Hong Zhang

Education

Post-Doctoral fellow, Fairbank Center for China Studies, Harvard University
Ph.D., Anthropology, Columbia University
M.Phil., Anthropology, Columbia University
M.A., Anthropology, Columbia University
M.A., English, Wuhan University, China
B.A., English, Huazhong Normal University, Wuhan, China

Areas of Expertise

• Labor migration, gender, and new marriage patterns

• Family, rural life, and urbanization in contemporary China

• Aging, eldercare and population policy

• Chinese culture and language

 

Personal Information

2017-2020. Co-editor of ASIANetwork Exchange: A Journal for Asian Studies In the Liberals Arts

2014-2017. Member of Board of Directors, ASIANetwork.

2015-2017. On the Expert and Speaker List for the World-In-Your Library Program, Maine Humanities council

I received my Ph. D. in Anthropology from Columbia University, NYC. At Colby College, I teach both Chinese language and Chinese culture courses. My research interests include: family and marriage, one-child policy, intergenerational relations, population aging, gender, urbanization, rural-urban migration, social change and contemporary Chinese society. In the past two decades, I have been doing research in a village in central China documenting changes in marriage patterns and family life. In more recent years I have begun to study migrant labor and urbanization in Chinese cities and document new aging experiences and family strategies in parental caregiving due to population aging, impact of one-child policy and changes in family structure.

Current Research

Impact of One-Child Policy on Daughters, Intergenerational Relation, and Parental Old-age Support.

Population Aging and New Eldercare Patterns in China

ASIANetwork Freeman Foundation Student-Faculty Scholarship for a collaborative research project "Redefine Old Age and Eldercare, Stories from China", Summer 2012. Colby Project

Fulbright Research Grant, 2009-2010. Gender and inter-generational relations of migrant families in China.

ASIANetwork Freeman Foundation Student-Faculty Scholarship: "Reconfiguration of Public Spaces in Urban China", Summer 2007.click here

Publications

2017 (forthcoming). Guest editor with Jeanne Shea for a special issue on Aging and Eldercare in China for Ageing International, "Introduction to Aging and Caregiving in Chinese Populations", pp.1-5.

2016. “Recalibrating Filial Piety: Realigning the state, family and market interests in China?”, in Santos and Harrell (eds.) Transformation of Chinese Patriarchy. University of Washington Press. pp. 234-250.

2016. On the translation team for Legislature and Legal Application of Durable Power of Attorney and Adult Guardianship System in the U.S. 《美国持续性代理权和成年人监护制度立法及法律适用》 王竹青，田野主编 （eds by Wang Zhuqing and Tian Ye）. 知识产权出版社（Beijing: Zhishi Chanquan Publishing House）. Translation into Chinese of Jennifer L. Rhein's "No One in Charge: Durable Powers of Attorney and the Failure to Protect Incapacitated Principals" (无人负责：持续性代理权及对丧失行为能力人保护的失败), pp. 132-158.

2013. “Transforming the concepts of aging: three case studies from Anthropology,” a co-authored chapter for Oxford Textbook of Old Age Psychiatry. 5th Edition. Oxford (UK): Oxford University Press.

2010. 《中国流动妇女土地权益状况调查》(An Investigation on the Land Rights of Female Rural Migrants in China). 吴治平主编. 社会科学文献出版社(Social Science Publisher). On the Expert Team for the book project and contributed a case study chapter for the book.

2010. 参与翻译鲍晓兰研究纽约唐人街华人女工历史的英文专著《顶起大半边天：纽约市的华人服装女工1948-1992》Holding up More Than Half the Sky: Chinese Women Garment Workers in New York City, 1948-1992. Bao Xiaolan. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. On the translation team of turning this book into Chinese. 天津人民出版社(Tianjin: Tianjin People’s Press).

2009. "Labor Migration, Gender, and the Rise of Neo-local Marriages in the Economic Boomtown of Dongguan, South China." Journal of Contemporary China. 18 (61): 636-651.

2009. "Navigating a Space for Labor Activism: Emergent Labor NGOs in the Pearl River Delta of South China," co-authored with Marsha Smith, a chapter in State and Society Responses to Social Welfare Needs in China: Serving the People , eds by Jonathan Schwartz and Shawn Shieh. New York/London: Routledge.

2009. "The New Realities of Aging in Contemporary China: Coping with the Decline of Family Care," a book chapter for the 3rd edition of Cultural Context of Aging: World-Wide Perspective, edited by Jay Sokolovsky. Westport/CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.

2008. Translation of Selected Works of Western Feminist Literature and Culture (《西方女性主义文学文化译文集》). On the translation team. Guangxi Normal University Press.

2007. "From Resisting to 'Embracing'? the One-Child Policy: Understanding New Fertility Trends in a Central Chinese Village." The China Quarterly . Vol. 192: 855-875.

2007. "China's New Rural Daughters Coming of Age: Downsizing the Family and Firing up Cash Earning Power in the New Economy." Signs, Journal of Women in Culture and Society. Vol 32, no.3:671-698.

2007. "Toil and Tears behind the Shenzhen Miracle: Migrant Labor in Shenzhen." Guest Editor's Introduction. Chinese Economy (M.E. Sharpe). May-June 2007. Vol. 40, NO. 3, pp.3-11.

2007. On the Margins of Society: Migrant Labor in South China (Bianyuan ren: Shenzhen wailaigong yanjiu. Liu Kaiming. Xinhua Press, 2003). Translation of four chapters of the book for a special issue of Chinese Economy (M.E. Sharpe).May-June 2007. Vol. 40, NO. 3.

2007. "Who Will Care for Our Parents? Changing Boundaries of Family and Public Roles in Providing Care for the Aged in China." Journal of Long Term Home Health Care. Vol. 25 (1):39-46.

2007. "Chinese Numeral Classifiers." Journal of East Asian Linguistics. 16:43-59.

2006. Chapter 6. "SARS Humor for the Virtual Community: Between the Chinese Emerging Public Sphere and the Authoritarian State." In Deborah Davis and Helen Hsu, eds., SARS: Reception and Interpretation in Three Chinese Cities. London/New York: Routledge. Pp. 119-145.

2006. "Family Care or Residential Care? The Moral and Practical Dilemmas Facing the Elderly in Urban China." Asian Anthropology. Vol. 5:57-83.

2006. Chapter 8: "Making Light of the Dark Side: SARS Jokes and Humor in China. In Arthur Kleinman and James Watson, eds., SARS in China: Prelude to Pandemic? Stanford University Press.

2005. "Bracing for an Uncertain Future: A Case Study of New Coping Strategies of Rural Parents under China's Birth Control Policy." The China Journal, pp.53-76.

2004. "Chinese Shamanism (Contemporary)," with Constantine Hriskos. In Mariko Walter and Eva Fridman (eds.) Encyclopedia of Shamanism. Santa Barbara (CA): ABC-CLIO Publishing, pp.713-721.

2004. 'Living Alone' and the Rural Elderly: Strategy and Agency in Post-Mao Rural China." In Charlotte Ikels (ed.), Filial Piety: Practice and Discourse in Contemporary East Asian Countries. CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 63-87.

2003. "Contemporary Chinese Shamanism: The Re-Invention of Tradition," with Constantine Hriskos,Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 26 (6): 55-57.

2002. "Between Reality and Representation: Social Control and Gender Relations in Chinese Proverbs." In Marlis Hellinger and Hadumod Bussmann, (eds.), Gender Across Languages: The De/construction of Gender Roles through Language Variation and Change. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 73-80.

2001. Guest Editor's Introduction, "Eldercare Issues in Contemporary China," Journal of Chinese Sociology and Anthropology. Vol.34 (1), pp. 1-25.

2001 Guest editor and co-translator, "Eldercare Issues in Contemporary China, Part I," Journal of Chinese Sociology and Anthropology, Vol. 34 (1)

2002. Guest editor and co-translator, "Eldercare Issues in Contemporary China, Part II," Journal of Chinese Sociology and Anthropology, Vol. 34 (2)

1995. English-Chinese Lexicon of Women and Law. Beijing: China Translation and Publishing Corporation and UNESCO (Participated in the Chinese team to translate the lexicon entries from English into Chinese).

1992. "Spare Women a Beating for Three Days, They Will Stand on the Roof and Tear the House Apart"- Images of Women in Chinese Proverbs". In Locating Power: the Proceedings of the Berkeley Women and Language Conference. Kira Hall et al. (eds.). Berkeley: University of California Press, pp.590-600.