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Embodying ageing: middle-aged and older women's bodily fitness and aesthetics in urban China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Li Sheng Open the ORCID record for Li Sheng [Opens in a new window]
Li Sheng*
Affiliation:
Ginling College, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China
*
Email: lsheng1223@163.com; lisheng@njnu.edu.cn
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Abstract

This article explores the embodied practices of anti-ageing among middle-aged and older Chinese women (damas) who engage in plaza dancing (guangchangwu) as a leisure activity in urban areas. Drawing upon data collected from three months of participant observation in three different plaza dance groups and 29 semi-structured interviews with older Chinese women, I first investigate my participants’ experiences of plaza dancing in terms of health-keeping and bodily maintenance. I then analyse their usage of cosmetic products at a time when the beauty economy is booming during the post-Mao era. These female plaza dancers’ bodily regulation and ‘beautification’ indicate not only older women's strategies and struggles in the face of the double standard of ageing, but also a change in the age hierarchy under the transforming socio-cultural landscape of urban China, which is generating new social norms.

Keywords

older womenembodiment(anti-)ageingbeauty economyplaza danceurban China
Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 42 , Issue 8 , August 2022 , pp. 1844 - 1862
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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