Liu Shaoqi visits Hunan, 1961.

Since the food shortages caused by the 1958 Great Leap Backward were such a major trauma for the people we meet during fieldwork, I’ve just added a tag in the sidebar for famine. See also the Maoism tag.

Indeed, this was no mere “three years of difficulty”: food shortages began even before the Leap, and continued throughout the Cultural Revolution right until the collapse of the commune system in the late 1970s.

Among the main articles are:

• Cultural Revolutions
• Ukraine and China (both these posts list some of the main sources; and for more on Ukraine, see under Life behind the Iron Curtain: a roundup)
• Blind minstrels of Ukraine
• The Kazakh famine
• Guo Yuhua‘s distressing ethnography of a Shaanbei village
• China: commemorating trauma
• The temple of memories
• Clues from Hunan

The famine also features in many of the pages under Local ritual; it’s a theme of my work on Gaoluo (see e.g. A tribute to two local ritual leaders) and the Li family Daoists. Indeed, while there are many fine studies dedicated to the subject, it should be a recurring theme in coverage of local society, expressive culture, and people’s lives.

North Xinzhuang, Beijing suburbs 1959.