Mothering in a Polluted, Developing China: Class, Risk perception, and Environmentalist Motherhood BY JIALIN LI B.A., East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 2003 M.A., East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 2007 THESIS Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Chicago, 2019 Chicago, Illinois Defense Committee: Claire L. Decoteau, Chair and Advisor Paul-Brian McInerney Anthony Orum Crystal Patil, College of Nursing Amy Hanser, University of British Columbia This thesis is dedicated to all the mothers whose stories are told here. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On a sunny spring afternoon, I was preparing for my lecture about Diane Bates’ book Superstorm Sandy: The Inevitable Destruction and Reconstruction of the Jersey Shore in the library of the College of New Jersey. It was my second time to lecture this book. But I was still mesmerized by the section where Diane detailed all the pop culture (e.g., songs, TV dramas) that people use to construct their symbolic identity of being a New Jerseyan. I am particularly interested in Bruce Springsteen’s song My Hometown, a song which was first recorded in 1983 when Bruce was only 35. The entire song beautifully describes Bruce’s attachment to New Jersey, as a child in the 1950s, as a teenage in the 1960s, and as an adult in the 1980s. In its third verse, Bruce detailed a deteriorating New Jersey where textile mills were being closed and jobs were disappearing. The lyrics immediately reminded me of my childhood as my parents were textile factory workers for decades before they retired. The closing textile mills somehow “moved” to the other side of the world. Back then, the best machines in my parents’ factory were imported from Germany and the best-quality clothes were equally exported to Europe, the United States, as well as Japan. In the closet of my home, we had piles of defective underwear clothes from the factory. I was happy to wear free underwear. My father told me they were all with good quality (Now I think, what he meant is that they were all good enough for Chinese consumers). I decided to write down this little vignette here as it symbolizes what I have been struggling with in the past few years and what I hope this dissertation can somehow accomplish. In the first half of graduate school, I struggled with what America is in some very America- centered courses, such as race and ethnicity, gender & sexuality, and racial segregation. These topics are very important. But without embodied experience in the United States, I found it extremely difficult to acquire a deeper understanding of the readings. In the second half of my i graduate studies, I struggled with what China is after being away from China for many years and by repeatedly analyzing a set of data that I collected in China several years ago. Being Chinese, I believe it’s immoral to cook the Chinese stories into something that doesn’t have any Chinese flavor. Using English to analyze and present the data is itself an alienating process. My mind is full of fear and reverence if my analyses could not resonate with my sociology friends in China and if my use of theories could not resonate with my sociology friends in the United States. Fortunately, I have had a lot of help in the past few years who used their wisdom, love, and patience to guide me to find the lynchpins, like the “textile mill” in Bruce Springsteen’s song. Mothers I owe special thanks to all the mothers who shared with me their experience of pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and all related stories in Shanghai. Your stories collectively nurtured this dissertation, and nurtured my own experience of pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. I remember all your faces, voices, and I feel grateful to be a part of your “mothering” memory. This dissertation is for all of you. I hope that it doesn’t disappoint you. Advisor and professors I want to thank my entire committee members, Claire Decoteau, Amy Hanser, Anthony Orum, Paul-Brian McInerney, and Crystal Patil. I owe a lot to my advisor Claire Decoteau. Claire is a great theoretical scholar whom I deeply admire and feel thankful to have gotten the chance to work with. Having someone like her to look up to is stressful, yet positively stressful. I took two courses with Claire, one is Contemporary Sociological Theory and the other is Sociology of Body. These are two of my ii favorite courses at UIC. Her reading group on science, knowledge, and culture also exposed me to an exciting research field. I feel very fortunate to have her read chapter drafts repeatedly. I know it is a luxury. Getting to know Amy Hanser has completely changed my trajectory in the United States. She went to my previous university in Shanghai to give a talk. My husband was there and recorded her lecture. At that time, she was interested in my master thesis about street vendors. In the summer of 2012, I met with Amy in person at ASA. She was the nicest person you could possibly talk to (not only because she is working in Canada). During the conversation, I explained to her that I wanted to study pregnant women for my dissertation. What followed afterwards was that she approached me to conduct interviews for her project about infant formula, and we ended up co-authoring two pieces. These two pieces laid out the foundation of my dissertation. Tony Orum is my dearest friend in the United States. His passion for research and his generosity for mentoring young scholar are everything that I could dream of. I was TA for Paul- Brian’s Introduction to Sociology class. In his class, it was my first-hand experience and learning that I could have so much fun to read and think about sociological theories. I took Crystal Patil’s course Global Perspectives on Women Health where I got the chance to discuss the academic discussions on pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, etc. In retrospect, I wish I could’ve taken this course a few years later. But it was a truly eye-opening class for me. I also want to express my gratitude to Norah Mackendrick, Tony Roshan Samara, all TCNJ SOC345 (2018 Spring, 2019 Spring) students. iii Whenever I talk to Norah, I feel respect and love. She is knowledgeable and caring. My dissertation was deeply influenced by her fascinating book about precautionary consumption and body burden. Without her encouragement, I don’t think I could’ve completed the chapter about radiation-shielding maternity clothes. Tony Roshan Samara wrote me an important recommendation letter that brought me to the United States. I was extremely nervous when I first met with him at a Starbucks in Shanghai. I brought a map of Shanghai and used my broken English to pitch my research about street vendors to him. To my surprise, he was extremely nice and kept his promise to mail me the book, For the City Yet to Come, all the way from the United States several months after our conversation. It was that meeting with Tony that convinced me that it was a right decision to pursue my research in the United States, although he himself had left academia and is working on something bigger. At TCNJ, I feel very fortunate to teach a course that is related to my research interest. It was during the class discussions with students that I acquired a deeper understanding of what America is. Using this as a mirror, I feel I can deeply analyze China through better lens. Finally, I want to say thank you to a lot of my friends who are in Chicago, Shanghai, and New Jersey. They are Amy Brainer, Soulit Chacko, Kelly Eileen, Heather Gifford, Katharine McCabe, Ray Sin, Ryan Sporer, Paige Sweet, Yingfang Chen,Vivian Chen, Zhe Sun, Xiaojing Tang, Sui Tsui, Wei Wei, Erik Zuniga, Diane Bates, Miriam Shakow, and Lindsay Stevens. Space/Time/Family I want to thank New Jersey as a whole. This place gave birth to my dissertation. As an international student who lives out of campus, I have constantly been looking for an affordable iv place where I could sit, focus, and write. I “gave” birth to Chapter 2 at Rutgers Library, Chapter 3 at East Brunswick Public Library, and Chapter 4 in my adjunct office at the College of New Jersey and Franklin Park Public library. I am grateful that these public spaces welcomed me and provided me with books without checking my IDs. One thing that is unique about interviewing pregnant women is they (and their children) constantly remind you how fast time can fly. Meanwhile, my own daughter reminds me of how little my dissertation is compared with a real (demanding) happy child. I also want to thank my parents, Guoxiang Li and Shipin Xu. Words cannot express how much I love them, and how much I feel indebted to them. In the past eight years, we didn’t get to see each other a lot, and they have been strong enough to take care of each other (and worrying about me, their only child, all the time). I’m grateful that they are still physically mobile and psychologically healthy. I appreciate everything they have done for me, and I respect how much they have sacrificed and endured when they were young in China. I also want to thank all my family members in Shanghai. Without them, there is no way I can complete this dissertation.