' De-kinning' House, State Discourses and Relatedness in Modern China

Abstract

Focusing on the collective memories and life stories of local people regarding their courtyard house siheyuan in the old town of Beijing, this article examines how the dramatically shifting state discourses influence inheritance practices and perceptions of kinship over time in modern China. Narratives of the siheyuan constructed by the elderly residents feature extended family vis-avis a 'Confucian state', favouring male heirs during pre- revolutionary times. Siheyuan were nationalised during the following period of high socialism, when men and women were granted equal rights in property. After being returned to their former owners in the post-Mao reform era, the dilapidated siheyuan were confronted by neoliberal privatisation and commercialisation. Despite the physical survival of the siheyuan, it is now common for siheyuan siblings to turn against each other, as people struggle over shares of their suddenly valuable but neglected ancestral home. Departing from Freedman's lineage theories and Levi-Strauss's house society, this article explores house and relatedness in the sense of 'de-kinning' as part of China's modernising process. While drawing attention to the subtle continuities and the emergence of new forms of relatedness, it also suggests that the siheyuan dwellers have demonstrated high degrees of resilience and adaptability when coping with the vicissitudes of life.