Care Work, Migrant Peasant Families and Discourse of Filial Piety in China

This book examines the experiences of migrant peasant workers in China who care for parents diagnosed with cancer and explores to what extent contextual changes after the economic reform initiated in 1978 affected practices and experiences of caring. In his own attempt to develop a localized methodology, the author considers identifying similarities between Chinese philosophies and Foucault's theories as the key step for localizing Foucauldian discourse analysis. Three similarities are located and articulated with regard to filial care. Firstly, the complexity of discursive relations identified by Foucault resembles the complicated Chinese notion of the relationality of the self. Secondly, both sides have a tendency to look back to ancient times for solutions and to critique the notion of 'progress' in modernity. For Foucault, the way to attain freedom or agency is through technologies of the self, such as speaking truth (parrhesia). Lastly, both value action and practice in their theories. The book then analyzes, through this localized methodological approach, statements made by migrant peasant workers to take readers through their discursive mechanisms to construct filial piety in relation to their subjective care experiences.

Examines the experiences of migrant peasant workers in China Explores to what extent contextual changes affected practices and experiences of caring Analyzes statements made by migrant peasant workers

Auteur
Longtao He is an associate professor in medical sociology and social work at SWUFE, China. He has published numerous articles in journals such as Qualitative Health Research, British Journal of Social Work, and European Journal of Ageing. His research interests include qualitative health sociology, health social work, and ethics.

Contenu
Introduction: Care and Filial Piety.- Filial Piety and Responsibilities and Burdens of Caregivers in China.- Gaps in Existing Research and Theoretical Approaches.- An understanding of Filial Piety in a Foucauldian Perspective.- Innovations in the Methodological Approach.- The Responsibility and Burden of Care for Migrant Peasant Workers.- Parental Sacrifice Discourse.- Forgetting Constructed as a Mechanism to Meet Increased Challenges for Filial Care.- Complexity and Action/practice Orientedness of Filial Discourses and Telling the Truth (Parrhesia).