BOOKS
AUTHOR
Santos, Gonçalo. 2021. Chinese Village Life Today. Building Families in an Age of Transition. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press.
320 pages, , 6 x 9 in, 7 b&w illus., 2 maps, 5 charts, 9 tables
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ADVANCE PRAISE
“An important ethnography that will be well received by a broad audience of readers: anthropologists, sociologists, historians, demographers, and medical researchers.”
– James Watson, Harvard University
“Santos’s ‘translocal’ focus provides an added dimension that is not currently available in other texts, and we also get the kind of ‘thick description’ that is the hallmark of the very best ethnography.”
– Ellen Oxfeld, author of Bitter and Sweet: Food, Meaning, and Modernity in Rural China
“Based on rich data and insights from his longitudinal fieldwork of more than two decades, Santos offers a brilliant bottom-up approach to unpack the impacts of technocratic power from the state and the market, revealing the intimate choices of Chinese individuals in the context of heightened moral tensions and divisions. Deeply engaging and stunningly inspiring, this excellent ethnography stands out as both cutting edge and abiding!”
– Yunxiang Yan, author of Private Life under Socialism: Love, Intimacy, and Family Change in a Chinese Village, 1949–1999
REVIEWS
“[A]n excellent record of the effects of Chinese-style modernization on families and relationships in a representative rural area… Anyone interested in the modernization of rural areas, in China or elsewhere, should read this book.”
– Choice
“[T]he book makes a distinct contribution to ongoing efforts in social science to respect the perspectives of marginal groups and to present the complexities of social structural transformation.”
– The China Journal
“Chinese Village Life Today is a concise and persuasive read, and the author effectively conveys his findings from nearly 20 years of fieldwork. Among the book’s many interventions, three innovative aspects of it stand out: first, its analytical shift to the “rural” for studying migration and the world of work; second, its focus on the negotiation of “intimate choices” and how changing economic and political relations shape this process; and third, its longitudinal and multi-sited methodology that offers a template for other scholars researching social change in developing countries.”
– Society for the Anthropology of Work
PODCAST INTERVIEWS
Chinese Village Life Today. An Interview with Gonçalo D. Santos
– New Books Network, New Books in Chinese Studies
TechnoViews #14 Chinese Village Life Today. Gonçalo D. Santos
– TechnoViews
China Rural: Tradições, Tecnocracia e Etnografia Longitudinal (com Gonçalo D. Santos)
– Universo Generalista
CO-EDITOR AND AUTHOR
Santos, Gonçalo, and Stevan Harrell (eds) 2017. Transforming Patriarchy. Chinese Families in the Twenty-First Century. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press.
312 pages, 6 x 9 in, 2 tables
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Reviews: L’Homme, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, China Quarterly, China Review International, NewBooks.Asia, Pacific Affairs, Foreign Affairs, NORA, etc.
ADVANCE PRAISE
“This is a timely volume that offers current research on the changing configuration of patriarchal relationships, practices, and ideologies in contemporary China. The scope is broad, covering both rural and urban China, but not at the expense of depth, which the individual case studies provide in spades.”
– Sara Friedman, author of Exceptional States: Chinese Immigrants and Taiwanese Sovereignty
“Will make an enormous contribution to our understanding of patriarchy in general and the rapid transformation of ‘[Han] Chinese patriarchy’ in particular.”
– Shanshan Du, author of Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs: Gender Unity and Gender Equality among the Lahu of Southwest China
REVIEWS
“The anthropological perspective on Chinese family life adopted by the contributors to this volume reveals a great deal of interesting variation—across the urban-rural divide; according to region, class, and sexual orientation; and even just by personality and circumstance.”
– Foreign Affairs
“Provides a multifaceted and knowledgeable picture of present day families in the People’s Republic of China. . . . The book contributes to a deeper understanding of the ongoing transformation in China with changes of social norms, social relations and familial behavior modifying the traditional concept of patriarchy.”
– New Books Asia
“Taken together these papers succeed laudably in conveying the nexus of intersecting issues that complicate the contemporary scene in China with respect to gender and generational hierarchies and exchanges, filial piety, changing economic circumstances, the demands of familial duty, and so forth. In sum, the volume contributes importantly to understanding social circumstances in contemporary China.”
– China Review International
CO-EDITOR AND AUTHOR
Brandtstädter, Susanne, and Gonçalo D. Santos (eds) 2009. Chinese Kinship. Contemporary Anthropological Perspectives. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
280 pages, 4 B/W illustrations
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Afterword by Janet Carsten
REVIEWS
“This book reintroduces and updates the study of Chinese kinship.”
– Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
“A very readable and stimulating collection of papers.”
“[This] thought-provoking volume manages to shed new light on both the study of kinship and the anthropology of China.”
“An update of earlier research on Chinese kinship, most of it historical, with ethnographic studies that focus on the meanings of relatedness found in rural and urban China. This is the only collection that fails to examine the transformation and continuity found in contemporary Chinese kinship relationships.”
AUTHOR
Santos, Gonçalo D. 2005. A Escola de Antropologia de Coimbra, 1885-1950. (The Anthropological School of Coimbra, 1885-1950). Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais.
234 pages, 3 B/W illustrations
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Featured in Wenner Gren Symposium #142
Preface by Miguel Vale de Almeida
REVIEWS
“(…) required reading for scholars interested in the history of anthropology and in historically oriented social studies of science.”
– Current Anthropology
“(…) leitura obrigatória para todos os que queiram saber mais sobre alguns dos precursores da antropologia tantas vezes esquecidos ou ignorados.”
– Etnográfica
EXCERPT FROM THE PREFACE
“[Uma contribuição para] debates contemporâneos que discutem a necessidade de pôr em diálogo o desconstrutivismo com um certo regresso às contextualizações históricas e sociológicas da produção do conhecimento.”
– Miguel Vale de Almeida, Author of The Hegemonic Male: Masculinity in a Portuguese Town