Xuan Li: Do Chinese Fathers Say the L Word?
Duration: 1 hour 1 min
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| Description: |
East Asian families are still a mystery to many western social scientists. Despite their large populations and increasing presence on the global stage, the private life of East Asian families remains understudied, compared to their African, Latino and South Asian counterparts. Whilst Amy Chua’s controversial Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother provided (albeit inaccurate) glimpses into the parenting practices of traditional Chinese mothers, much less is known about their male co-parents. What are Chinese fathers like? Are they distant, stern-faced disciplinarians following Confucius family ethics, or are they advocates of the “new nurturant father” model that has been diffused into Euro-American families in recent years? In this talk, I will present an overview of existing theories and evidence about Chinese fathers, extracted from both an expanding volume of cross-cultural research and my PhD fieldwork, conducted in Nanjing, China from 2011 to 2012. In particular, I will focus on the affection display of Chinese fathers to their children, the lack of which used to be seen as one of the defining features of East Asian males. My data suggest that contemporary Chinese fathers are experiencing a transition towards a fathering ideal that increasingly values intimacy and closeness, and are living through the dynamic negotiation between cultural traditions and current social realities. The driving forces of this change are discussed.
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| Created: | 2014-05-13 11:18 |
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| Collection: |
Informal Lunchtime Seminar Series
Wolfson College lunchtime seminar series |
| Publisher: | Wolfson College Cambridge |
| Copyright: | Xuan Li |
| Language: | eng (English) |
| Keywords: | China; Fathers; Love; |
| Abstract: | East Asian families are still a mystery to many western social scientists. Despite their large populations and increasing presence on the global stage, the private life of East Asian families remains understudied, compared to their African, Latino and South Asian counterparts. Whilst Amy Chua’s controversial Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother provided (albeit inaccurate) glimpses into the parenting practices of traditional Chinese mothers, much less is known about their male co-parents. What are Chinese fathers like? Are they distant, stern-faced disciplinarians following Confucius family ethics, or are they advocates of the “new nurturant father” model that has been diffused into Euro-American families in recent years? In this talk, I will present an overview of existing theories and evidence about Chinese fathers, extracted from both an expanding volume of cross-cultural research and my PhD fieldwork, conducted in Nanjing, China from 2011 to 2012. In particular, I will focus on the affection display of Chinese fathers to their children, the lack of which used to be seen as one of the defining features of East Asian males. My data suggest that contemporary Chinese fathers are experiencing a transition towards a fathering ideal that increasingly values intimacy and closeness, and are living through the dynamic negotiation between cultural traditions and current social realities. The driving forces of this change are discussed.
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