Invited Seminar: Cultural Transmission- The Rules of the Game

Dr. Alex DE VOOGT
Assistant Curator of African Ethnology, Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History
"Cultural Transmission- The Rules of the Game"
5 Oct 2012

Dr. De Voogt gave a presentation on board games and how their study can advance our understanding of cultural transmission theory. Board games require that players have a consensus on rules, so tend to change relatively slowly.

He illustrated the transmission of games with two examples from the archaeology of the Middle East. The distribution and dating of excavated examples show that the game of twenty squares spread through conquest, while the game of fifty-eight holes spread along trade routes. Much can be learned about cultural transmission even though we do not know how the games were played.

He also discussed the case of the Maldives, which unusually has a Mancala board game that is not played in other nearby cultures in the Indian Ocean, but follows the rules very much like Malaysia. He used an interdisciplinary methodology, including collecting data from archaeological artifacts, local rules of the game, and even DNA analysis to see if the Maldive Islanders were genetically related to Malays. The case is still a mystery; solving this mystery may not only tell us about Maldive culture, but about cultural transmission more generally.

 During the course of the talk, Dr. De Voogt proposed several hypotheses about the transmission of board games. He noted that the larger the regional scale, the smaller the changes across generations. He also said that the more complex the board game is, the less likely it is to change as it spreads. Board games spreading across socio-cultural boundaries are more likely to have innovations. He also noted that games can change gender, going from a men’s game to women’s game or vice versa.

Upcoming Seminar: Rumors about Chinese Convict Laborers in Developing Countries

"A New Metaphor of China? Rumors about Chinese Convict Laborers in Developing Countries"

Speaker: YAN Hairong
Department of Applied Social Sciences
Hong Kong Polytechnic University 
Time: 12:30 p.m., Friday, 2 November 2012
Venue: Room 401 Humanities Building, New Asia College, CUHK

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With Chinese and Chinese companies venturing into developing countries in the recent decades, there has been a global expansion in the discourse about China. There are thus new participants in the making of the discourse, connecting approaches that are vernacular and academic, as well as those of organized institutions, such as political parties and corporate media. Tracking the recent addition to the global discourse of China, this paper studies a globally circulated claim (rumor) that the Chinese government exports prison labour to other developing countries. Based on our fieldwork in a number of countries in Africa, this article examines the origins of the rumour, the mechanisms of its transmission at local, translocal and global levels, and the intersection of the agendas of its promoters. We analyse the rumour’s circulation in light of the larger discourse on China and developing countries and argue that China is conceived with this rumor functioning as its new metaphor. We will examine the politics of this rumor in the specific context of the present. The talk is based on, and expands upon, a recent China Quarterly article jointly authored with Barry Sautman.


ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME

Feel free to bring your box lunch or sandwich to eat during the talk

Upcoming Seminar: Optimism Misguided? Teenage Immigrant Students in Hong Kong

"Optimism Misguided? Teenage Immigrant Students in Hong Kong" 

Speaker: CHEE Wai-chi
Part-time Lecturer
Department of Anthropology, CUHK
Time: 12:30 p.m., Friday, 26 October 2012
Venue: Room 401 Humanities Building, New Asia College, CUHK

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The social integration and educational prospects of school-age immigrants have been a major issue roiling the education systems of an ever-growing list of receiving societies around the world. In Hong Kong, the largest two incoming groups are from Mainland China and from South Asia. A vast majority of them have a working class background and arrive with the hope of becoming middle class through a good education. However, this hope seems misplaced given that most of them, at least upon arrival, go to low rank schools in Hong Kong. The hope seems even more unrealistic for South Asian students given that very few non-Chinese students manage to enrol in university degree programs in Hong Kong. This talk discusses the institutional forces and the discursive and symbolic structures that circumscribe the schooling experiences of these recently arrived immigrant students.

ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME

Feel free to bring your box lunch or sandwich to eat during the talk

Upcoming Seminar: Nepalese Drug Users in Hong Kong

"Nepalese Drug Users in Hong Kong: Ethnicity, Transnationalism, and Marginalization" 

Speaker: Wyman TANG
PhD Candidate
Department of Anthropology, CUHK
Time: 12:30 p.m., Friday, 19 October 2012
Venue: Room 401 Humanities Building, New Asia College, CUHK

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This research studies two groups of Nepalese drug users in Hong Kong: drug users at ethnic minority schools and drug users on the street. Due to their ethnicity, individuals in both groups felt marginalized by society and resorted to drug use. But they have gone through very different drug careers. Most of the members in the former group have successfully quit drugs, whereas members in the latter group have largely remained on the street taking drugs. The comparison of these two groups of drug users sheds light on the relationship between transnational experiences and drug careers as well as ways of exercising agency among marginal groups.

ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME

Feel free to bring your box lunch or sandwich to eat during the talk.

Enjoying Academic Exchange at Postgraduate Student Forum

Every year since 2008-09, the Department of Anthropology has invited postgraduate students from Asia and elsewhere to present their current research at the Postgraduate Student Forum.

The Forum is intended to showcase the best of students’ contemporary research. For the past few years, there were participants coming from Harvard, Columbia University, LSE, SOAS, and many other renowned anthropology programmes.

PhD candidate from LSE is presenting her research.

The forum offers an international
 platfrom for intellectual communication.

Prof. Wang Mingming

Hong Kong is a global city, a major node for trade, investment, and the exchange of ideas. The Postgraduate Student Forum seeks to encourage the communication among young anthropologists in and of the East and Southeast Asian region, to help improve their research and to make the excellent research being conducted in Asia to be better known internationally. The forum covers a wide range of topics and invites famous scholars from different anthropological subfields as discussants.

At the same time we have tried to keep the forum not only educational but also fun! The forum includes various activities such as field trips introducing local culture, dinners featuring a variety of local delicacies", and even music performence by our faculty and students!

The Forum 2011 also includes a field trip to introduce heritages in Hong kong and the local food culture.

Music performance by Professor Gordon Mathews and MPhil student Leah at the opeining ceremony.

Now we are expecting the 5th Annual Postgraduate Student Forum in a few months. We look forward to learning about your research in January! To join us, submit an abstract by 15th Oct 2012. (For more details, please visit the Forum's website.)

Last Call: the 5th Annual Postgraduate Student Forum

Deadline for abstract submission (15th October, 2012) is approaching! We are still waiting for you to share your excellent research with us. Do not miss the opportunity and see you in January!

The Department of Anthropology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong invites graduate students in Asia and elsewhere to present their current research at the 5th Annual Postgraduate Student Forum. The theme for this year's conference is, Anthropology in Asia: Conceptions, Perspectives and Debates.

The forum will take place on 18-19th January, 2013, and seeks to encourage communication among young anthropologists around the world, to help improve their research and to make the excellent research being conducted in Asia better known internationally. Presentations may be in English, Putonghua, and Cantonese, though English is encouraged. When submitting your abstract please inform us in which language you will be presenting.

Abstracts should be written in English only and less than 250 words. Applications for a limited number of travel scholarships will be accepted. For more information, please visit our website, www.cuhk.edu.hk/ant/pgforum or contact us at anthforum@cuhk.edu.hk.

Upcoming Seminar: Cultural Transmission – The Rules of the Game

"Cultural Transmission –The Rules of the Game" 

Speaker: Alex DE VOOGT
Assistant Curator of African Ethnology, Division of Anthropology
American Museum of Natural History

Time: 12:30 p.m., Friday, 5 October 2012
Venue: Room 401 Humanities Building, New Asia College, CUHK

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Board games are a cultural trait that can be used to trace trade routes and cultural contact. Recent results from fieldwork and collections research show that most board games change little when they are introduced across cultural and linguistic boundaries. Archaeological records confirm that this was also true in antiquity and that board games remained the same for hundreds of years. This lecture includes a discussion of these results and a look at the implications for future research.

ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME

Feel free to bring your box lunch or sandwich to eat during the talk.

Invited Seminar: Tracing State-Society Relations through Food Safety Control in China’s Aquaculture Development

Dr. Yu HUANG

Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, CUHK

"Entangled Guanxi: Tracing State-Society Relations through Food Safety Control in China’s Aquaculture Development "

21Sep 2012

Food safety in China has been a concern in the international mass media for the past decade. Apart from rising fear among foreign countries about imported food from China, what has the food safety crisis brought to China internally? Dr. Huang Yu addressed this question in her detailed and informative talk on 21^st September. 

Dr. Huang began by pointing out that the food safety crisis originated from the treadmill effect caused by overproduction of Chinese farmers. In order to maintain such high-yield production, antibiotics were used at the price of food safety. It was not until the WTO imposed a ban on animal products from China that the Chinese state started to pay attention to this problem. Dr. Huang argued that the government adopted new discourses and practices regarding food safety in order to alleviate this problem. These transformations reflected that the governance of China had taken the neoliberal turn, which complicated state-society relations. 

Dr. Huang illustrated how neoliberalism and marketization affected state-society relations in terms of food safety control with two cases. The first case examined a licensed fish veterinary training programme. In order to reduce the cost of the state, now only epidemic diseases are controlled by designated official veterinaries hired by the state, while regular diseases are left to certified veterinaries that are market subjects. It implies the changing role of the state from a caring father towards a market regulator.

The other case that looked at a drug residue detection campaign, however, shows the complex guanxi between the state and the citizens. For example, the owners of shrimp hatcheries were usually informed of an upcoming inspection a day before through special guanxi with lower level officials; the higher level government officials would not be able to find the way to the shrimp hatchery without the guide of county officials. In this situation, county officials faced a dilemma: on the one hand,  they were more sympathetic and protective towards the local farmers, but on the other hand, they had no choice but to report them when the central government tightened restrictions.

To sum up, Dr. Huang’s talk directed our attention to how neoliberalism operates in China. The state-society relations have to be re-conceptualized as shown in the two case studies. 

TSANG, Ching Yi 
M.Phil Candidate 
chingyitsang[AT]yahoo.com.hk

Exchange Student Recommends the Department

 The other day when we googled our department (yes, we do google ourselves, sometimes), we found that a Finnish student who did exchange in our department in 2007 gives great compliments to the department: "All in all, I can only praise the level of the anthropology department of the CUHK. They do amazing job, they love anthropology and their work, and they are amazing anthropologist role models.” Here, we would like to share some of his experiences of studying in our department. If you want to learn his whole story as an exchange student at CUHK, please have a look at the original blog entry.

Photo: Simple Anthopology Blog

University rankings, CUHK and my thoughtsabout anthropology in the CUHK

Posted on June 3, 2012

My Anthropology studies in CUHK

I had three Anthropology courses in the Chinese University of Hong Kong：

Meanings of Life, Anthropology course: prof. Gordon Mathews

Chinese culture, Anthropology course: prof. Joseph Bosco

Magic Myth and Supernatural, Anthropology course: prof. Joseph Bosco

Photo: Simple Anthopology Blog

Both professors were top of the class, and really seriously into anthropology, they were enthusiastic about their work and about the university and about Hong Kong. I would recommend anyone taking any classes with them. The readings were totally awesome and I still have my notes and articles somewhere in safe. Bosco was really professional and good instructor, quite demanding, but in my opinion that’s only a good thing. He has funny humor and he uses lot of good examples in the class.

Professor Mathews was totally awesome in every ways. I consider him the best professor and a lecturer I have ever seen, in any of the lectures in all of the Universities I’ve visited. I got totally hooked on all of my anthropology classes and encourage anyone who has a possibility to take classes in CUHK to go see anthropology lectures, especially from prof. Mathews. He even brought some of his informants to follow up his lectures, and even gave them money so they could come. That is really exemplary way for an anthropologist to thank the informants.

Mathews also took the graduate class to participate in his fieldwork in the famous Hong Kong colossus, Chungking Mansions, a building famous from the Wong Kar-Wai movie Chungking Express. At that time prof. Mathews was preparing his book about the building, the book is now ready and on top of my Amazon wish list (Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong)

Amazing experience in a top of the top university

Photo: Simple Anthopology Blog

All in all, I can only praise the level of the anthropology department of the CUHK. They do amazing job, they love anthropology and their work, and they are amazing anthropologist role models. Teaching methods are great and even with the high amount of students, its easy to get personal attention from the professors.

Also I can give them extra points from the location. The university campus is Beautiful with capital B, on top of a mountain, covered with tropical trees and amazing amazing views everywhere. And the university is in Hong Kong(!), one of the most interesting multicultural hotspots in the world! I cannot imagine better place to study anthropology. If you have a chance to apply to study anthropology in CUHK, I would warmly recommend doing that.

Registry of Anthropological Data Wiki

The American Anthropological Association has announced the creation of a Wiki to help researchers locate anthropological source materials and promote their own research! According to AAA, this is a cutting-edge tool for the new era of anthropology and the 21st century anthropologist! Below is the description from AAA:

One of the effects of the web has been to create myriad crevices and crannies of information. Did you know that Frederick Starr’s notebooks (12 volumes of field notes) have been put online?

Do you have a website of ethnographic or anthropological source materials you’d like people to know about? Add it to the wiki and help others benefit.

Have you deposited your personal papers in an archive? Building on the efforts of the Council for the Preservation of Anthropological Records, we are turning to anthropologists to join together and share information about the location of field notes, photographs, sound recordings, and other primary sources.

The wiki is the perfect place to promote your own research and discover interesting new materials. You can ensure that the location of your ethnographic materials isn’t lost or forgotten simply by typing up and publishing a new page on the wiki. The registry needs you though. This is a crowd-sourced effort so it relies on the efforts of individual anthropologists to identify their research. We encourage you to test it and add your own entries. Already the wiki houses information on fascinating research such as the Khipu Database and the Tsimane Amazonian Panel Study. We hope you can help your colleagues identify intriguing projects that might otherwise be easily overlooked. This is a cutting-edge tool for the new era of anthropology and the 21st