Abstract
This chapter discusses neoliberalism in China and addresses how individual and state bodies are formed in close interrelation with one another. Through examining the intersection between governmentality in the Foucauldian sense and rural men and women’s bodies in contemporary China, the chapter demonstrates how a changing Chinese context continues to manage women’s reproductive and productive bodies for the good of the nation through the “one-child policy.” In a neoliberal climate, the one-child policy is reinforced through a rhetoric of free and rational choices rather than of state control. With the aim of unveiling the illusion of neoliberalism, which allegedly brings about freedom and choice for Chinese women, the chapter examines how the contemporary Chinese state is attempting to craft the governable bodies and docile gendered citizens crucial to its modernization project. It concludes that the promotion of entrepreneurial individuals who make more rational reproductive choices leads to women’s bodies being more subtly disciplined than in the past and controlled in ways that are difficult to unmask or criticize.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Nira Yuval-Davis (1997: 26–38) details three nationalist discourses which represent three particular population control polices. These include “people as power” which emphasizes enlargement of the nation’s population, the Malthusian discourses which emphasize the downsizing of the nation’s population, and the eugenicist discourse which emphasizes “improving the quality” of the population.
- 2.
Susan Greenhalgh and Edwin Winckler (2005) translate San Jeihe (Three Integrations) to Three Links for Western audiences.
- 3.
In her study of professionalism in post-Mao China, Lisa Hoffman frames individual choice as a form of governing rather than a form of freedom. See “Post-Mao Professionalism” in Privatizing China: Socialism from Afar, eds. Li Zhang and Aihwa Ong, Cornell University Press, 2008.
- 4.
For details on the Happiness Project, see “Neoliberalism and the Feminization of Family Survival: The Happiness Project in Four Chinese Villages” by Lihua Wang in AGR 16 Social Production and Reproduction in the interface of Public and Private Spheres (2012), eds. by Marcia Segal, Vasilikie Demos, and Esther Ngan-ling Chow.
- 5.
Currently, methods used have shifted only somewhat despite the changing rhetoric used to justify these “choices.” A 2007 national survey on birth control methods reported that 52.30 % married women relied on IUD’s and 32.25 % used female sterilization (Shang-Chun Wu, 2010: 286). For forced abortion, there is a lack of statistical data in China. This topic is not intended to be discussed in this chapter.
- 6.
For an account of abusive stories in River Crossing village, see “Globalizing, Reproducing, and Civilizing Rural Subject” by Junjie Chen in Reproduction, Globalization, and the State (2011) eds. by Carole Browner and Carolyn Sargent.
- 7.
- 8.
In the first author’s study of the two villages, the meaning of “extra” relied on separate standards. For minorities and Han people of higher mountainous areas, two children are permitted. Tunjie is a Yi minority village, while Maoba is a Han village located in a higher altitude. Although classifying a household of family planning differs regionally, the principle of “extra” is set strictly by national policies.
- 9.
- 10.
The introduction of neoliberalism has brought about the privatization of health care in China. See Health Policy Report by David Blumenthal and William Hsiao in the New England Journal of Medicine, 353:1165–1170, September 15, 2005, http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMhpr051133.
References
Acker, J. (1990). Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organizations. Gender and Society, 4, 139–158.
Acker, J. (1992). From sex roles to gendered institutions. Contemporary Sociology, 21(5), 265–269.
Aird, J. (1990). Slaughter of the innocents: Coercive birth control in China. Washington, DC: The AEI Press.
Anagnost, A. (1997). National past-time: Narrative, representation, and power in modern China. Durham: Duke University Press.
Anagnost, A. (2004). The corporeal politics of quality (Suzhi). Public Culture, 16(2), 189–208.
Apple, R. (2006). Perfect motherhood: Science and childrearing in America. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Banister, J. (1987). China’s changing population. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bevir, M. (2011). Governance and governmentality after neoliberalism. Policy & Politics, 39(4), 457–471.
Blumenthal, D., & Hsiao, W. (2011, September 15). Privatization and its discontents – The evolving Chinese health care system. The New England Journal of Medicine, 353(2005), 1165–1170. See link at: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMhpr051133
Bossen, L. (2002). Chinese women and rural development sixty years of change in Lu village, Yunnan. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Burkitt, I. (1999). Bodies of thought: Embodiment, identity & modernity. London: Sage Publications.
Chen, J. (2011). Globalizing, reproducing, and civilizing rural subject. In C. Browner & C. Sargent (Eds.), Reproduction, globalization, and the state. Durham: Duke University Press.
Cooney, R., & Li, J. (2001). Sterilization and financial penalties imposed on registered peasant couple, Hebei province China. Studies of Family Planning, 32(1), 67–78.
Dean, M. (1999). Governmentality: Power and rule in modern society. London: Sage Publications.
Document. (2000, December 25). China’s population and development in the 21st century. Beijing Review.
Edwards, L. (2000). Women in the people of republic of China: New challenges to the grand gender narrative. In L. Edwards & M. Roces (Eds.), Women in Asia (pp. 59–84). Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Evans, H. (1997). Women and sexuality in China: Female sexuality and gender since 1949. New York: Continuum.
Flew, T. (2012). Michel Foucault’s the birth of biopolitics and contemporary neo-liberalism debates. Thesis Eleven, 108(1), 44–65.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. London: Allen Lane.
Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Fox, N. (1999). Beyond health: Postmodernism and embodiment. London: Free Association Books.
Freeman, C. (2011). Embodying and affecting neoliberalism. In F. Mascia-Lees (Ed.), A companion to the anthropology of the body and embodiment. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
Gordon, C. (1991). Governmental rationality: An introduction. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, & P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Greenhalgh, S., & Winckler, E. (2005). Governing China’s population: From Leninist to neoliberal biopolitics. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Hamann, T. (2009). Neoliberalism, governmentality, and ethics. Foucault Studies, 6, 37–59.
Hoffman, L. (2008). Post-Mao professionalism. In L. Zhang & A. Ong (Eds.), Privatizing China: Socialism from afar. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Holmberg, T., & Fredrik, P. (2009). The body that speaks the gap: Feminist theory and the biological question. In J. Bromseth, L. F. Käll, & K. Mattsson (Eds.), Body claims. Uppsala: Uppsala University Series in Gender Research.
Johnson, K. (1983). Women, the family, and peasant revolution in China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Judd, E. (1994). Gender & power in rural North China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Lemke, T. (2001). The birth of bio-politics: Michel Foucault’s lecture at the college de France on neoliberal governmentality. Economy and Society, 30(2), 190–207.
Li, H. (2008). Basic concepts in demography and policy (Renko Jiben Lilun yu Zhengci). Beijing: Chinese Population Press.
Liao, P.-J. (2013). The one-child policy: A macroeconomic analysis. Journal of Development Economics, 101, 49–62.
Litt, J. (2000). Medicalized motherhood. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Purdy, J. (2004). A world of passions: How to think about globalization now. Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 11(2), 1–49.
Rivkin-Fish, M. (2011). Troubling the reproduction of the nation. In M.-L. Frances (Ed.), A companion to the anthropology of the body and embodiment. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
Rose, N. (2006). The politics of life itself: biomedicine, power, and subjectivity in the twenty-first century. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Stacy, J. (1983). Patriarchy and socialist revolution in China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Tain, X. (2000). Population and development in the twenty-first century. Beijing: China’s Economics Press.
Tellmann, U. (2009). Foucault and the invisible economy. Foucault Studies, 6, 5–24.
Wang, G. (1999). China’s population: Problems, thoughts and policies. Brookfield: Ashgate Publishing Company.
Wang, L. (2012). Neoliberalism and the feminization of family survival: The happiness project in four Chinese villages. In M. Segal, V. Demos, & E. N.-l. Chow (Eds.), AGR 16 social production and reproduction in the interface of public and private spheres. Bingley, UK: Emerald.
Winckler, E. (2002). Chinese reproductive policy at the turn of the millennium: Dynamic stability. Population and Development Review, 28(3), 379–418.
Wolf, M. (1985). Revolution postponed: Women in contemporary China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Wu, C., & Mu, G. (1998). Zhonggou renkou de xiangzhuang he duice (The current situation and policy in Chinese population control). Beijing: Renkou Press.
Wu, S. C. (2010). Family planning technical services in China. Frontiers of Medicine in China, 4(3), 285–289.
Xie, Z. (2000). Population policy and the family-planning program. In Xizhe Peng & Zhigang Guo (Eds.), The changing population of China. Malden: Blackwell Publishers.
Yuval-Davis, N. (1997). Gender and nation. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Zhang, W. (2000). Renko Kongzhi Xue (Demography). Beijing: Chinese Population Press.
Zhou, K. (1996). How the farmers changed China: Power of the people. Boulder: Westview.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wang, L., Blum, L.M. (2016). Rural Women’s Bodies and Invisible Hands: Neoliberalism and Population Control in China. In: Käll, L. (eds) Bodies, Boundaries and Vulnerabilities. Crossroads of Knowledge. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22494-7_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22494-7_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-22493-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-22494-7
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)