Masculinity, Marriage, and Rural Men in Urban China

Modest Expectations

Sarah Gosper

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Hardback

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English

Routledge
31 January 2025

Migration, immigration & emigration; Gender studies: men; Ethnic studies; Sociology: customs & traditions; Social & cultural anthropology

Series: Routledge/Asian Studies Association of Australia ASAA East Asian Series

This book explores the conjuncture and interrelationship between three so-called ‘crises’ facing Chinese society: a crisis of marriage, a crisis of masculinity and a crisis of mobility.

Based on sustained ethnographic research on unmarried lower-class rural men from two distinct social and class categories, namely migrant workers employed in the food delivery and express mail delivery industries and tertiary educated, white collar professionals, the book reveals how the increasing socio-economic precarity of rural men and their largely unrealised desires to marry and have children demonstrates a fundamental reconfiguration of Chinese masculinity and mobility in urban China and the social impact on central Chinese institutions. The book also reveals the futile efforts to fulfil hegemonic models of masculinity in contemporary China and addresses the heterogeneity of unmarried lower-class rural men as they navigate marriage, manhood and mobility.

Exploring gender relations in China and contributing to global studies of heterosexual masculinities, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese culture and society, gender studies and social anthropology.

By: Sarah Gosper
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
Weight: 590g
ISBN: 9781032767925
ISBN 10: 1032767928
Series: Routledge/Asian Studies Association of Australia ASAA East Asian Series
Pages: 216
Publication Date: 31 January 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

1. Introduction 2. The City of Opportunity 3. Consuming Singlehood 4. Lone Chopsticks 5. Rural Masculinities Reimagined 6. Love and Compatibility 7. Desperate and Dateless 8. Fear and Distrust 9. Waiting for yuanfen 10. Conclusion: In pursuit of guo rizi

Sarah Gosper is the Deputy Director of the Global Immersion Guarantee Program at Monash University, Australia, and a General Councillor for the ASAA Women’s Forum. Her research interests include China, gender, international development and global education.

Reviews for Masculinity, Marriage, and Rural Men in Urban China: Modest Expectations

“A compelling narrative on the crisis of unmarried rural men in urban China and a critical theorization of ‘guo rizi’ in understanding their complex negotiations between socio-economic positionality and socio-cultural expectations.” Xiaodong Lin, University of Warwick “Gosper’s excellent monograph offers a rich exploration of the lived experiences of rural bachelors in Xian city, China. Her book is innovative and thought provoking in its use of masculinity as a lens onto wider process of class reproduction and mobility, and its theoretical engagement with the emic terms that these men use to interpret their circumstances and strategies.” Rachel Murphy, Professor of Chinese Development and Society, University of Oxford