Our monthly colloquium resumes this September. These regular meetings are intended to facilitate discussion and exchange within the group. They will provide a forum to present and discuss work in progress and will occasionally be dedicated to organisational matters, such as plans for our DFG-Network „Anthropology and China(s): Co-constructions of Ethnographic and Academic Regions" (2021–2024). …
NEW blogpost „Methodological Mutualism: Rethinking the Agency of Local Communities in the Belt and Road Initiative“ by Verena La Mela
Richly decorated tables are the social centre of female economic chai networks in the Sino-Kazakh border town Zharkent (Photo: Verena La Mela). Verena La Mela (University of Zurich) proposes a paradigm shift towards methodological mutualism, allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of the interplay between the BRI and people on the ground. Read the blogpost: https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/belt-road/research/methodological-mutualism-rethinking-agency-local-communities-belt-and-road-initiative
NEW article on sociotechnical transformations of social policy in China by Christof Lammer
Democratic appraisal at a villagers’ group meeting in 2015, photo by Christof Lammer. China studies has suggested that the minimum livelihood guarantee (dibao) was originally designed as a market-oriented response to transformations of labour (mass layoffs, peasant proletarianisation and associated unrest) but later revamped to only combat extreme poverty. Scholars have often attributed such changes …
RG China(s) Kolloquium: Winter Semester 2023
Next up: 15 Friday, December, 12:30–13:30 Liang Siran (TU Braunschweig) will present the paper "Yaks Becoming Kin: An Ethnography of a Human-Yak Lifeway at 4800 meters altitude"
4th Conference of the Scientific Network Anthropology and China(s) „Co-Constructions of Ethnographic and Academic Regions,“ University of Erlangen–Nuremberg, 21-23 November 2023
The DFG-funded Scientific Network Anthropology and China(s) will convene its 4th conference on "Co-Constructions of Ethnographic and Academic Regions" at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg on 21-23 November 2023. Following up on three earlier conferences at the Universities of Cologne, Heidelberg and Zurich, the network will continue to work on two book projects: "China Multiple: Un/Making Ethnographic …
NEW article on „authoritarian-caring“ parenting styles in China, France and the US by Jean-Baptiste Pettier
This article reflects on the comparable dimensions of scholarly competition in what the author names "late post-revolutionary societies," in this case China, France and the US. In this essay, Jean-Baptiste Pettier tracks the emergence of an "authoritarian-caring" parenting style in the three societies and suggests to link this elite educational strategy with the equalitarianism ethos of the revolutions which these societies previously experienced. The author maintains that the revolutionary opposition to inherited privilege paradoxically transformed higher education and marriage into ultra-competitive open markets.
NEW „The People’s Map of China“ country profile on Switzerland by Lena Kaufmann
New SNSF Ambizione project on the digitalisation of agriculture in China and Europe
Congratulations: Lena Kaufmann has been awarded a highly competitive Ambizione Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation for her project "Digital agriculture: Sino-European contrasts, correspondences and collaborations". The project will provide in-depth perspectives on the challenges and opportunities of digital agricultural technologies in relation to China and Europe. The project will be based at the University of Fribourg. The collaboration partners include Oxford University, the University of Neuchâtel, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Agroscope, the Sino-German Agricultural Center, and Yunnan Agricultural University. A PhD position will be announced in the coming months.
NEW article on Urban Reconstruction in Xinjiang by Madlen Kobi
This article investigates the relatively little explored urban development in China’s Northwestern Uyghur homeland of XUAR (Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region). Based on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork between 2010 and 2017, the article outlines the ways in which Sinicization, modernisation and globalisation have simultaneously changed the morphology of XUAR’s cities. The restructuring of material urban infrastructure has also challenged local ethnic place-making. The article highlights the ways in which Uyghur urban middle-class citizens negotiate ethnicity, social status or the relation to the state through reflecting on the construction and perception of architecture.
NEW article on thermal practices to cope with summer heat in Chongqing by Madlen Kobi
Until the 1990s and the spread of air-conditioning, cooling down during the hot, humid, and windless summers in the city of Chongqing (Southwest China) was mainly practiced outdoors: sleeping on the rooftops of multistorey buildings, playing mah-jongg in the streets, fanning oneself with a hand fan or installing bamboo beds in the compounds’ leafy courtyards. With the availability of affordable electricity and the popularisation of mechanical cooling, refreshing oneself has been relocated to the indoors. The article engages with the ways in which individual cooling practices and devices are intertwined with the architectural history of the city, for example, building design, construction materials, green spaces, or the arrangement of houses.
Ethnologie Chinas 