Abstract:

In the process of modernization, people’s dual mobilities in class and region have made the homogenous kinship group become more and more heterogeneous, which has been profoundly influencing rural kinship practices nowadays. With the method of autoethnography, this paper tries to explore the logic of rural kinship practice in the process of modernization from the perspective of insiders to describe the kinship practice of a special individual as well as his or her family at the Spring Festival. Generally speaking, the custom of traditional kinship is inherited firmly on the one hand and is changed quickly on the other. The inheritance of the custom is due to the fact the youth generation and their parent generation share a common past with frequent face-to-face interaction. In this common past, the patriarchal kinship practice mode has been internalized as a part of the youth’s recognition, and the parent generation is still symbolically owning traditional authority to the youth. The change has been caused by two elements. First, the constraint of non-agricultural working time and the separated living space make the frequency and duration of face-to-face interaction between relatives greatly reduced, and the common life experience within the kinship network as well as the intimacy in the experience is becoming thinner and thinner, and the emotional power of the custom practice is becoming scarcer. Second, the youth are gradually in the process of individualization which focuses on themselves and their nuclear families, and the significance of kinship relation maintaining is weakening. With the struggle between inheritance and change, rural kinship network is increasingly lax today.

Key words: autoethnography, mobility, heterogeneity, kinship practice