Wednesday, September 9, 2015

[Publication] East Asian Anthropology in the World


The article "East Asian Anthropology in the World", written by Prof. Gordon Mathews, has been published in American Anthropologist (Volume 117, Issue 2, p.364-383). Prof. Mathews talks about the globalization of anthropology and discusses the current development of anthropology in East Asia. Below is an extract from the article:


"Anthropology is a luxury. Rich countries can afford anthropology and particularly anthropology beyond one's own country's borders; poor countries cannot. Throughout much of the 20th century, anthropologists from the United States and Western Europe (as well as, to an extent, Japan) traveled the globe to do their fieldwork, while anthropologists from most other countries in the world practiced within their own borders, lacking the financial means to go elsewhere. This continues to be the case at present: for example, Chinese and Indian anthropologists, to name just two of the world's larger national contingents, continue to be primarily involved in studying different ethnic groups within their own country. However, this is changing: today, an ever larger number of anthropologists in societies throughout the world—in terms of East Asia, not just Japan and Hong Kong but also to an extent Korea and Taiwan—are engaging in anthropological research beyond their own society's borders. As world wealth spreads, anthropology will increasingly become no longer a matter of Western countries conducting ethnography on their former colonies and other poorer societies but more and more of the world investigating more and more of the world."(Mathews 2015:364)

A screenshot of the article of Prof. Mathews on Wiley Online Library

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