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On a hot summer day, Wang Guiping attended her divorce trial at the Xiqing People’s Tribunal. Taking an unfaithful spouseto court would, Guiping thought, help her end a hopeless relationship and actualize her lawful rights upon divorce. Later that day, Guiping would find herself betrayed not only by her husband, but by the court system and her own legal counsel. Taking this case as a point of departure, Ke Li recounts decades-long research on divorce litigation in rural China in her book Marriage Unbound. Ultimately, this talk articulates a firm belief: divorce, seemingly prosaic, offers a unique window onto phenomena of great importance to sociologists, political scientists, sociolegal researchers, and China scholars.
Ke Li is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice/CUNY. Her research focuses on law, legal professions, courts, and women’s rights in China. She is the author of, Marriage Unbound: State Law, Power, and Inequality in Contemporary China (Stanford University Press, 2022). The book has received awards from the Law and Society Association, the American Political Science Association, and the American Sociological Association, respectively.