Chinese Village Life Today

"[A]n excellent record of the effects of Chinse-style modernization on families and relationships in a representative rural area...Anyone interested in the modernization of rural areas, in China or elsewhere, should read this book."

* Choice *

"Chinese Village Life Today is a concise and persuasive read, and the author effectively conveys his findings from nearly 20 years of fieldwork. Among the book’s many interventions, three innovative aspects of it stand out: first, its analytical shift to the “rural” for studying migration and the world of work; second, its focus on the negotiation of “intimate choices” and how changing economic and political relations shape this process; and third, its longitudinal and multi-sited methodology that offers a template for other scholars researching social change in developing countries."

* Society for the Anthropology of Work *

"[T]he book makes a distinct contribution to ongoing efforts in social science to respect the perspectives of marginal groups and to present the complexities of social structural transformation."

* The China Journal *

"Beautifully written...Interweaving vibrant stories of the lives of Harmony Cave villagers with insightful analyses of processes of social, cultural, political, and economic transformation and sophisticated engagement with anthropological theories, Santos shows that it is still possible to write a rich, vivid village ethnography that is also contemporary and deeply intertwined with broader national and global processes."

* Anthropos *

"Gonçalo Santos paints a vivid portrait of a village in northern Guangdong . . . The strengths of this book lie in the profound involvement of the researcher in his fieldwork. Twenty years of paying visits to the villagers and sharing life with them have the merit of building a consistent dataset that allows for a detailed report of rural life, which is much needed in the literature on social change in China."

* China Perspectives *

"In terms of the ethnography of China, or even rural China, Santos’s research stands out not only for the length of his research but also for the particular type of people he investigates. . . The book is written in jargon-free language and has many detailed descriptions of intimate familial decisions. It could profitably be read not only by those with a particular interest in rural China but also by anthropologists interested in rural–urban migration and connections, anthropologists interested in the relationship between technological change and familial life, and undergraduates learning how excellent ethnography can enhance our understanding of the world."

* American Ethnologi