The revival of folk religion and gender relationships in rural China : a preliminary observation

Abstract

With the rapid revival of folk religions in southern China, it seems that economic modernity in the Pearl River Delta may not lead to total disenchantment with beliefs concerning magic in the cosmos. Rather, the revival of folk religions is serving as a countervailing re-embedding force from the localities, leading to the coexistence of traditional and modern elements. Through the study of the folk religions in a village in Guangdong, this paper attempts to demonstrate the preliminary observation that certain practices in folk religion have a reciprocal relationship with patrilineal gender relations in the Pearl River Delta.