[Upcoming Seminar] Material Civilization and Hygienic Modernity: Reflections on Toilet Practices in Rural South China

Material Civilization and Hygienic Modernity: Reflections on Toilet Practices in Rural South China 

Speaker: Gonçalo SANTOS 
(Assistant Professor, Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Hong Kong )
Time:  12:30 p.m. , Friday, 8 November 2013 
Venue: Room 11 Humanities Building, New Asia College, CUHK

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We have come to assume that the flush toilet and the wider waterborne system of waste disposal is one of the requirements of an urban setting and one of the symbols of an ‘advanced’ society. In this paper, I would like to explore the role played by the ‘flush toilet’ and the question of human waste management in the making of ‘modern identities’. My account is ethnographic in that it focuses on the spread of the ‘flush toilet’ in a specific setting - a rural community in South China -, but my theoretical goal is more general. I argue that ‘technological choices’ result less from inherent benefits in the technologies being adopted than from specific cultural values and social relations. Rather than treating technology independently of the human relations surrounding their use, I argue that technology is a socially and culturally constructed means of action upon the physical world. 


ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME
Feel free to bring your box lunch or sandwich to eat during the talk