2017/01/02 by Fei‐wen Liu · 3 citations
Social Sciences · #Chinese history and philosophy #Vietnamese History and Culture Studies #China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations #Politics #Ethnography #Sociology #Power (physics) #Gender studies #China #Government (linguistics) #Contentious politics #Media studies #Anthropology #Political science #Social movement #Law #Linguistics
paper · doi:10.1080/0969725x.2017.1286008
published in Angelaki 22(1), 231-246 (Routledge)
openalex publication_date 2017/01/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
A script traditionally used exclusively among women, nüshu (women’s writing), was first identified in southern rural China in 1982. Its discovery opened a new window onto women’s lifeworlds and drew many scholars to explore its ethnographic and theoretical significance. Local authorities paid no attention to this “women’s script” until the 2000s. Scholarly investigation and governmental involvement over the past three decades have shaped nüshu’s cultural politics – specifically, how it is represented and practiced in contemporary society. Based on fieldwork conducted since 1992, this article traces the trajectory of nüshu’s evolving function and social meanings. In the past it served as a communication platform and social forum where women could recount and release their perturbations, and this transformed their vulnerable being into a resilient and determined becoming. This power to transform, however, became a liability once nüshu was claimed as academic property and writing nüshu became a government-supervised profession. All this calls for a rethinking of where nüshu, an endangered expressive tradition, might be heading.