Vivienne Xiangwei Guo - Women and Politics in Wartime China: Networking Across Geopolitical Borders

Focusing on Chinese elite women as a special socio-political group, this book places the sophisticated networks they formed in the shifting geographical, social, cultural, and political spaces of wartime China, where their political engagement, knowledge-making, and network-building in support of national resistance and reconstruction (kangzhan jianguo) unfolded. By examining the emergence, development, integration, and transformation of these networks as an unsettled, fragmented process a process that lasted through the extended wars and upheavals in China from the 1930s to the 1950s and that moves beyond party ideologies and geopolitical borders the book seeks to explore the dynamics of war, politics, and gender in the broader context of the Second World War.

Vivienne Xiangwei Guo is lecturer of modern Chinese history at the University of Exeter, U.K.

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Women and Politics in Wartime China

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Vivienne Xiangwei Guo

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Vivienne Xiangwei Guo

First published 2019

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2019 Vivienne Xiangwei Guo

The right of Vivienne Xiangwei Guo to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Guo, Vivienne Xiangwei, author.

Title: Women and politics in wartime China : crossing geopolitical borders / Vivienne Xiangwei Guo.

Description: London ; New York, NY : Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2019. | Series: Routledge studies in modern history, vol. 47 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018042996 | ISBN 9781138080645 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315113319 (ebk)

Subjects: LCSH: Sino-Japanese War, 19371945Women. | WomenChinaHistory20th century.

Classification: LCC DS777.533.W65 G86 2019 | DDC 940.53/51082dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018042996

ISBN: 978-1-138-08064-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-11331-9 (ebk)

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This book is a result of a long and pleasant intellectual journey which lasted for nearly seven years. During this time, I have received generous support and precious advice from my Ph.D. supervisors at Kings College London, scholars in and out of the U.K., and my colleagues, friends, and family members. Foremost, I owe many debts to my two Ph.D. supervisors, Dr. Anna Boermel and Dr. Jennifer Altehenger, who not only enabled me to achieve a new stage in my research, but also prepared me, scholarly and professionally, to become an academic. I am also deeply grateful to many other scholars who have read part of my book and made valuable criticism and comments. Prof. Odd Arne Westad, whom I met at an academic conference in Hong Kong, inspired me on my journey of becoming a historian and offered me generous support through my academic development. Prof. Hilde de Weerdt, who read the first chapters of my book, also provided me with insightful suggestions which laid a solid foundation for my further historical research. Prof. Rana Mitter and Dr. Tehyun Ma, the external examiners of my Ph.D. thesis, have not only earnestly encouraged me to convert my thesis into a monograph, but also shared with me their precious views and put me in touch with other stimulating scholars. Without their guidance and navigation, I would not have been able to overcome all the difficulties that I encountered as an early career researcher.

I have also received strong institutional support from the Lau China Institute of Kings College London. I was awarded the three-year institute studentship which made my study in London and my archival research in China possible. The former director of the Institute, Prof. Xinzhong Yao, and the former assistant director, Dr. Ralph Parfect, tackled all the tedious administrative issues for me and provided me with the best imaginable work environment. My great appreciation is also due to Prof. Felix Wemheuer, the chair professor of the Institute of East-Asian Studies at the University of Cologne, who employed me as a research associate in modern Chinese history and generously allowed me to complete the writing-up of my thesis with strong institutional and financial support. I also truly appreciate the opportunity and value of working at the History Department, University of Exeter, where I met many wonderful colleagues and where I was granted precious research time and space to refine my thesis and finally turn it into this book.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge permissions I received to include in this book in revised form two previous publications: Much of were published together as an article entitled Leaning to the Left: The Post-War Political Reorganisation of Chinese Women Activists within the CCP United Front Framework (19451949) in Journal of the British Association for Chinese Studies (JBACS) Vol. 7 (2017). I would like to thank the editors for their diligent and excellent work, and for their generous permission to reuse these publications.