Humanities & Social Sciences
China as context
Anthropology, post-globalisation and the neglect of China
by Di Wu, Andrea E. Pia, Ed Pulford
Description
Decades-old calls to promote the significance of China for anthropological theory and the social sciences more generally ring more urgently today given China's importance to social, political and economic life globally. Yet Chinese-grounded ideas remain marginal to the discipline, and scholarly discussions retain a sense of China as an 'Other' apart from the 'real' world, and thus unsuitable or generating widely applicable theoretical ideas.
Inspired by East Asian postcolonial scholarship, this volume tackles this unsettling situation head-on, arguing that without taking China seriously as a powerful agent, a locus of knowledge production, and a new discursive topos of an emerging post-global imaginary, anthropologists and other social scientists may fail to adequately analyse the global present and make sense of both the material and immaterial forces that animate it, wherever and however they work.
Amid the end of Western globalisation and shifting anthropological understandings of relations between ethnography and theory, we show how 'China' must be understood as the ordinary 'context' for anthropological research practices worldwide.
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Reviews
Despite its undeniable relevance, Chinese-grounded ideas languish at the periphery of scholarly discourse, perpetuating the notion of China as an enigmatic 'Other'. Drawing inspiration from East Asian postcolonial scholarship, this collective volume boldly contends that neglecting China undermines our ability to decipher the complexities of today's global landscape as well as the ordinary lives of people living at the cusp of a new Cold War. Through the lens of anthropologists hailing from diverse academic backgrounds spanning China, the UK, Europe, and North America, China as context delivers a compelling synthesis of ethnographic richness and theoretical depth. Collectively, this volume unveils China as a powerful agent, a locus of knowledge production, and a new discursive topos of an emerging post-global imaginary foundational to the analysis of the present. Amidst the waning era of Western globalization, this anthology elucidates how understanding 'China' as the ordinary 'context' for research practices worldwide is imperative. As anthropological understandings of ethnography and theory and their relation shift, China as context positions itself at the forefront of a vitally necessary conversation. It questions the role of China in knowledge production and advocates for a renewed holistic approach to the social sciences that transcends geographical boundaries and reengages scholarly inquiry with the context of its production.
Author Biography
Di Wu is a Departmental Lecturer at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford. He previously worked as a Senior Teaching Fellow at SOAS Andrea E. Pia is Assistant Professor in Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is one of the editors of the Open Access Journal Made in China Ed Pulford is an Anthropologist and Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Manchester. His research and teaching focus on anthropological and historical approaches to Eurasian borderlands, Sino-Russian relations, and comparative experiences of socialism and empire
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View all titlesBibliographic Information
- Publisher Manchester University Press
- Publication Date September 2025
- Orginal LanguageEnglish
- ISBN/Identifier 9781526184313 / 1526184311
- Publication Country or regionUnited Kingdom
- FormatPrint PDF
- Pages256
- ReadershipCollege/higher education; Professional and scholarly
- Publish StatusPublished
- Dimensions234 X 156 mm
- Biblio NotesDerived from Proprietary 6379
- SeriesAlternative Sinology
- Reference Code17023
