Jeanne Shea is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Head of the Global Health Concentration in Anthropology at the University of Vermont. Focusing on medical, psychological, and social anthropology and Chinese culture and society, she earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in Anthropology from Harvard University. Her current research centers on personal experiences and social dynamics of aging and caregiving in China and the United States, with particular attention to the intersection of productive aging and social support for the aged. Her current teaching focuses on medical anthropology, global health, and research methods.
• • • DOI: 10.1007/s10823-020-09408-6 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Menopause and Midlife Aging in Cross-Cultu... more • • • DOI: 10.1007/s10823-020-09408-6 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Menopause and Midlife Aging in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Findings from Ethnographic Research in China JeanneL.Shea1✉Email Jeanne.Shea@uvm.edu 1 Anthropology Department University of Vermont 509 Williams Hall, 72 University Place Burlington VT 05405 USA Abstract Based on longitudinal mixed methods ethnographic research conducted in China from the mid-1990s to 2018, this article argues that Chinese lay language use divides what Americans and Canadians refer to as “menopause” into two distinct though overlapping concepts of the narrow juejing or end of menstruation and the broader non-gender-specific gengnianqi or “transition between middle and old age.” While comparison with research done by Lock in Japan shows that Japanese language uses a similar set of two overlapping yet distinct terms called heikei and könenki, there are important differences between Chinese and Japanese views and experiences of female midlife amidst the similarities. While views and experiences of juejing in China are very similar to notions of heikei in Japan, gengnianqi is quite different from könenki. Like in Japan, the end of menstruation tends to be welcomed by women in China. Also like in Japan, midlife women in China had a lower prevalence of hot flashes than that found in the US and Canada. Also similar to Japan, Chinese women rarely associate hot flashes with embarrassment. However, unlike in the Japanese sample, the Chinese women reported a higher rate of irritability than even the American and Canadian samples. Contrasting with könenki, which is primarly associated with bodily aches and self-restraint in Japan, gengnianqi is commonly viewed as a time of vulnerability to irritable outbursts which must be allowed, though managed carefully. Overall, I show how menopause and midlife aging as concepts and as lived experiences are subject to variation related to differences in language, cultural ideas and practices, local biologies, and culturally-mediated generational experiences of historical change.
Journal of Aging and Social Policy, forthcoming. This article examines the extent to which domina... more Journal of Aging and Social Policy, forthcoming. This article examines the extent to which dominant Chinese national policies on aging attend to seniors’ socially productive potential as caregivers as compared to their need for support. The analysis shows that caregiving for the elderly by seniors, whether self-care or care of others, gets little consideration in many of the most prominent national policies on aging in China. Instead, the focus is on elders’ need for and right to support and care, together with the obligation of younger adults to resist social decline in filial values and to care for their aged family members. While seniors’ contributions to eldercare do receive scattered mention in China’s dominant national policies on aging, those instances often focus on the extraordinary offerings of skilled professionals, rather than the informal everyday efforts of ordinary seniors. Enhanced recognition of seniors’ informal labors in eldercare could help to counter societal views of older adults as needy burdens and better leverage their continuing potential for social good. International sources focused on productive aging recommend forging a better policy balance between seniors’ needs and their potential. This balance may be especially important for China, as a developing nation with a very early retirement age that has “gotten old before getting rich.” The article concludes by offering a few related policy recommendations. Key words: China, Chinese, aging policy, elder dependency, productive aging, active aging
Ageing International, • DOI: 10.1007/s12126-016-9270-6: Abstract: In this article, I examine rece... more Ageing International, • DOI: 10.1007/s12126-016-9270-6: Abstract: In this article, I examine recent ethnographic data on the subjective meanings of volunteering expressed by Chinese older adult volunteers working within community-based nongovernmental organization (NGO) projects supporting aging in place for ailing elders and their family caregivers in Shanghai, China. In examining this data, I analyze what older adults’ community-based volunteering means to them in the context of broader questions about the potential for bringing together gerontological agendas for productive aging and community-based social support for the aged. I argue that these Chinese older adult volunteers bring special strengths to community volunteering in support of the aged, and that their choice to serve community members of advanced age also brings distinctive benefits to them as volunteers. This pairing of older volunteers with senior community recipients has demonstrated excellent potential, as well as some important challenges. Keywords: Productive aging, Social support, Senior volunteers, Aging in place, China.
This article examines Chinese discourses on dressing the aging female body as a window into the t... more This article examines Chinese discourses on dressing the aging female body as a window into the tensions involved in the historical transformation of habitus in early post-Mao China. Drawing on Chinese media articles and ethnographic interviews conducted with Chinese women in their 40s-60s, the analysis compares depictions of new official ideals for older women’s dress that appeared in Chinese government-sponsored feminist media with ordinary older Chinese women’s personal sensibilities about dress. Assessing the applicability of dominant western feminist theories of gender, dress, and age, this article provides a historicized culture-specific application of practice theory, examining older women’s struggles with competing moral logics associated with past and present, and with official media versus personal experience. Overall, it documents experiences of ambivalence and compromise accompanying lifecycle adjustment in embodiment in the context of rapid social change.
Chinese women in Beijing about their experiences of midlife in ways both familiar and strange to ... more Chinese women in Beijing about their experiences of midlife in ways both familiar and strange to an American ear. Most importantly, many Beijing women speak about the feelings of irritability and anger that often accompany what they call gengnianqi, a Mandarin Chinese word usually translated into English as “menopause.” Drawing on ethnographic data collected between the mid-1990s and 2008, I show how gengnianqi talk entails a complex mixture of positive and negative feelings about getting older and, moreover, deals centrally with women’s responses to the historical waves of social transformation that have overtaken modern China.
In this essay, I explore how bringing my American daughter to the field to live together with a C... more In this essay, I explore how bringing my American daughter to the field to live together with a Chinese host family for half a year affected my experience of fieldwork, my understanding of Chinese culture, and my awareness of our own American-ness. I focus on how the interactions that my daughter and I had with our host family challenged many of our contemporary middle class northeastern European-American assumptions about parent-child interaction and proper childrearing.
• • • DOI: 10.1007/s10823-020-09408-6 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Menopause and Midlife Aging in Cross-Cultu... more • • • DOI: 10.1007/s10823-020-09408-6 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Menopause and Midlife Aging in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Findings from Ethnographic Research in China JeanneL.Shea1✉Email Jeanne.Shea@uvm.edu 1 Anthropology Department University of Vermont 509 Williams Hall, 72 University Place Burlington VT 05405 USA Abstract Based on longitudinal mixed methods ethnographic research conducted in China from the mid-1990s to 2018, this article argues that Chinese lay language use divides what Americans and Canadians refer to as “menopause” into two distinct though overlapping concepts of the narrow juejing or end of menstruation and the broader non-gender-specific gengnianqi or “transition between middle and old age.” While comparison with research done by Lock in Japan shows that Japanese language uses a similar set of two overlapping yet distinct terms called heikei and könenki, there are important differences between Chinese and Japanese views and experiences of female midlife amidst the similarities. While views and experiences of juejing in China are very similar to notions of heikei in Japan, gengnianqi is quite different from könenki. Like in Japan, the end of menstruation tends to be welcomed by women in China. Also like in Japan, midlife women in China had a lower prevalence of hot flashes than that found in the US and Canada. Also similar to Japan, Chinese women rarely associate hot flashes with embarrassment. However, unlike in the Japanese sample, the Chinese women reported a higher rate of irritability than even the American and Canadian samples. Contrasting with könenki, which is primarly associated with bodily aches and self-restraint in Japan, gengnianqi is commonly viewed as a time of vulnerability to irritable outbursts which must be allowed, though managed carefully. Overall, I show how menopause and midlife aging as concepts and as lived experiences are subject to variation related to differences in language, cultural ideas and practices, local biologies, and culturally-mediated generational experiences of historical change.
Journal of Aging and Social Policy, forthcoming. This article examines the extent to which domina... more Journal of Aging and Social Policy, forthcoming. This article examines the extent to which dominant Chinese national policies on aging attend to seniors’ socially productive potential as caregivers as compared to their need for support. The analysis shows that caregiving for the elderly by seniors, whether self-care or care of others, gets little consideration in many of the most prominent national policies on aging in China. Instead, the focus is on elders’ need for and right to support and care, together with the obligation of younger adults to resist social decline in filial values and to care for their aged family members. While seniors’ contributions to eldercare do receive scattered mention in China’s dominant national policies on aging, those instances often focus on the extraordinary offerings of skilled professionals, rather than the informal everyday efforts of ordinary seniors. Enhanced recognition of seniors’ informal labors in eldercare could help to counter societal views of older adults as needy burdens and better leverage their continuing potential for social good. International sources focused on productive aging recommend forging a better policy balance between seniors’ needs and their potential. This balance may be especially important for China, as a developing nation with a very early retirement age that has “gotten old before getting rich.” The article concludes by offering a few related policy recommendations. Key words: China, Chinese, aging policy, elder dependency, productive aging, active aging
Ageing International, • DOI: 10.1007/s12126-016-9270-6: Abstract: In this article, I examine rece... more Ageing International, • DOI: 10.1007/s12126-016-9270-6: Abstract: In this article, I examine recent ethnographic data on the subjective meanings of volunteering expressed by Chinese older adult volunteers working within community-based nongovernmental organization (NGO) projects supporting aging in place for ailing elders and their family caregivers in Shanghai, China. In examining this data, I analyze what older adults’ community-based volunteering means to them in the context of broader questions about the potential for bringing together gerontological agendas for productive aging and community-based social support for the aged. I argue that these Chinese older adult volunteers bring special strengths to community volunteering in support of the aged, and that their choice to serve community members of advanced age also brings distinctive benefits to them as volunteers. This pairing of older volunteers with senior community recipients has demonstrated excellent potential, as well as some important challenges. Keywords: Productive aging, Social support, Senior volunteers, Aging in place, China.
This article examines Chinese discourses on dressing the aging female body as a window into the t... more This article examines Chinese discourses on dressing the aging female body as a window into the tensions involved in the historical transformation of habitus in early post-Mao China. Drawing on Chinese media articles and ethnographic interviews conducted with Chinese women in their 40s-60s, the analysis compares depictions of new official ideals for older women’s dress that appeared in Chinese government-sponsored feminist media with ordinary older Chinese women’s personal sensibilities about dress. Assessing the applicability of dominant western feminist theories of gender, dress, and age, this article provides a historicized culture-specific application of practice theory, examining older women’s struggles with competing moral logics associated with past and present, and with official media versus personal experience. Overall, it documents experiences of ambivalence and compromise accompanying lifecycle adjustment in embodiment in the context of rapid social change.
Chinese women in Beijing about their experiences of midlife in ways both familiar and strange to ... more Chinese women in Beijing about their experiences of midlife in ways both familiar and strange to an American ear. Most importantly, many Beijing women speak about the feelings of irritability and anger that often accompany what they call gengnianqi, a Mandarin Chinese word usually translated into English as “menopause.” Drawing on ethnographic data collected between the mid-1990s and 2008, I show how gengnianqi talk entails a complex mixture of positive and negative feelings about getting older and, moreover, deals centrally with women’s responses to the historical waves of social transformation that have overtaken modern China.
In this essay, I explore how bringing my American daughter to the field to live together with a C... more In this essay, I explore how bringing my American daughter to the field to live together with a Chinese host family for half a year affected my experience of fieldwork, my understanding of Chinese culture, and my awareness of our own American-ness. I focus on how the interactions that my daughter and I had with our host family challenged many of our contemporary middle class northeastern European-American assumptions about parent-child interaction and proper childrearing.
Known for a tradition of Confucian filial piety, East Asian societies have some of the oldest and... more Known for a tradition of Confucian filial piety, East Asian societies have some of the oldest and most rapidly aging populations on earth. Today these societies are experiencing unprecedented social challenges to the filial tradition of adult children caring for aging parents at home. Marshalling mixed methods data, this volume explores the complexities of aging and caregiving in contemporary East Asia. Drawing on ethnographic, demographic, policy, archival, and media data, the authors trace both common patterns and diverging trends across China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, and Korea. Editors Jeanne Shea, Katrina Moore, and Hong Zhang. Publisher's link to Introduction: https://www.berghahnbooks.com/downloads/intros/SheaBeyond_intro.pdf. Publisher's link to purchase the book: https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/SheaBeyond. ISBN 978-1-78920-788-0 hard cover, ISBN 978-1-80073-447-0 paperback, eISBN 978-1-78920-789-7 eBook.
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