Beyond Bias
Critical Analysis and Layered Reading of Mao-Era Sources
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12423760 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sigrid Schmalzer (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 759-782 |
| Publication date | 2021-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | positions asia critique (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1067-9847 • E-ISSN: 1527-8271 |
| Publisher | Duke University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1215/10679847-9286688 |
| OpenAlex | W3210651521 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 13 |
Scholars of Mao-era history adopt a wide range of approaches to the selection and treatment of source material. Some scholars regard published sources as propaganda, and therefore as biased and unreliable. For many, archival sources are the gold standard; others question the reliability even of the archive and favor materials that escaped the filtering fingers of the state to be found in flea markets or garbage piles. Avoiding the false choice of either accepting sources as received wisdom or dismissing them as biased, the author argues that how scholars read their sources is more important than which they keep and which they throw away. She advocates for a layered approach that accounts for contexts of production and circulation, and further emphasizes the need to make this process of reading sources visible in our writing. A critical, layered reading of three unlikely sources demonstrates the myriad possibilities for analysis that combines the empirical, the discursive, and the self-reflexive
Aesthetics · Art · Critical reading · Epistemology · Political science · Reading (process · Reflexivity · Situated · Social science · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · Computer Science · History · Law · Philosophy · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies
The Gender of MemoryRural Women and China's Collective Past
The Inner Quarters
Maoism at the Grassroots
Speaking about China, Learning from China
We, too
The Silver Flower Contest’
Women's Work and the Politics of Homespun in Socialist China, 1949–1980
Breeding a Better China
Mao's Great Famine
Picturing Power in the People's Republic of China
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |