China as Context: Anthropology, Post-Globalisation and the Neglect of China

Decades-old calls to recognise China’s significance for anthropological theory and the social sciences are more urgent than ever. Yet, Chinese-grounded ideas remain marginal, with China often seen as an ’Other’ rather than a source of widely applicable theory. Drawing on East Asian postcolonial scholarship, this volume argues that without taking China seriously as a knowledge producer and a key agent in a post-global world, social scientists risk misinterpreting the global present. As Western globalisation wanes and anthropology reassesses the relationship between ethnography and theory, we show how ’China’ must be understood as an ordinary, integral context for research worldwide.

Di Wu is a Departmental Lecturer at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford. He previously worked as a Senior Teaching Fellow at SOAS

Andrea E. Pia is Assistant Professor in Anthropology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is one of the editors of the Open Access Journal Made in China

Ed Pulford is an Anthropologist and Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Manchester. His research and teaching focus on anthropological and historical approaches to Eurasian borderlands, Sino-Russian relations, and comparative experiences of socialism and empire