable and consistently fascinating book.
CHOICE
Fresh and insightful. An extremely strong contribution to the literature on both women in China and in rural development more broadly. The author is leading the wave of new ethnography that explores and encompasses a local cultural whole. Specialists will find the book fascinating; students will find it ... Read moreaccessible and likable.
Hill Gates, Stanford University This study constitutes a major contribution to our understanding of women, gender and rural development within and beyond China. Examining 60 years of economic, political and social change in one village in Yunnan province, this book has both depth and breadth.
Elisabeth Croll
China Quarterly
For those interested in rural development in China, Bossen's study will be a welcome addition. It offers fresh observations on the north-south divide in China and fills in some of the material dimensions of gender that have been largely neglected in recent years.
Population and Development Review
There are two aspects of Bossen's methods that are most potent. First, she makes compelling use of Fei's work as a comparative point of historical reference, which provides a sense of context, historical continuity and historical dynamism to her study. Second, Bossen makes space available for storytelling /by /and /about /the women whom she studies, on their own terms....With powerful chapters on footbinding, marriage and households, and sex preference in family planning, this work will be of interest to those studying gender or women's experiences in rural China.
Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology
Historical perspective figures impressively throughout the book. . . . Bossen's research is made powerful by her dedication of ten years to the research of Lu Village. . . . Such firsthand observations and live reports from the field are both persuasive and highly effective.
B.C. Asian Reviews
[A] finely wrought monograph on gender and economic development. Because of the breadth of Bossen’s quantitative and qualitative research, the book could become a classic in its own right…. For anyone interested in gender or rural economy in China’s reform era, Bossen’s book will be an invaluable resource. For advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars with broader interests in gender, family, rural development, and the anthropology of work, the volume will also be rewarding.
American Ethnologist
This book provides a standard by which future ethnographers can assess change and continuity in gender relations throughout China. Laurel Bossen's remarkably sophisticated and holistic analysis makes her book a major contribution to the literature on women in rural China in particular and to the ethnography of China in general.
The China Journal
A broad-gauged survey of village life that remains attuned to local circumstances while exploring changes in women's status in rural China more generally. . . . Bossen's refusal of monocausal explanations is a sobering corrective to many of our habits of explanation, and her attention to detail makes for a rich and stimulating read.
Gail Hershatter, University of California, Santa Cruz
Economic Development and Cultural Change
As Bossen herself points out in her introduction, there is to date a minimal quantity of in-depth anthropological field research on rural women in contemporary China. This volume is therefore a welcome addtition to the field. It adds new and rich material to our reflections on contrasts and continuties between contemporary China and the past. Its observations also suggests rich fields for further enquiry: the closeness of ties between women kinfolk, siblings, and sworn sisters; the weak distinction between sale into marriage and the diverse economic transactions that characterize customary marriage arrangements; the blurred boundaries between voluntary and involuntary migrations for marriage. Through rich historical perspective on continuities and changes in gender practices, it also shows how the complex texture of gendered relations in a rural community does not, and cannot correspond with neat lines of distinction between gender or lesser inequalities across past and present.
Harriet Evans, University of Westminster Show Less