Passage to Manhood addresses the intersection of modernity, heroin use, and HIV/AIDS as they are embodied in a new rite-of-passage among young men in the Sichuan province of southwestern China. Through a nuanced analysis of the Nuosu population, this book seeks to answer why the Nuosu has a disproportionately large number of opiate users and HIV positive individuals relative to others in Sichuan. By focusing on the experiences of Nuosu migrants and drug users, it shows how multiple modernities, individual yearnings, and societal resilience have become entwined in the Nuosu's calamitous encounter with the Chinese state and, after long suppression, their efforts at cultural reconstruction. This ethnography pits the Nuosu youths' adventures, as part of their passage to manhood, against the drastic social changes in their community and, more broadly, China over the last half century. It offers fascinating material for courses on migration, globalization, youth culture, public health, and development at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
"Shao-hua Liu offers a compelling account of a marginalized Chinese community's experience of heroin addiction and the AIDS pandemic, told through the riveting personal stories of those most affected. At the same time, the author's analysis illuminates a more general historical process affecting rural people everywhere, who are often losers in the new global market."
Dickinson College
"Liu makes it obvious why social scientists of infectious diseases and AIDS policy-makers should read this book: her multi-layered analysis based on several visits to the field (2002-8); her excellent writing style, honesty, and understanding of a complex issue."
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
"This new work is articulate and eloquent in its discussion of Nuoso without valorizing or exoticizing, and offers important reflections on how the epidemics of HIV and IV drugs build upon old forms of marginalization. The author's discussion of Chinese bipolar modernity, both socialist and capitalist, is especially nuanced."
