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Global Law & Politics Network Workshop Wednesdays: Marriage Unbound: State Law, Power, and Inequality in Contemporary China

Ke Li (John Jay College CUNY)
Wednesday, December 1, 2021 - 8:00am to 9:00am
Zoom link (please register below)

Abstract: Marriage Unbound follows a group of Chinese women seeking judicial remedies for conjugal grievances and disputes. Using data from multiple sources—observations, in-depth interviews, judicial statistics, government publications, and news articles—this book presents a meticulous examination of how these women wrestle with government officials and village leaders in the front lines of dispute management; how they interact with legal professionals who make a living by serving clients; how they struggle to convey marital grievances and rights claims to judges at the grassroots level; and, in the end, how the local government, the legal profession, and the court system far too often fail to protect women’s rights and interests. Ultimately, this book shows how a study of women’s legal mobilization and rights contention can forge new ground for our understanding of law and politics, culture and the state, and power and inequality in an authoritarian context.

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