This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Jing, J. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

State Comrades and an Elderly Woman's Suicide

Tsinghua University, jingjun{at}tsinghua.edu.cn

In this article, I employ the concept of `unintended consequence' for my analysis of an elderly woman's suicide in China. The larger socio-political context of the narrative that will follow is the building of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. As the largest hydropower project ever built in the world, this dam entailed the involuntary resettlement of more than 1 million people, mostly rural residents living along the river's middle reaches. The thrust of my analysis is to demonstrate that analyses of state power and modernization processes need to pay more attention to the question of how individuals deal with drastic social change and how they conduct their interpersonal relationships in ways that lead to unintended consequences. Such consequences are far more complicated than social theories that lead us to view society—state relationships as one-dimensional configurations would allow.

Key Words: old-age support • population resettlement • society—state relationships • suicide • unintended consequence

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?