Bitter and Sweet - Food, Meaning, and Modernity in Rural China

"Oxfeld is able to tightly integrate detailed, intimate ethnography with a wide body of food studies and anthropological theory to illustrate how everyday people in rural China are finding ways to ‘domesticate’ social and cultural change. While many studies of China have either celebrated or critiqued the changes resulting from unprecedented economic growth, Oxfeld shows growth’s complexity—and through her detailed analysis of foodways, gives us an empirically grounded approach to explore these changes."—Fuji Lozada, Professor of Anthropology and Environmental Studies, Davidson College
"Bitter and Sweet focuses on a fascinating and important topic, food in modern China, as seen through the lens of one rural community. Oxfeld's portrait of this community and its food practices provides readers with a highly engaging introduction to some of the critical issues China faces today, ranging from food safety to mass migration to profound moral change. The book is thus both intimate and ambitious, in the very best tradition of anthropology."—Charles Stafford, London School of Economics

List of contents

List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments
Note on the Text

1 • The Value of Food in Rural China
2 • Labor
3 • Memory
4 • Exchange
5 • Morality
6 • Conviviality
Conclusion: Stitching the World Together

Appendix A
Appendix B
Notes
Glossary
References
Index

About the author

Ellen Oxfeld is Gordon Schuster Professor of Anthropology at Middlebury College. She has also been a visiting scholar at the Hakka Research Institute, Jiaying University, Meizhou, Guangdong, China. She is the author of Drink Water, but Remember the Source: Moral Discourse in a Chinese Village, among other books.  

Summary

Less than a half century ago, China experienced a cataclysmic famine, which was particularly devastating in the countryside. This book examines the role of food in one rural Chinese community, as it has shaped everyday lives over the course of several tumultuous decades.

Additional text

"This is useful reading not only for fellow anthropologists in the China field, but also for anyone interested in knowing about modern China. Summing Up: Highly recommended."

Product details

• Authors: Ellen Oxfeld, Oxfeld Ellen
• Publisher: University Of California Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.05.2017
• EAN: 9780520293519
• ISBN: 978-0-520-29351-9
• No. of pages: 280
• Series: California Studies in Food & Culture; California Studies in Food and; California Studies in Food and Culture
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Regional and national histories; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > General, dictionaries; China, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Industries / Agribusiness, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Industries / Food Industry, Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography, Food & society, Social and cultural anthropology, Agriculture, agribusiness and food production industries, Agriculture & Related Industries, Cultural studies: food and society