UC professor collaborates on book on China's moral transformation, published by Columbia University Press

Gonçalo D. Santos, a professor at the Department of Life Sciences (DCV) of the Faculty of Sciences and Technology of the University of Coimbra (FCTUC) and a researcher at the Research Centre for Anthropology and Health (CIAS), has contributed to a new book on moral transformations in China, published by Columbia University Press.

The volume is the first major collective publication of the "Culture and Society" research group, part of the Initiative for US-China Dialogue on Global Issues, based at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The group is coordinated by Becky Hsu (Georgetown University) and Teresa Kuan (Chinese University of Hong Kong) and brings together anthropologists and sociologists specialising in Chinese studies, including Yunxiang Yan (University of California, Los Angeles), Richard Madsen (University of California, San Diego) and Gonçalo D. Santos.

"Our goal is to organise events and publish research that promotes a deeper and more humane understanding of Chinese society - far beyond the monolithic narratives about China that tend to dominate the international media," explains the sinologist.

In this spirit, "we have explored the major moral transformations taking place in Chinese society, proposing more intimate approaches that bring us closer to everyday experiences and show how ordinary people are coping with the challenges of an increasingly globalised society undergoing profound social and technological changes," he adds.

This first collective publication, edited by Becky Hsu and titled “The Extraordinary in the Mundane. Family and Forms of Community in China”, includes chapters on highly topical issues such as social struggles for the rights of LGBTQ and neurodivergent children, the increasing visibility of mental health issues, and the growing problem of internet addiction among adolescents.

Gonçalo D. Santos's chapter explores China's 'cultural childbirth wars', and how women are facing the practical and moral challenges that result from the hyper-medicalisation of childbirth and the routine use of C-sections.

According to the anthropologist, the medicalisation of childbirth over the past four decades has helped to reduce maternal and infant mortality during childbirth, but it has also created an over-medicalised model with negative consequences for women's well-being and deepened moral divisions within society.

"These tensions are common in countries where childbirth is highly medicalised, but the Chinese context has its particularities. One of them is how the doctor-patient relationship during childbirth is part of a legal-ethical triangle that also includes the woman's family," he explains, noting that in China, the family is seen as a fundamental part of the woman's well-being during childbirth. For this reason, doctors must obtain written consent from the family before proceeding with a C-section.

"This central role of the family in the doctor-patient relationship has practical implications for the well-being of Chinese women during childbirth and highlights the importance of studying the moral tensions within families and between women of different generations when it comes to childbirth care and the technologies and approaches that should be prioritised," the researcher argues.

According to Gonçalo D. Santos, building a more humane model of childbirth in hospitals and promoting the well-being of pregnant women requires more than quantitative studies of hospital practices. "We need qualitative ethnographic approaches capable of illuminating the moral tensions that shape hospital care practices".

His chapter Good Care in Childbirth: C-Sections as Individual or Collective Decisions, contributes to the qualitative study of these moral tensions in the Chinese context and, more broadly, illustrates why the family should be seen as a key element of women's well-being during childbirth - not only in China.

The book can be purchased from the Columbia University Press website. More information on the activities of the Culture and Society Research Group of Georgetown University's Initiative for US-China Dialogue on Global Issues is also available online.