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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*
Affiliation:
Ginling College, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China

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.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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