1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910483190703321

Autore

Yiu Fai Chow

Titolo

Caring in Times of Precarity [[electronic resource] ] : A Study of Single Women Doing Creative Work in Shanghai / / by Chow Yiu Fai

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham : , : Springer International Publishing : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2019

ISBN

9783319768977

9783319768984

Edizione

[1st ed. 2019.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xii, 345 pages)

Collana

Palgrave Studies in Globalization, Culture and Society, , 2730-9282

Disciplina

306.81530951

Soggetti

Culture

Gender

Ethnology—Asia

Industrial sociology

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Chapter 1: Living on my own, creatively, precariously -- Chapter 2: Living with their own images -- Chapter 3: Living with a generation – qilinghou, balinghou, jiulinghou -- Chapter 4: Balancing work/life? -- Chapter 5: To love, to live -- Chapter 6: Living with us – the case of Kunqu -- Chapter 7: Living with the city -- Chapter 8: Living with themselves, creating themselves -- Chapter 9: Epilogue.

Sommario/riassunto

Caring in Times of Precarity draws together two key cultural observations: the increase in those living a single life, and the growing attraction of creative careers. Straddling this historical juncture, the book focuses on one particular group of ‘precariat’: single women in Shanghai in various forms of creative (self-)employment. While negotiating their share of the uncanny creative work ethos, these women also find themselves interpellated as shengnü (‘left-over women’) in a society configured by a mix of Confucian values, heterosexual ideals, and global images of womanhood. Following these women’s professional, social and intimate lives, the book refuses to see their singlehood and creative labour as problematic, and them as victims. It departs from dominant thinking on precarity, which



foregrounds and critiques the contemporary need to be flexible, mobile, and spontaneous to the extent of (self-)exploitation, accepting insecurity. The book seeks to understand– empirically and specifically–women’s everyday struggles and pleasures. It highlights the up-close, everyday embodied, affective, and subjective experience in a particular Chinese city, with broader, global resonances well beyond China. Exploring the limits of the politics of precarity, the book proposes an ethics of care.