Men Purchase, Women Use: Coping with Domestic Electrical Appliances in Rural China

Based on a field study in a village in the northern plain of China, this paper reviews three different types in how Han-Chinese rural people have coped with domestic electrical appliances during the last 40-odd years of electrification. The aim of this paper is to offer an ethnographic study of the complex relations between technology and social life in a Chinese rural setting and to explore the logic and dynamics whereby rural populations confront and integrate new technical products into their everyday life. This paper is divided into three main parts: following the introduction on the "everyday technology approach" and background information about the field site, the author next gives a brief historical description of the electrification process in rural China. The third part is dedicated to the ethnographic data concerning five appliances: electric light, water pump, TV, washing machine and water boiler-cooler. The paper concludes with a discussion of issues concerning appropriation of new technology in the wider background of society/economy/state and everyday habitus, questioning how well conventional oppositional dichotomies like female/male, masculinity/feminity serve as analytical frameworks.