Elizabeth LaCouture's New Book: 'Dwelling in the World: Family, House, and Home in Tianjin, China'
- WSRC
- Mar 23, 2021
- 1 min read
WSRC Board Member: Dr Elizabeth LaCouture, Assistant Professor, Gender Studies Programme and Department of History, School of Humanities, and Director of the Gender Studies program is publishing a new book!
Her book titled Dwelling in the World: Family, House, and Home in Tianjin, China, 1860–1960, “considers family, house, and home in Tianjin to explore how tempos and structures of everyday life changed with the fall of the Qing Empire and the rise of a colonized city. Elizabeth argues that the intimate ideas and practices of the modern home were more important in shaping the gender and status identities of Tianjin’s urban elites than the new public ideology of the nation. Placing the Chinese home in a global context, she challenges Euro-American historical notions that the private sphere emerged from industrialization. She argues that concepts of individual property rights that emerged during the Republican era became foundational to state-society relations in early Communist housing reforms and in today’s middle-class real estate boom. Drawing on diverse sources from municipal archives, women’s magazines, and architectural field work to social surveys and colonial records, Dwelling in the World recasts Chinese social and cultural history, offering new perspectives on gender and class, colonialism and empire, visual and material culture, and technology and everyday life.”.
Elizabeth’s book comes out in July 2021. Pre-order the book from Columbia University Press here!
ascinating focus on how ideas of family, house, and home shaped identity and everyday life in Tianjin across a century of change. Looking at the private sphere through Chinese history offers a fresh lens on gender, class, and property that challenges more familiar Western narratives.
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Dr. LaCouture’s research is so fascinating, especially her focus on how the 'private sphere' and the material culture of the home shaped social identity. The evolution of how we design, furnish, and inhabit our personal spaces has always been deeply tied to culture, class, and comfort.
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Fascinating book on family homes and domestic architecture in Tianjin. It’s insightful to explore how buildings shape daily life and culture across generations.
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