Marks and Their Erasures: Ford Foundation and the Politics of the Transnational in Contemporary China

Abstract

This research report is part of a more systematic discussion about the contemporary politics of the transnational in China. It looks at the Ford Foundation's engagements with China and takes Chinese women-related programs as the focal point for thinking about the changing politics of Chinese actors in a longue-durée historical perspective. Departing from the present-day erasure of the undisputably critical role the Ford Foundation played in Chinese women's efforts to organize, the report utilizes the Ford Foundation records at the Rockefeller Archive Center to reconstruct the context of the Foundation's interest in China, in general, and in Chinese women, in particular. Finally, this report briefly addresses further questions and research directions related to the discussed issues and material