Just one child : science and policy in Deng's China / Susan Greenhalgh.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Greenhalgh, Susan.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Birth control--China--History--20th century.

Birth control.

Women--Social conditions.

History.

China--Population policy.

China.

Population policy.

Women--Social conditions--20th century.

Women.

Physical Description:

xxii, 403 pages, 6 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2008]

Summary:

China's One-Child Rule is unassailably one of the most controversial social policies of all time. In the first book of its kind, Susan Greenhalgh draws on twenty years of research into China's population politics to explain how the leaders of a nation of one billion decided to limit all couples to one child. Focusing on the historic period 1978-80, when China was reentering the global capitalist system after decades of self-imposed isolation, Greenhalgh documents the extraordinary manner in which a handful of leading aerospace engineers hijacked the population policymaking process and formulated a strategy that treated people like missiles. Just One Child situates these science- and policy making practices in their broader contexts-the scientization and statisticalization of sociopolitical life-and provides the most detailed and incisive account yet of the origins of the one-child policy. In examining the larger issues relating to the interconnections between science and politics, this groundbreaking study develops a new, epistemic approach to the study of public policy and shows how, in China, scientific policymaking led directly to social suffering on a vast scale while giving birth to a technoscientific state.

Contents:

Introduction : an anthropology of science making and policymaking

History : the "ideology" before the "science"

A Chinese Marxian humanism of population

The scientific revolution in Chengdu

Ally recruitment in Beijing

Scientific policymaking in Zhongnanhai

Conclusion : why an epistemic approach matters.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 371-394) and index.

ISBN:

9780520253384

0520253388

9780520253391

0520253396

OCLC:

173182792