Eating Spring Rice The Cultural Politics of AIDS in Southwest China

"This book is a fabulous read—ethnographically rich, theoretically engaged, and emotionally and intellectually captivating. The first major ethnographic study of its kind, the text is very clearly written and accessible. Hyde does a majestic job of drawing the reader into the places and practices described, bringing to stunning life the politics of AIDS on a border region."—Ralph Litzinger, author of Other Chinas: The Yao and the Politics of National Belonging "Eating Spring Rice is a poignant analysis and welcomed contribution to both China Studies and to the analysis of public health in the context of the evolution of an AIDS epidemic. As a public health practitioner and anthropologist, Sandra Hyde has a keen eye and makes a compelling case for what might be done to improve the health of individuals. Hyde shows how the particular modes that social liberalization takes in China will have unforseeable consequences, offering a vivid picture that requires us to rethink public health and epidemics in radically new ways."—Cindy Patton, author of Globalizing AIDS "Sandra Hyde brings the fruits of a decade of intensive engagement in China's Yunnan province to this beautifully crafted account of the everyday practices by which AIDS and its social imaginary remake ethnicity, region, gender, and governance. Bridging medical anthropology and public health, and debates on the organization of sex work and on the Chinese politics of race and place, Eating Spring Rice should be required reading for anyone who would address the impact of emergent plague measures (SARS, avian flu) in China or elsewhere"—Lawrence Cohen, author of No Aging in India: Alzheimer's, The Bad Family, and Other Modern Things "Sandra Hyde's analysis of gender, class, language, and cultural politics is as trenchant as her challenge to China-centrism is timely. A remarkable critical accomplishment."—Rey Chow, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, Brown University