Strategic commodification: The object biography of Tibetan thangka paintings in contemporary China
Strategic commodification: The object biography of Tibetan thangka paintings in contemporary China This article focuses on Tibetan thangka and thangka painters in Amdo Rebgong (Qinghai, China), who are caught between…
Body art: Living in and leaving the body behind
Body art: Living in and leaving the body behind Body painting uses a three-dimensional living canvas. While a widespread activity that can be characterized as a creative cultural scene, it…
The performative photograph: A poietic approach to visual ethnography in a French banlieue
The performative photograph: A poietic approach to visual ethnography in a French banlieue By reexamining the empirical relationship between ethnography and photography, this article explores the phenomenology of photographic experiences…
“By name and no other”: The COVID masks portrait project
“By name and no other”: The COVID masks portrait project “‘By Name and No Other’: The COVID masks portrait project” is a series of images of the photographer’s family made…
Anthro-artists: Anthropologists as makers and creatives
Anthro-artists: Anthropologists as makers and creatives Go to Source
Raw fear in Hong Kong
Raw fear in Hong Kong This article rethinks the politics of fear through the researcher’s ethnography in Hong Kong. Fear is often explored as a tool of manipulation that disempowers…
Developing indifference: Youth, place-making and belonging in a transforming urban China
Developing indifference: Youth, place-making and belonging in a transforming urban China This article examines the social impacts of urban change among a generation of people for whom it is the…
An exhibition in fieldwork form
An exhibition in fieldwork form This is an exhibition of fieldwork art adapted to the page. It is set out following the typical stages of an anthropological research project and…
Politics of indifference: Mourning Wang Yue in late-socialist China
Politics of indifference: Mourning Wang Yue in late-socialist China This article examines the changing sociological meaning of indifference in urban China after the tragic death of a two-year-old girl in…
“Bureaucratic shiyuzheng”: Silence, affect, and the politics of voice in China
“Bureaucratic shiyuzheng”: Silence, affect, and the politics of voice in China In the Chinese bureaucracy, where political imperatives for maintaining harmony require people to restrain negative affects, officials often express…
Affect, sociality, and the construction of paternalistic citizenship among family caregivers in China
Affect, sociality, and the construction of paternalistic citizenship among family caregivers in China In recent years, the Chinese state has made family members care for and manage persons diagnosed with…
Between speaking and enduring: The ineffable life of bitterness among rural migrants in Shanghai
Between speaking and enduring: The ineffable life of bitterness among rural migrants in Shanghai In the Maoist period, the Chinese socialist state encouraged the genre of “speaking bitterness” in order…
The affective life of the Nanjing Massacre: Reactivating historical trauma in governing contemporary China
The affective life of the Nanjing Massacre: Reactivating historical trauma in governing contemporary China Under the current Xi administration, China has marked December 13 as the national public Memorial Day…
Fluctuating affect: Purpose and deflation in paths of self-development
Fluctuating affect: Purpose and deflation in paths of self-development This article spotlights the role of affect in paths of “self-development,” focusing on young adults in China who engage in various…
Shameless modernity: Reflexivity and social class in Chinese personal growth groups
Shameless modernity: Reflexivity and social class in Chinese personal growth groups Critical scholars suggest that self-help psychology discourages political activism and encourages entrepreneurship by promoting a “positive” attitude. This article…
Troubling emotions in China’s psy-boom
Troubling emotions in China’s psy-boom The rise of psychological counseling, 心理咨询, as part of China’s unfolding psy-boom has brought with it a new discourse of distress. In particular, this article…
Introduction: The politics of negative affects in post-Reform China
Introduction: The politics of negative affects in post-Reform China If there is such a thing as a dominant public sphere in post-reform China, its emotional tonality has often been described…
Art, affect, and art effects
Art, affect, and art effects Go to Source
Nature and its discontents
Nature and its discontents Go to Source
One year later: Reflections on the farmers’ protest in India
One year later: Reflections on the farmers’ protest in India Beginning November 2020, over two hundred thousand farmers have gathered in a prolonged sit-in on the borders of New Delhi.…