Practicing Kinship

Michael Szonyi is Associate Professor of History at the University of Toronto. He is the translator of Family and Lineage Organization and Social Change in Ming-Qing Fujian by Zheng Zhen

"This is an important book, based on painstaking research, which addresses important issues in the field of Chinese social and cultural history. . . . The author revisits many of the questions raised by Maurice Freedman in his pathbreaking work on Chinese lineage society in the 1950s and 1960s. . . . In some ways, Szonyi is doing here for the Fujian what David Faure, Helen Siu, and their team have done for the Pearl River delta in Guang-dong—that is, writing theoretically sophisticated local histories based on thoroughgoing command of all local sources and frequently crossing the (largely artificial) frontier between history and anthropology."—David Ownby, University of Montreal "Szonyi . . . .uses a wide range of sources, textual and oral, and varied research methodologies to construct a local history rich in detail and theoretical sophistication. Practicing Kinship is an important contribution not only to our understanding of the Fuzhou area but to our understanding of kinship practice and its variable, flexible nature. The book is recommended for upper-level undergraguates, graduates, and faculty alike."—History: Reviews of New Books "Szonyi has written an impressive study of patrilineal kinship organization on Nantai Island, primarily during the Ming and Qing periods. The book is solidly based on a wide array of sources, including genealogies, local gazetteers, land deeds, oral history, and personal observation of contemporary ritual performance. . . . This important study is worthy of serious consideration by those in the humanities and the social sciences."—CHOICE "...Szonyi's work displays an analytical rigour and a precision of argumentation that makes it a model of historical scholarship."—Histoire Sociale "This study makes an invaluable contribution to the study of a region as well as the general history of Chinese society in the Ming Qing period, adding another regional variation to the Pearl delta studied by David Faure and Helen Siu. This book should be on the reading list of every China scholar and graduate seminar."—Ming Studies "Based upon remarkable research in local gazetteers, genealogies and extensive fieldwork, Practicing Kinship is a rich and insightful analysis of the lived experience of lineage organization in late imperial China."—Journal of Asian History