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Departmental seminar on
Controlling the Population: From Family Social Science to Family Planning in 20th Century China, Taiwan, and Korea
Dr. Elizabeth LaCouture
Department of History, The University of Hong Kong
Date: 17 January 2018 (Wed)
Time: 17:00 – 18:30
Venue: Room 201, 2/F, May Hall, The University of Hong Kong
Enquiry: (852) 3917-5772, ihss@hku.hk
Abstract
This talk explores how US-led social science in pre World War II China paved the way for family planning programs in Cold War Taiwan and southern Korea. Before World War II, foreign social scientists working in and on China invented the developmental binary of the backward East Asian family/modern Western family. During the Cold War, when US social scientists could no longer work in China, they applied ideas of the backward Chinese family to East Asia, especially to US client states Taiwan and the Republic of Korea. Thus, the myth of the large backward East Asian family became development policy as new international organizations linked limiting family size to economic development and global security. Looking at how pre-war social science of the East Asian family became post-war development policy, this paper proposes a genealogy not only of the modernization paradigm of the developmental family model, but also of the idea of East Asia as an area bounded by social and cultural similarities..
About the Speaker
Elizabeth LaCouture is an Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities, Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on the history of women and gender in 20th century China, especially material culture and everyday life.
Dr. LaCouture joined HKU in August 2017 to teach and research on Gender Studies in the Faculty of Arts. She joins HKU from the US where she taught at Colby College for several years and was a research fellow in the Academy of Korean Studies funded Korean Family in Comparative Perspective Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois. She earned her PhD in Chinese history in Columbia University’s Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.
Departmental seminar on
Controlling the Population: From Family Social Science to Family Planning in 20th Century China, Taiwan, and Korea
Dr. Elizabeth LaCouture
Department of History, The University of Hong Kong
Date: 17 January 2018 (Wed)
Time: 17:00 – 18:30
Venue: Room 201, 2/F, May Hall, The University of Hong Kong
Enquiry: (852) 3917-5772, ihss@hku.hk
Abstract
This talk explores how US-led social science in pre World War II China paved the way for family planning programs in Cold War Taiwan and southern Korea. Before World War II, foreign social scientists working in and on China invented the developmental binary of the backward East Asian family/modern Western family. During the Cold War, when US social scientists could no longer work in China, they applied ideas of the backward Chinese family to East Asia, especially to US client states Taiwan and the Republic of Korea. Thus, the myth of the large backward East Asian family became development policy as new international organizations linked limiting family size to economic development and global security. Looking at how pre-war social science of the East Asian family became post-war development policy, this paper proposes a genealogy not only of the modernization paradigm of the developmental family model, but also of the idea of East Asia as an area bounded by social and cultural similarities..
About the Speaker
Elizabeth LaCouture is an Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities, Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on the history of women and gender in 20th century China, especially material culture and everyday life.
Dr. LaCouture joined HKU in August 2017 to teach and research on Gender Studies in the Faculty of Arts. She joins HKU from the US where she taught at Colby College for several years and was a research fellow in the Academy of Korean Studies funded Korean Family in Comparative Perspective Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois. She earned her PhD in Chinese history in Columbia University’s Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.
Title:
Controlling the Population: From Family Social Science to Family Planning in 20th Century China, Taiwan, and Korea
Speaker:
Dr. Elizabeth LaCouture (Department of History, The University of Hong Kong)
Date:
January 17, 2018
Time:
5:00 pm – 6:30 pm
Venue:
Room 201, 2/F, May Hall, The University of Hong Kong (Map)
Language:
English
Enquiry:
(Tel) (852) 3917-5772
(Email) ihss@hku.hk
This talk explores how US-led social science in pre World War II China paved the way for family planning programs in Cold War Taiwan and southern Korea. Before World War II, foreign social scientists working in and on China invented the developmental binary of the backward East Asian family/modern Western family. During the Cold War, when US social scientists could no longer work in China, they applied ideas of the backward Chinese family to East Asia, especially to US client states Taiwan and the Republic of Korea. Thus, the myth of the large backward East Asian family became development policy as new international organizations linked limiting family size to economic development and global security. Looking at how pre-war social science of the East Asian family became post-war development policy, this paper proposes a genealogy not only of the modernization paradigm of the developmental family model, but also of the idea of East Asia as an area bounded by social and cultural similarities.
Elizabeth LaCouture is an Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities, Department of History at the University of Hong Kong. Her research focuses on the history of women and gender in 20th century China, especially material culture and everyday life.
Dr. LaCouture joined HKU in August 2017 to teach and research on Gender Studies in the Faculty of Arts. She joins HKU from the US where she taught at Colby College for several years and was a research fellow in the Academy of Korean Studies funded Korean Family in Comparative Perspective Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois. She earned her PhD in Chinese history in Columbia University’s Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.
