Bamboo steamers and red flags : building discipline and collegiality among China's traditional rural midwives in the 1950s
This paper explores how the new Communist government developed a political consciousness of discipline and collegiality among traditional rural midwives in Chinese villages during the 1950s. It argues that selected traditional rural midwives were taught to observe discipline by attending meetings an...
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
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2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/145145 |
| _version_ | 1811684146147229696 |
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| author | Fang Xiaoping |
| author2 | School of Humanities |
| author_facet | School of Humanities Fang Xiaoping |
| author_sort | Fang Xiaoping |
| collection | NTU |
| description | This paper explores how the new Communist government developed a political consciousness of discipline and collegiality among traditional rural midwives in Chinese villages during the 1950s. It argues that selected traditional rural midwives were taught to observe discipline by attending meetings and studying, and to develop collegiality with peers through criticism and self-criticism of their birth attendance techniques and personal characters in short training courses from 1951 onwards. A legitimized midwife identity gradually formed in rural communities, but with it came conflicts and rivalry. By keeping these midwives under institutional surveillance and creating a dynamic and constant moulding process, the new government intended to foster professional and political discipline and collegiality within the group based on a normativized notion of selflessness performed within a changing series of indoctrination schemes that demonstrated continuity and complementarity and which I have described as common, preliminary, institutionalized, and dynamic schemes. This article examines how the state attempted to retrain marginalized and derided midwives with appropriate class backgrounds in order to incorporate them into the modern medical world, then still dominated by doctors and nurses with suspect class backgrounds. Ironically, in creating “socialist new people” to intervene in traditional rural birthing practices and introducing fee-for-service professionalism, the CCP accidentally created a degree of petit-capitalist thinking among women whose traditional mode of work may have been more selfless, thus complicating the process of indoctrinating selfless dedication. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T04:23:59Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/145145 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T04:23:59Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1451452021-02-06T06:06:41Z Bamboo steamers and red flags : building discipline and collegiality among China's traditional rural midwives in the 1950s Fang Xiaoping School of Humanities Humanities::Language Rural Midwives Discipline This paper explores how the new Communist government developed a political consciousness of discipline and collegiality among traditional rural midwives in Chinese villages during the 1950s. It argues that selected traditional rural midwives were taught to observe discipline by attending meetings and studying, and to develop collegiality with peers through criticism and self-criticism of their birth attendance techniques and personal characters in short training courses from 1951 onwards. A legitimized midwife identity gradually formed in rural communities, but with it came conflicts and rivalry. By keeping these midwives under institutional surveillance and creating a dynamic and constant moulding process, the new government intended to foster professional and political discipline and collegiality within the group based on a normativized notion of selflessness performed within a changing series of indoctrination schemes that demonstrated continuity and complementarity and which I have described as common, preliminary, institutionalized, and dynamic schemes. This article examines how the state attempted to retrain marginalized and derided midwives with appropriate class backgrounds in order to incorporate them into the modern medical world, then still dominated by doctors and nurses with suspect class backgrounds. Ironically, in creating “socialist new people” to intervene in traditional rural birthing practices and introducing fee-for-service professionalism, the CCP accidentally created a degree of petit-capitalist thinking among women whose traditional mode of work may have been more selfless, thus complicating the process of indoctrinating selfless dedication. 2020-12-14T05:06:11Z 2020-12-14T05:06:11Z 2017 Journal Article Fang, X. (2017). Bamboo steamers and red flags : building discipline and collegiality among China's traditional rural midwives in the 1950s. The China Quarterly, 230, 420–443. doi:10.1017/S0305741017000625 0305-7410 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/145145 10.1017/S0305741017000625 230 420 443 en The China Quarterly © 2017 SOAS University of London. All rights reserved. |
| spellingShingle | Humanities::Language Rural Midwives Discipline Fang Xiaoping Bamboo steamers and red flags : building discipline and collegiality among China's traditional rural midwives in the 1950s |
| title | Bamboo steamers and red flags : building discipline and collegiality among China's traditional rural midwives in the 1950s |
| title_full | Bamboo steamers and red flags : building discipline and collegiality among China's traditional rural midwives in the 1950s |
| title_fullStr | Bamboo steamers and red flags : building discipline and collegiality among China's traditional rural midwives in the 1950s |
| title_full_unstemmed | Bamboo steamers and red flags : building discipline and collegiality among China's traditional rural midwives in the 1950s |
| title_short | Bamboo steamers and red flags : building discipline and collegiality among China's traditional rural midwives in the 1950s |
| title_sort | bamboo steamers and red flags building discipline and collegiality among china s traditional rural midwives in the 1950s |
| topic | Humanities::Language Rural Midwives Discipline |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/145145 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT fangxiaoping bamboosteamersandredflagsbuildingdisciplineandcollegialityamongchinastraditionalruralmidwivesinthe1950s |