I. Unpacking Asia

A. Region with similar challenges and experiences
B. Distinct communities, diverse individuals (map)
C. The term "Asia"

1. Category seems to have coherence: geography, identity
2. Erases differences, lumps people together

a. Legacies of colonialism, Orientalism
b. Racism

D. Course goal: use, but problematize the term Asia

 

II. Anthropological Approaches to Asia

A. Concept of culture

1. Root: Latin, cultura, from colere "cultivate"
2. High culture: specific ideas of content of culture that include and exclude
3. Anthropological definition of culture:

English anthropologist Edward B. Tylor, 1871:
"Culture, or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society." (Edward B. Tylor. 1871. Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom, 2 vols. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1958. Vol. 1:1).

4. Problems: static, harmonious
5. How do people themselves think about what culture is?
6. Debates about cultural identity

B. Anthropological research methods

1. Participant observation: daily lives, experiences, ideas, change over time
2. Ethnography: "to write a people" -- studies based on participant observation
3. Relating the macro and micro

a. Colonialism, globalization, migration: large scale, often top-down
b. People's experiences of these processes: not just effects, but fundamental to shaping what these processes in fact are and become

 

III. Breadth and Depth

A. Key topics

legacies of colonialism
agriculture and global trade
ethnicity and ethnic conflict
labor migration and citizenship
war, memory, and diaspora
religion
childrearing
aging
artistic and cultural production
affective labor: call centers, sex work, and reproductive labor
urbanization

B. Pair a topic with a particular ethnography or set of articles in particular contexts

Urbanization in Vietnam
Call center workers in India
Middle-Class Parents in China

IV. Structure of Course