Anthropological Explorations of Gender, Identity, and Economics

Defined as “Four-field” research endeavor encompassing biological, linguistic, material, and socio-cultural dimensions of the “Human career”, anthropology is clearly the scientific study of humankind in all its components. There are however variations from one academic tradition to the other but the most comprehensive version of anthropological practice is the one developed in the United States of America. In other academic traditions with a few exceptions, the biological dimension – Biological Anthropology [that focuses on the human body] – and the material culture one – Anthropological archaeology – [with a focus on human-made things] are separated from socio-cultural anthropology – [the study of contemporary societies and cultures through participant observation] and linguistic anthropology [the study of language as communication medium].

Students training in anthropology thus varies according academic traditions Despite the tortuous history of teaching anthropology in mainland China, Xiamen university has strived since the re-opening of its anthropology and ethnology department in 2005, with varying success to develop a Four-field approach to the discipline. As conceived and implemented since 2020, the “Writing Anthropology” seminar was designed as an intensive and fast paced graduate students training to craft high standard research papers in English. In the 2022-2023 academic year instalment of Xiamen university “Writing Anthropology” seminar, “Exploration” was the core theme of the work carried out. Graduate students were required to pick a research topic totally different from their planned master and doctoral investigations. They were asked to take risks, to move away from their “research comfort zone” and dare explore new research topics. Exploration in its strict sense refers to entering the unknown. This voyage in the unknown has to be predicated on coherent theoretical orientations and sound methodologies. It was what the seminar sessions combining weekly written and oral presentations were made of. The result of that intensive research semester is presented in this book entitled Anthropological Explorations in Gender, Identity, and Economics. The conducted investigations are arranged in 3 rubrics or parts: gender issues; identity and belonging; and finally, economics.