We are proud to announce the establishment of the first Research Institute of Anthropology in Shanghai, and indeed one of the very few in China. Headed by Professor Nicholas Tapp, a lifelong expert on the Hmong (Miao) people of China and Southeast Asia, the Institute comprises 7 full-time faculty with doctoral qualifications in socio-cultural anthropology from the University of Alberta, London University, Beijing University, the University of California (Berkeley), University of California (Los Angeles), the City University of Hong Kong, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Courses are taught in a mixture of Chinese and English. Institute faculty teach some undergraduate courses in socio-cultural anthropology as part of the Bachelor of Law programme in Sociology, but the main focus is on graduate training through a new MA in Anthropology and a PhD programme in Anthropology. The Institute also includes the Centre of Ethnicity and Development which concentrates research and teaching in the areas of development and ethnicity. All faculty members are also members of the Centre to which a number of outstanding outside researchers in anthropology are also attached. The Anthropology programme also benefits from summer courses taught by Professor Yan Yunxiang of the University of California, Los Angeles.
The Institute enjoys close relations with the Research Institute of Folklore Studies, and also with the Sociology Department, the Department of Social Work, and the Research Institute of Population Studies, all of which are housed within the same School of Social Development. A regular seminar series is held at which faculty members and external visitors present the results of recent and current research. Currently we are developing programmes in four specialised sub-fields of Anthropology; Visual Anthropology, the Anthropology of Food, Development (Applied) Anthropology, and Urban Anthropology. With the support of the Ethnography Division of Ogilvy and Mather, we have established a Visual Ethnography Laboratory and resource centre which already houses a respectable archive of ethnographic films and editing equipment; visual anthropology is now being taught at both undergraduate and graduate levels. We also intend to establish a memory bank of traditional plants to demonstrate the connections between cultural and biological diversity. Urban anthropology is being furthered by a current project on ethic minority migrant labourers in Shanghai, while a recently concluded evaluation of a major UNESCO programme to include culture in development for ethnic minorities, together with a graduate project on social issues in China sponsored by Ogilvy and Mather, represents an initial contribution to the field of applied and development anthropology which we anticipate will lead to further consultancy opportunities for our members and research students.
Faculty members pursue their own research interests in fields ranging from religion and ethnic minorities to cultural heritage, historical memory and ethnobotany, health and the anthropology of money. Future Research will concentrate on new understandings of the urban/rural interface, the links between locality and globalization and transnational influence, changing notions of the body, governmentality, histories of the self and individuality in China, diverse forms of spirituality in the modern world, cultural difference and identity, and environmental constraints on cultural behaviours. The programme will also contribute to urban studies by allowing in-depth intensive small-scale studies of local communities within urban settings focusing on the relations between transnational influences and urbanisation, and the links between urbanisation, modernity and development.
Funding support will be sought from international and national agencies to support specific research topics in which graduate researchers can be involved, on topics such as migration, ethnicity, development, religion, education, and environmental and gender issues. Specific aims and targets over the next several years include the preparation of a textbook and reader of anthropological research suitable for the Chinese context, an edited collection by members of the Institute, the organization of a national conference on the ethnography of Southwest China, the organization of international conference on the anthropology of China, the establishment of a funded visitors’ programme, and ultimately a fully-fledged undergraduate programme in the subject.
Broader and more fundamental aims will be to 1) train and educate a new cohort of socially and culturally aware social scientists familiar with anthropological readings, anthropological techniques and theories and their practical applications in a wide range of fields including visual, ecological, and developmental anthropology; 2) to support the intensive and long-term fieldwork of graduate researchers in a variety of social settings in China; 3) to forge international linkages and specific local networks which will be of benefit to our research students; 4) to locate and find work opportunities in China’s job market for our graduates; 5) to match their skills with work opportunities in China; and 6) to produce a range of academic theses and publications including an in-house Journal dedicated to the field of socio-cultural anthropology and its practical applications in China. Fieldwork is the basis of our discipline and it will be a priority to encourage long-term and intensive fieldwork-based research on issues of topical concern and interest at all levels. We intend to develop specific research clusters on gender and processes of social exclusion and marginalization, migration processes and their importance in changing local landscapes, and the changing roles of ecology and food. We also hope to hire an Assistant to assist in the management of the visual anthropology laboratory and other matters within the coming year.
