2017年3月，人類學系和未來城市研究所一同邀請周大鸣教授來訪香港中文大學，舉辦了一個關於中國聚落及交通的講座，和一個以廣東潮州的鳳凰村變遷為例子的都市人類學工作坊。
在讲座中，周教授从 “路学”的研究脈絡出發，分析中國當下的高速道路發展，提出“中間消除效應“，意指高速道路的封閉及點對點的連結方式導致了資源集中在某些節點，而處於兩點間的中間社區和社會則被忽視了。同時，他也指出“交通革命“使得中國社會的時空距離大大壓縮，城鄉結構的中間層級“扁平化“。提問環節中，周教授也就人類學如何突破“小村莊”研究的問題進行了回答，認為區域內多點的比較研究是一個新方向。
在工作坊中，周教授講述了他選擇追蹤研究的目的是考察社會變遷及延續學術生命。他根據鳳凰村的變化提出了”鎮中村“的概念，村落雖然是農民戶籍及農村集體所有，但是村落兼具鎮區的特點，農民的生活方式已”集鎮化“。由於農村的發展是各自規劃，他認為這會影響“城鎮化”的整體規劃運作。此後，我系的研究生也分享了自己的研究，與周教授及其他參加者有了深入的交流。
In March 2017, the Department of Anthropology and
the Institute of Future Cities invited Prof. Zhou to give a public lecture on
settlement and transportation in China and a workshop on urban anthropology
which is based on a case study of Fenghuang Village in Guangdong. In the Lecture,
Prof. Zhou began with the context of “Road studies” and then analyzed the rapid
development of transportation in China. He came up with a concept “Intermediate
Elimination Effect,” which means that the closed highway is good to the development
and resource accumulation in the big sites, but causes the decline of the
little settlements between the sites. Also, the revolution of transportation
results in compressed time-space in China and flattening social structure. In
the Q&A section, Prof. Zhou discussed how multi-sited ethnography and
comparative studies have become a new direction to do research in China.
In the workshop, Prof. Zhou argued that the aim to do follow-up study is to analyze the social changes and extend an
academic study. Based on the study of Fenghuang Village, he developed a new concept
“village in the town,” which means that a village has the characteristics as a
town, but is still a village. Since a village has its own specific kind of planning,
Prof. Zhou think this disturbed the government of town to conduct urbanization planning and development.
After Prof. Zhou’s sharing, the graduate student in our department also shared their
studies and had an in-depth discussion with all the participants in the workshop.
