The Victoria Schuck Award is presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) to honor the best book published on women and politics.
Ke Li is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, the City University of New York. Her research focuses on law and society in contemporary China. After receiving a joint Ph.D. in sociology and criminal justice from Indiana University, Bloomington, Li published her works in the Law & Society Review, Law & Policy, and Sociological Forum. Her book, Marriage Unbound: State Law, Power, and Inequality in Contemporary China (Stanford University Press), came out in print in 2022.
In recent years, Li has branched out into new research areas. In one project, she studies impact litigation by examining how Chinese experts, especially academics and medical professionals, help LGBTQ groups launch legal action to contest not only individual rights, but public knowledge of homosexuality, mental health, and equal employment opportunity. In another study, Li deepens inquiries into rights contention, through the lens of doctor-patient disputes in China. The ultimate goal is to cast new light on the complex interplay of economic reforms, state laws, and knowledge contestation in a transitional society.
Citation from the Award Committee:
Ke Li’s book, Marriage Unbound: State Law, Power, and Inequality in Contemporary China, elegantly untangles the many layers of political and legal bureaucracy faced by Chinese women as they seek to navigate what many would consider to be a deeply personal decision: divorce. Using ethnographic and archival analysis, along with countless hours spent in Chinese courtroom proceedings and in interviews with those involved in different layers of a legal system that tends to make divorces in China painstakingly fraught to obtain, Li reveals how the state can reach deeply into some of the most intimate aspects of women’s lives, greatly limiting their personal freedom and economic power in the process. Throughout the work, the author demonstrates that the dynamics of divorce proceedings shed light on how law and legalism operate in an autocratic political environment. Beautifully written, Marriage Unbound not only illuminates political and legal complexities in a level of detail that will become a touchstone for specialists who do work on this topic, it also provides the non-specialist reader with a fascinating window into the individual struggles of women living within political and legal frameworks developed largely by, and for, men.
APSA thanks the committee members for their service: Deborah Jordan Brooks (chair) of Dartmouth College, Peace A. Medie of the University of Ghana, and Dr. Rebecca Sanders of the University of Cincinnati.
