(Suffering) for the Family

The Mediated Structure of Feeling Among the Rural Elderly in Post-Reform China
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-3-031-83741-8
Verlag: Springer Nature Switzerland

Buch, Englisch, 247 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 451 g

Reihe: Palgrave Studies in Mediating Kinship, Representation, and Difference

From the vantage point of rural grandparents’ mediated structure of feelings, this book explores changing family intimacy and dynamics in contemporary rural China in relation to media. Based on a 10-month ethnography involving 18 rural families (live-in studies with 11), it explores how media technology and culture reconfigures desires, attachments, disappointments, and grievances in family life. This book joins the emerging field that emphasizes the importance of affective and emotional, and offers a new perspective in understanding family dynamics in a mediated world. Focusing on separated migrant families, where the younger generation works in the industrial area and the elderly and children remain in villages, the book highlights the role of mediated emotions in connecting and dividing family members. Importantly, it examines how the state-led neoliberal modernization project since the 1980s juxtaposes with the advance of digital media in rural China, and how it further relates to the rural families.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wu, Hao

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Soziale Gruppen & Klassen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Altersgruppen Alterssoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Humangeographie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Familiensoziologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1: Introduction.- 2: Researching the Mediated Structure of Feeling.- 3: Virtuous Bitterness and Voluntary Inferiority: The Mediated Struggle of the Rural Elderly.- 4: The Family Rift and the Elderly’s Pain: Media, Misogyny, and the Crisis of Care.- 5: Expressive Filial Sentiment: The Expectations and Disappointment of the Elderly.- 6: Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Hao Wu is Lecturer at the School of Sociology, Central China Normal University (CCNU), China. Prior to joining CCNU, she obtained her PhD at the Department of Media and Communication, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Her research interests include media and cultural studies, gender, family, and emotion.