Post-Patriarchal Intergenerationality and Chinese Neo-Familism

Speaker: YAN Yunxiang, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles

Venue: NAH 12, New Asia College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Date: 18 Dec 2019

Time: 1:00-2:30pm

Focusing on the structural changes in family life, especially the inversion of patriarchal order of intergenerational relations, I put forward the notion of post-patriarchal intergenerationality (后父权代际性) as a conceptual tool that may capture the latest family changes and explain the return of the vertical parentschildren relationship as the axis of family relations. I also argue that post-intergenerationality is part and parcel of the emergent neo-familism, which clearly manifests itself in four facets: grandchild-centered multigenerational family group, intergenerational intimacy, materialistic pursuit for family happiness, and the tension between individual interest and familial interest. Neo-familism can be examined at the levels of public discourse and social practice on one hand and constructed as a new research framework on the other hand. I conclude the presentation by exploring the theoretical and methodological implications of the neo-familism approach, focusing on the conceptual tools of intergenerational integration of personhood, familial emotionality (qinqing) and intimate power, improvisation and ad hoc household configuration, and the intersectionality of intra-family relations.

Yunxiang Yan is professor of anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of The Flow of Gifts: Reciprocity and Social Networks in a Chinese Village (Stanford University Press, 1996), Private Life under Socialism: Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village, 1949-1999 (Stanford University Press, 2003), and The Individualization of Chinese Society (Berg publishers, 2009). His research interests include family and kinship, social change, the individual and individualization, and the impact of cultural globalization.