What does family life really look like in Contemporary China? What has changed through the generations since the Communist Revolution of 1949? And what persists? Jieyu Liu, Professor of Sociology at SOAS, University of London, joins us to discuss her years of detailed research with people across three generations in rural and urban China. Putting forward her concept of ‘embedded generations’, she argues that family transformation has been less linear than assumed - and calls out dominant Eurocentric accounts of modernization and social change.

Plus: Jieyu celebrates the work of prominent sociologist and anthropologist Fei Xiaotong, and recommends Shen Fu’s memoir ‘Six Records of a Floating Life’ for its insights into Chinese society. An important conversation about love, relationships, family and social change - and the influential concept of ‘individualisation’.

Guest: Jieyu Liu; Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong; Executive Producer: Alice Bloch; Sound Engineer: David Crackles; Music: Joe Gardiner; Artwork: Erin Aniker

Find out more about Uncommon Sense

Episode Resources

By Jieyu Liu

• Embedded Generations: Family Life and Social Change in Contemporary China

From the Sociological Review Foundation

• Listen to Katherine Twamley on Intimacy
• Obligated to Care: Intergenerational Family Relations in Contemporary China 
• Raising Global Families by Pei-Chia Lan
• Generationalism: Understanding the difference between what generations are and what generations do

Further resources

• Fei Xiaotong - Obituary
• Fei Xiaotong (1939) Peasant Life in China
• The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love, and Eroticism in Modern Societies
• Individualisation: Institutionalized Individualism and its Social and Political Consequences 
• Shen Fu (1809/1877) Six Records of a Floating Life 

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