Culture and Modernity in Asia: Anthropological Perspectives

The remarkable economic emergence of Asia in recent decades has transformed many impoverished and largely agriculturally based societies into the most dynamic region of the contemporary world. Asia’s burgeoning aspirational middle classes, rapid urbanisation, the expansion of participatory democracy and the shift from command economies to de-regulated markets have had profound effects on people’s everyday lives and the diverse cultural practices that have long shaped local livelihoods and community expectations. This course offers an introduction into anthropological approaches to the study of culture, modernity and globalisation in Asia. Relevant themes that have attracted anthropological interest include changing traditions and popular culture, adaptive custom and cosmopolitanism, migration and citizenship, identity politics and social movements as well as distinctive and emergent forms of governance in both collective and self-cultivating forms of expression. Drawing on a rich corpus of social theory and ethnographic research from anthropologists past and present, the course will provide students with conceptual and analytical tools to appreciate adaptive cultural practices in comparative terms, to review and appreciate the key anthropological debates and influential works in the study of modernity, and to introduce students to ethnographic approaches for researching and writing on modernity and contemporary ethnographies of global connection.