Reconcile the Irreconcilable: Making Gendered Citizenship in Domestic Violence Narratives in China

• In Event: Political Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Politics and Gender (Table 13)

Abstract

In modern states, women’s citizenship is a site of ongoing political construction. Through analyzing the forms of gendered citizen subjects that the state seeks to produce, researchers can understand the tensions and controversies embedded in the state’s efforts to construct modern citizens and the modern state, which is structurally uneven. In this regard, China constitutes a valuable case for studying gendered citizenship. To analyze this case, the study draws on a dataset of social media posts on domestic violence published by government-affiliated accounts in China between 2010 and 2019 (N = 56,557). It uses an analytical strategy that integrates pattern exploration grounded in computational inductive research with a deductive design for pattern validation. It finds that, in the government’s online narratives of domestic violence, women are expected to be legal citizens who are capable to mobilize legal resources and defend their rights regardless of the potential consequences; political citizens through whom national policies are realized; and moral citizens who perform conflicting gender-based obligations. These unrealistic expectations of women as model citizens reflect deeper tensions in the Chinese state’s efforts to reconcile competing sources of legitimacy and governance philosophies. The findings have broader implications for comparative research on the state.

Authors

• Zhifan Luo, McMaster University

• Muyang Li, York University