The ties that bind: Female homosociality and the production of intimacy in rural China

At first glance, a chapter examining non-kin relations and women’s same-sex ties fits somewhat oddly in a volume focused on Chinese kinship. Yet it also builds on a growing literature that has forced us to broaden our understanding of Chinese kinship and relatedness beyond the ‘official’ domain of patrilineal ties and lineage institutions (Judd 1989; Stafford 2000; Wolf 1972). Through examining non-kin bonds and the forms of intimacy they engender, this chapter questions the prominence of patrilineal kinship in China studies and the privileged status we grant to kinship as an analytical category. In so doing, it seeks to reshape our understanding of affective ties and the fabric of social relations in rural China.1