When anxious mothers meet social media: WeChat, motherhood and the imaginary of the good life

Bingchun Meng

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: In this article I have tried to unpack the anxiety of Chinese middle-class mothers through examining the dialectics of structural changes and discursive shifts. The theoretical premises are that, on the one hand, China’s highly compressed modernisation process has had a major impact on parenting arrangements and parenting ethos; on the other hand, the practice of mothering and the imaginary of motherhood have significant implications for social reproduction. Combining empirical materials collected through a social media platform, in-depth interviews and focus groups, I have teased out the classed imaginaries of good mothering and how these are subsequently linked to imaginaries of the good life.

Keywords: WeChat; motherhood; good life; neoliberalism; class inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 15 pages
Date: 2020-04-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna and nep-pay
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Published in Javnost - the Public, 2, April, 2020, 27(2), pp. 171 - 185. ISSN: 1318-3222

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:103232

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