Anthropology In China Research Articles

THE HISTORY OF SINO-RUSSIAN COMMUNICATIONS ON ANTHROPOLOGY: WITH THE EXAMPLE OF DONG TICHEN, THE FIRST CHINESE ANTHROPOLOGIST WHO STUDIED IN THE SOVIET UNION

Introduction. The centennial development of physical anthropology in China can be divided into three periods: 1) the initial period fr om the end of the 19th century to the founding of New China in 1949, when anthropology was imported from the West and gradually localized; 2) the unstable development period from 1949 to 1976, which was faced with a major restructuring of the discipline, the epoch of Sino-Soviet friendship, and a ten-year period of turbulence of the Cultural Revolution; 3) the period of rapid development after the reform and opening up of the country at the end of the 1970s. Materials and methods. The author presents the history of anthropological exchanges between China and Russia over the past hundred years through the study of literature and photographic sources. Results. Before the founding of New China, communications of anthropology between China and Russia was represented by S.M. Shirokogorov; after the founding of New China, it was represented by N.N. Cheboksarov; during the period of Sino-Soviet friendship, China adopted the suggestions of Soviet scientists and launched journals, translated and published monographs, and dispatched international students, Dong Tichen and Cui Chengyao, to study in the Soviet Union. Conclusion. In this article, for the first time, a large number of old photographs from private collections have been released to show the life story of Dong Tichen, the first anthropologist who went to the Soviet Union to study and returned to China. After graduating from Beijing Normal University, Dong Tichen went to Moscow University to study anthropology and obtained his Ph.D. in biology in 1961. He became a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Fudan University, wh ere he was one of the earliest teachers of anthropology in New China. His research was pioneering and prospective, for example, his proposed taxonomic position of the Gigantopithecus was very forward-looking; he created a precedent in the study of dermatoglyphics in China and contributed to the foundations of anthropometrics. His return solidified the discipline of anthropology at Fudan University, and during his short life he trained several students who would become the mainstay of anthropology in the new China in the future. Unfortunately, he died in 1966, as a result of social unrest and change.

China in and out of World Anthropologies: Epistemic Politics Amidst Historical Ironies and Contemporary Realities

Since the early 2000s, scholars have proposed the notion of “world anthropologies” to expose the pluralistic nature of anthropology, and to counter the colonial legacy embedded in knowledge production. This paper discusses how anthropological knowledge in and of China contributes to, is distant from, and challenges, such intellectual movement at both intellectual and institutional levels. First, unlike Western anthropology which shifts from colonialism to liberalism and then to postcolonialism, anthropology in China began with a progressive agenda of anti-colonialism, and then leaned toward liberalism. In the context of China’s rise, “China” has been further embroiled in a puzzle of imperialism. This reversed ideological tendency contributes to the disorientation of the critical energy in anthropology focused on China. Second, just as China has taken an active role in the competition for education and research in a globalized, yet uneven academia through discipline construction, anthropology in the West, particularly the United States, has become provincialized in terms of its intellectual agendas. Many of the younger generation of Chinese anthropologists have become stuck in the disjuncture, struggling to channel their critical energy through engaged scholarship, both within and beyond academic institutions. The epistemic politics in and of China, at both the intellectual and institutional levels, reveals that the post-socialist condition deserves to be reference points in world anthropologies. If decolonization posits treating plural standpoints as equal, then being counted in the decolonizing efforts necessitates subscribing to the dominant framework. Thus, more attention to the post-socialist condition, and ultimately the pluralization of the reference points of political potency, should truly pluralize, and ultimately decolonize, anthropology.

Foundation and Frontier – Centenary Path of Dental Anthropology in China

Dental anthropology has been developed for 100 years in China. In this paper, the author reviews the articles on dental anthropology related to Chinese materials in the past one hundred years and briefly introduces the issues involved such as human evolution, and the interaction of different populations in historical periods. Results and discussion. The work of foreign scholars has been the foundation of Chinese paleoanthropology and dental anthropology since the discovery of the Hetao human teeth and the Zhoukoudian site. Since then, dental anthropology in China has gone through a phase of material accumulation, a phase of introducing the American ASUDAS in the 1990s, and a phase of prosperity in the last 30 years. The numerous discoveries and the application of new techniques have brought Chinese dental anthropology to an international level. Until now, there are more than 70 human fossil sites in China, over 60 of which contain human dental remains. Less material has been found from the early Pleistocene, and there is some controversy on whether they belong to the genus Homo. While early Middle Pleistocene Homo erectus teeth show primitiveness and some special features, the late Middle Pleistocene human teeth show greater variability, and mosaic features, and there is some controversy on whether some fossils belong to early Homo sapiens or other taxa. The Late Pleistocene human dentition is related to the question of how and when early modern human appeared in China and the evolution of early modern humans. However, due to the incompleteness of the material, the question of human origins is a matter of multidisciplinary and comprehensive interpretation. About 10 sites were studied from Neolithic to modern human dentition using the American ASUDAS. These results show the consistency of non-metric traits in teeth and skulls, display differences between northern and southern Chinese populations, and reveal the exchange between northwestern Chinese and western populations. Some of these results have been confirmed by paleogenomics. Conclusion. Anthropologists began to pay more attention to the morphology of modern human teeth. In the future, the application of new methods and the collection of modern human materials will help us better understand the evolution of ancient humans, population interaction.

The Fruits of Business Anthropology in China (Book Review)

This (Business Anthropology: New Progress in China. By Chen Gang and Tian Guang. North American Business Press, 2022) is an exciting compilation of ethnographies in Western China by the authors and their colleagues. But “exciting” is probably not the first reaction that surfaces in looking only at the chapter titles – roads, food service, NGOs, and entrepreneurs are topics that seem likely to arouse little interest except to those whose research lies in these areas. Likewise female smokers, border markets, urban-rural relations, and stone pot chicken may appear to be eccentric topics at first glance. But the talented ethnographers who conducted this research and wrote these chapters are able to deftly develop their topics and to make them come alive. They then step back and allow us to contemplate the broader significance of the patterns of business and consumer behavior that they have discovered. They show how changes hailed as modernization are affecting several of China’s 55 ethnic minorities and their engagement with Han Chinese and foreigners from Vietnam, Korea, Laos, and Myanmar. In one case they are able to step even farther back and contrast Asian and African time styles and business styles and to use the chapter to comment on China’s soft power and its Belt and Road initiative in Africa.

For Those Who Played: Representing Indigenous Music in The Complete Works of Zhuang Xueben

This essay investigates a certain type of archival photographs – photographic records of music and performing scenes – included in The Complete Works of Zhuang Xueben, published by Zhonghua Book Company in 2009. Born in 1909 and died in 1984, Zhuang has widely been recognized as a pioneering figure of documentary photography and visual anthropology in China, whose photographic and written records of indigenous groups in Xikang (now parts of Tibet Autonomous Region and Sichuan Province) have won him significant reputation throughout the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China eras. The Complete Works contains more than 3,200 photographs he took during his several ethnological fieldworks between 1934 to the 1950s, involving indigenous people belonging to Tibetan, Qiang, Hui and Tu ethnicities. The purpose of sorting out and re-organizing the music-themed photographs in The Complete Works is to respond to recent debates among Chinese academics over Zhuang Xueben’s photography. It uses music iconography as its method of analysis, guiding the reader to grasp the “rhythms” embedded in these “musical images”.

The Development of Business Anthropology in China

As an important branch of applied anthropology, business anthropology has developed well in China in the recent past. This has attracted the attention of not only the academic society but also of industrial and commercial circles. This article illustrates the emergence and the development of business anthropology in China, and affirms the work of Chinese pioneers in this branch of cultural anthropology. It elaborates on what contemporary management and anthropological scholars have contributed to promote business anthropology in that country. Moreover, it expounds, from various perspectives, on the role that business anthropology can play for/in China. China is a large country developing at an astonishing speed. Chinese society is transforming from a traditional agricultural and pre-industrial phase into a post-industrial and commercial phase. Therefore, the development of business anthropology in China is promising.

História, Prática, Limitações e Perspectivas: Antropologia na China

Abstract Anthropology in China has a century long history. This article examines its origin, development, practices, and limitations throughout history briefly. It is argued that the history of anthropology in China has always been influenced by the state politics; its ups and downs has been determined by the state policy, and thus lacks academic autonomy. In the era of reform-open, however, Chinese anthropology received its spring. Several fields of new were developed along with international anthropology; the discipline has produced many PhDs. Many universities and colleges have established their own programs or departments. There are some problems, however, are underneath. Nonetheless, all negative conditions would push Chinese anthropologists forward to learn more, strengthening theoretical and critical thinking and searching for new subjects and new problems.

Basis for the formation of media anthropology in China (philosophical and anthropological analysis)

Due to the development of media resources, the influence of the Internet in China has led to significant changes in all spheres of life. As a result of the widespread use of media, we have witnessed changes in culture, lifestyles and individuals. Through analyzing the current media culture in China, we have concluded that the media has had a significant impact on education, democracy, aesthetics, literature, language and communication. Through media, human problems are exacerbated. Examples include, dependency on online media leading to the loss of subjectivity, excessive information without classification resulting in the “disappearance of childhood”, online media affecting the socialization of adolescents, etc. By examining media culture, we can say that a new philosophical orientation has been establishing in China, namely media anthropology, which focuses on the impact of media culture on people, both in virtual and real life. This is evidenced by the latest data from scientific publications. Turning to research in the field of philosophy, sociology, cultural studies, education and adding an ethnographic method, we analyzed the specifics of media culture in China and came to the following conclusions. First, the historicity and humanity of traditional culture have been transformed. Moreover, the value of culture has been disparaged due to the unconscious influence of online entertainment and the general commercial nature of network platforms. Second, people have accustomed themselves to communicating via online media in China. Yet this virtual communication eliminates the emotional component, leaving only instantaneous text input. Hence, by trying to maintain digital social contact, people have “fallen” into social dependence, and leading to exhaustion. Researchers have also noted that online reading is beginning to dominate over paper reading, especially for the younger generation. Because online media is extraordinarily complicated, mixed with images, colors, animation, and other elements, it distracts and prevents the reader from focusing on the content, as well as disrupting logical reading. Thus, under these new conditions of existence man’s issues are discussed under the direction of such philosophy as philosophical media anthropology.

Exploring the Frontier of Chinese Ethnic Minority Education: An Interview With Prof. Xing Teng

Xing Teng has spearheaded ethnic minority education and educational anthropology in China. As a member of the Han majority and an ally to ethnic minority groups, he has endeavored to open space for ethnic minority education in China. I sat down with Professor Teng in the summer of 2018. After transcribing the original interview into Chinese and in consultation with Professor Teng, four segments from the interview are translated for this Special Issue, with added footnotes. Statements are also included in the text for clarity. The final version has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

Development of Business Anthropology in China

Chinese scholars and practitioners are embracing business anthropology (a branch of applied anthropology) in a distinctive manner that explores cultural diversity and the impacts of economic development. The knowledgeable, spirited, and passionate advocacy for the development and value of business anthropology in China is clearly displayed and set out clearly and persuasively; the major theoretic contributions made by the Chinese scholars is presented along with China's profound reforming and opening. Anthropologists from around the world can benefit from an analysis of these important and distinctive developments.

World anthropologies: Disciplinary transformations within systems of power

From world anthropologies’ perspective, in this article we explore the diversity of anthropologies being practiced around the world in the early twenty-first century and the ways in which the pluralizing potential of globalization might enable anthropologists worldwide to benefit from this diversity. Our critical standpoint on the monotony and incompleteness of the current international anthropological landscape, as it has come to be structured by hegemonic forces, stems from the conviction that assuming their own diversity is a crucial (political, scholarly) strategy for anthropologies if they are to reproduce and enhance themselves in a globalized world.

Non-Economic Factors Impacts on Economy: On Interphase Operating Principle

The famous China's economic anthropology theorist Yang Tingshuo proposes an interphase operating model according to China's national conditions. This theoretical model, from the economic anthropological perspective, fully illustrates the non-economic factors of economic and social development in the country’s ethnic minority-dominated areas. It puts forward a new strategic proposal, from an economic anthropological way of thinking, to convert the non-economic factors into positive ones to promote socioeconomic development of minority dominated regions. This theoretical model has made a meaningful contribution to the development of economic anthropology with Chinese characteristics in the process of localizing economic anthropology in China.

Environmental Changes and Human Behaviors in China: On Environmental Anthropology with the Chinese Characteristics

Deterioration of global environmental problems endangered the development of human society. The current study discusses the sustainable development of economic construction and environmental protection in China. It utilizes valuable theoretical and practical methods of modern western environmental anthropology to evaluate the creating and developing process of environmental anthropology with Chinese characteristics. It aims to make contributions to overall development of environmental anthropology in China, both theoretically and practically.

Domesticating Tourism Anthropology in China

Domesticating Tourism Anthropology in China

The contributions of Chinese anthropology: A conversation between Roberto Malighetti and Yang Shengmin

This article is the product of a long-term relationship between Prof. Yang Shengmin (Minzu University of China) and Prof. Roberto Malighetti (University of Milano-Bicocca). It is the outcome of a scientific collaboration that started in 2012 in Beijing, continued with the conference Anthropologies From in China. The First Italian Conference (University of Milano-Bicocca, 13.12. 2013), and was consolidated by the didactic activities at the Minzu University of China. It took the present form in the course of a conversation in the offices of the Collaborative Innovation Center for Ethnic Minority Development (Minzu University, Beijing) on the 6th of June 2016. Transcribed and then revised by both authors, the text considers the importance of Chinese anthropology and its contribution to the international dialogue. It probes the possibilities open to Chinese anthropology to offer an original articulation of its tradition with the Western influences that accompanied, from the very beginning, the development of anthropology in China. The Chinese innovative proposals are synthetized under three approaches: the historical, the Marxist, the applied, and the study of minorities.

The general state of anthropology in China and its future outlook

This article first presents a brief review of the historical development of anthropology in China. Anthropology and ethnology were introduced to China together with other Western social sciences at the beginning of the twentieth century. But in the early 1950s, anthropology was eliminated as an academic discipline and replaced by ethnology in universities and colleges in China. Then in 1981, as a result of China’s reform and open-door policy, anthropology was revived as a discipline; however, its academic status still remains ambiguous in China today. Despite all its difficulties, Chinese anthropology has developed substantially since the 1980s. This article summarizes the significant contributions that Chinese anthropology has made so far, and foretells what it can do in relation to world anthropology in the future.

Anthropology in China today

Chinese anthropology has traversed a hundred-year course. It started with bright achievements, and was expected to make indispensable contributions to world anthropology. In the second half of the twentieth century, however, it mainly served the state’s “ethnicities study” policy. Only in the past three decades has it experienced a process of restoration and progress. Anthropologists of other Eastern Asian countries have been conscious of the structure of world anthropology, and have reflected on their peripheral position within it, but Chinese anthropologists seem trapped in China’s particular circumstances, encountering different challenges from those of other East Asian societies. This article discusses four issues: the position of anthropology as a discipline in China, ideas of indigenous anthropology in China, the current situation of Chinese anthropology, and the gap between Chinese anthropology and anthropologies in other societies.

Frontier Anthropology and Chinese Colonialism in the Southwestern Frontier During the Second Sino-Japanese War

This essay explores the connections between colonialism, nationalism, and anthropology in China's southwestern frontier. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the pressing problem of national survival encouraged the Nationalist state and anthropologists to collaborate in an effort to civilize and develop the southwestern frontier area. Intensive investigations into the non-Han frontier societies and proposals to assimilate these peoples and their cultures produced during this time helped set the foundation for the aggressive and complete colonization of the area by the Communists later. This essay makes clear how colonial activities, including employing anthropological knowledge as a tool of control, were often legitimized by the state and the intellectual as efforts of “nation building.” The legacy of Chinese colonialism of the frontier—as well as its continuing impact—is reflected in increasing conflicts between the dominant Han and the non-Han and the militant separatist activism of the latter in today's China.

The Development Course of Art Anthropology in China since the New Period

The Development Course of Art Anthropology in China since the New Period

Chinese anthropology and its domestication projects: de-westernisation,bentuhuaand overseas ethnography

After relocating to a Chinese context, anthropology inevitably went through a process of domestication: successive initiatives have been undertaken to make the discipline Chinese. This article aims to examine the aspirations and experiments of domesticating anthropology in China by looking at several moments of its development including the emerging globally focused Chinese anthropology. The objective here is not to retrace the history of the discipline in China in detail, but to identify specific moments while placing them within the broader context of a modern division of intellectual labour and power relations.