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KITA Discourse Series 2025/2: “Overseas Ethnography”: New Trends in Chinese Anthropology since 21st Century
“OVERSEAS ETHNOGRAPHY”: NEW TRENDS IN CHINESE ANTHROPOLOGY SINCE 21ST CENTURY
By:
PROF. HAOQUN GONG
Xiamen University, China
1 July 2025 (Tuesday)
10.00 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.
KITA Meeting Room, Institute of Ethnic Studies (KITA), 4th Flr, Administration Block, Kolej Keris Mas, UKM Bangi
Abstract
In the past 20 years, a group of young Chinese anthropologists have conducted long-term fieldwork in local languages around the world, meticulously depicting the daily lives of ordinary people in foreign countries. In China their work is known as overseas ethnographic research. The emergence of the new term ‘overseas ethnography’ has a very distinct Chinese context. Modern anthropology emerged with the colonization of Western countries, and it can be said that “overseas” is an unspoken object of Western anthropology. Chinese anthropology was born in the early 20th century, and the country was in a difficult period of internal and external troubles. From the beginning, Chinese anthropology took Chinese society as the main research object, and established the academic value of national development. It is not until the 21st century that Chinese scholars have owned the historical conditions to go overseas and carry out long-term fieldwork in other regions or countries – which not only means the expansion of the research object of Chinese anthropology, but also could be seen as the academic action of the developing countries to participate in the narrative of the world.
Presenter’s Profile
Prof. Haoqun GONG, one of the first Chinese anthropologists who were trained in China but did their fieldwork abroad. She got Ph.D in 2005 from Peking University. Now she is professor and head at the Department of Anthropology and Ethnology, Xiamen University, China. She published works focuses on the relationship between religion, publicity and citizenship in modern Thailand, including Buddhists and Citizens: A Political Ethnography of Quxiang, Thailand (Peking University Press, 2009) and Buddhism and Its Others: A Study of Religion and Society in Modern Thailand ( Social Sciences and Academic Press, 2019).She is currently interested in transnational mobility between China and Thailand, ethnographic methodology and issues on how to build world anthropologies today.
Programme:
Date: 1 July 2025 (Tuesday)
Time: 10.00 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.
Venue: KITA Meeting Room, 4th Flr Administration Block, Kolej Keris Mas, UKM Bangi
Platform: Zoom (link below)
10.00 a.m.: Introduction & Welcoming Remarks by the Moderator
10.10 a.m.: “Overseas Ethnography”: New Trends in Chinese Anthropology Since 21st Century – Prof. Haoqun GONG
11.40 a.m.: Q & A Session
12.00 p.m.: End
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the presentation(s) are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of KITA.
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