Paper short abstract:

Through the perspectives of three generations of Chinese farmers, I will explore local understandings of history and their role in shaping identities. In the absence of written records, I will assess generational differences and formative experiences in the construction of folk history.

Paper long abstract:

In China, successive political upheavals within living memory have impacted directly on the attitudes and identities of rural citizens. Drawing on extensive interview material from fieldwork in a small farming community in the prosperous coastal province of Zhejiang, this paper addresses how farmers today construct and discuss their own narratives of history, and the value of situating the politics of memory in the context of lived experience.

For each of the three generations concerned - the grandparents, parents and their adult children in the village - distinct events divide their experience of history into clearly-defined local categories of "before" and "after". Respectively, these were: (1) the implementation of land reforms following the Communist victory; (2) the adoption of a socialist market economy; and (3) the increasing opportunities and consumerism of the last decade. These formative experiences in the lives of each generation reveal the local impact of distant policies enacted by the Chinese state, as individuals selectively assemble their imperfect personal histories.

With reference to other studies of social memory and transition in the post-Mao era, I will explore the consequences for local identity of universal state education for children and reduced intergenerational transmission in a village without any written records. Taking a longer view of China's rapid development through the twentieth century, I will argue that a consideration of generational differences is crucial to any anthropological understanding of how people and societies are able to forget, remember and forge their identities.