Associate Professor
Director of Anthropology
Sociology, Anthropology & Social Work
By Appointment
PhD, University of Southern California
Graduate Certificate, University of Southern California
A cultural anthropologist, Arianne Gaetano’s research focuses on contemporary Chinese society. She has spent several years studying language and conducting ethnographic fieldwork in China. Her 2015 book, Out to Work: Migration, Gender, and the Changing Lives of Rural Women in Contemporary China is about the experiences and consequences of internal migration on rural Chinese women’s lived experiences and life course trajectories, based on a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in Beijing and China’s countryside. Her recent research investigates changing meanings and patterns of courtship, intimacy, and marriage, as well as the trend of marriage postponement, in urban China. Gaetano’s new research uses a feminist perspective to critically evaluate China’s urbanization process and outcomes in regard to women, gender, and equality.
Gaetano is faculty affiliate of the Women's and Gender Studies Program and a contributor to the Asian Studies minor curriculum. Among the courses she regularly teaches are Women’s Studies; Anthropology of Gender; Culture, Marriage, and Family; Gender, Culture, and Development; Peoples and Cultures of Asia; Language and Culture; and Anthropological Theory.
contemporary Chinese society