Blindness and occupation in a Chinese city

This book is a collection of articles coordinated by Belgian anthropologist and disability scholar Patrick Devlieger in collaboration with colleagues at KU Leuven programs in social and cultural anthropology and students and staff at Yunnan University’s Graduate School of Anthropology and Ethnology.

The focus of the book is people with visual impairments’ occupations in the urban landscape of Kunming. Occupation is meant to be multidimensional, including what people do and how they embody the urban space, leading into its creative use with its social, economic, political, and spiritual implications.

The book concentrates on the most obvious occupation of blind massage in Kunming, but also fortune teller are distinct occupations of blind people. Thus, the book opens to local knowledge in urban settings in contemporary China.