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Dissertation Project:
"Unwed Single Mothers Doing Family, Gender and Motherhood in Contemporary in China"
This research is concerned with the way the decoupling of reproduction and marriage - a phenomenon commonly linked with large-scale demographic processes taking place worldwide - is played out in Chinese contexts. By examining the way unwed Chinese single mothers engage with visions of womanhood and motherhood brought about and sustained through China’s rapid modernization, the proposed research asks how effectively they “do family” (Nelson, 2014). I refer to “Doing family” as a process based in interaction and interpersonal dynamics that effects the construction of families and individuals’ role and place within them. This perspective enables a greater understanding of both the ways gendered, and intergenerational relations develop within the family, and the ways they interact with other gendered and institutional forms of social inequality.
The research is based on ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative content analysis of social media posts. Participants were approached through an organization, based in east China, which advocates for diversity in families, marriage equality and women’s reproductive rights. This research asks how singled mothers involved with the organization’s and / or engage with discourse concerning single motherhood online perceive family, and in what ways do their actions and choices interact with prevalent conceptions of family, marriage, and fertility in contemporary China. By asking these questions, the research intends to further our knowledge on the theme of single motherhood in China, which has not received sufficient scholarly attention so far. Secondly, by exploring single mothering through the perspective of family formation and change, this research intends to contribute to a growing body of academic work on the way different and localized displays of “family making” occur (in relation to global demographic trends such as the Second demographic transition and the decoupling of intimacy, childbearing, and marriage).
Supervisor: Prof. Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni