New book: Anna Lora-Wainwright, ‘Fighting for Breath: Living Morally and Dying of Cancer in a Chinese Village’

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Congratulations to BICC researcher Dr Anna Lora-Wainwright, whose new book Fighting for Breath: Living Morally and Dying of Cancer in a Chinese Village, has just been published by the University of Hawai’i Press.ALW book cover

Numerous reports of “cancer villages” have appeared in the past decade in both Chinese and Western media, highlighting the downside of China’s economic development. Less generally known is how people experience and understand cancer in areas where there is no agreement on its cause. Who or what do they blame? How do they cope with its onset? Fighting for Breath is the first ethnography to offer a bottom-up account of how rural families strive to make sense of cancer and care for sufferers. It addresses crucial areas of concern such as health, development, morality, and social change in an effort to understand what is at stake in the contemporary Chinese countryside.

Encounters with cancer are instances in which social and moral fault lines may become visible. Anna Lora-Wainwright combines powerful narratives and critical engagement with an array of scholarly debates in sociocultural and medical anthropology and in the anthropology of China. The result is a moving exploration of the social inequities endemic to post-1949 China and the enduring rural-urban divide that continues to challenge social justice in the People’s Republic. In-depth case studies present villagers’ “fight for breath” as both a physical and social struggle to reclaim a moral life, ensure family and neighborly support, and critique the state for its uneven welfare provision. Lora-Wainwright depicts their suffering as lived experience, but also as embedded in domestic economies and in the commodification of care that has placed the burden on families and individuals.

Fighting for Breath will be of interest to students, teachers, and researchers in Chinese studies, sociocultural and medical anthropology, human geography, development studies, and the social study of medicine.

Introducing Dr Chris Courtney

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In 2007 I was awarded a BICC studentship to study at the University of Manchester. The language based area studies scheme provided me with the opportunity to develop a number of key research skills. In addition to the extensive academic training I received in the UK, I also spent a year studying Chinese at Wuhan and Peking Universities. Whilst researching my PhD, I spent one and a half years conducting fieldwork in Central China. During this period I also benefitted from a postgraduate exchange with the National University of Singapore. My research to date has depended entirely upon the skills and contacts that I developed whilst on my BICC studentship.

Dr Chris Courtney, Leicester Workshop, 2012

Dr Chris Courtney, Leicester Workshop, 2012

My PhD thesis examines the social and environmental history of the 1931 Central China Flood. This disaster inundated an area the size of Britain, and caused over one million fatalities, making it probably the most catastrophic flood in world history. I draw upon a range of theoretical perspectives from anthropology, disasters studies and social and environmental history, in order to write the first comprehensive study of this event. I explore the experiences of ordinary Chinese people, describing how they died and survived during the disaster. I also examine the diverse narratives used by differing sections of the community to explain the genesis and outcome of the flood.

Having completed my BICC studentship, I was awarded a four year Junior Research Fellowship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University. Whilst in this post I hope to develop my PhD research further, studying the impact of natural disasters upon Central China during the Republican and early Communist Periods. My broader research interests include the long-term interaction between human communities and the environment in the Middle Yangzi region, and the social history of the treaty port city of Hankou. I am currently conducting an oral history project into the 1954 Central China Flood.

Borders of Migration talk, Professor Antonia Chao, 22nd April

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As part of the the Borders of Migration research network, Professor Antonia Chao (Tunghai University, Taiwan) will present a talk hosted by the Centre for Chinese Studies and Anthropology Department at the University of Manchester

‘Encountering Sexual Aliens: State Sovereignty and the Heteronormative Mechanism at Work on the Margins of Taiwan’

Monday 22 April 2012, 4. 15pm, 2.016/017, Second Floor Boardroom, Arthur Lewis Building

Abstract: As many scholars of migration studies have shown in their works, the increasingly complicated patterns of border-crossing activities in the contemporary age of globalization have posed a grave challenge to the feasibility of the nation-state model conventionally held by both the sending and receiving countries. Some have also highlighted the fact that gender politics plays a significant, while often hidden, role in shaping the phenomenon that is recognized generally as “the feminization of globalization”. Based on ethnographic research conducted on Taiwan’s three crucial sites of national borders, this talk mined the intersections between border control, state sovereignty, national belonging and “perverted sexualities”. The focus was on three forms of subjects, perceived as “sexual aliens”, whose trans-migratory acts violate the principle of biological and heterosexual reproduction that upholds the meanings, practices and institutions of border control. The normalizing regulations imposed upon these subjects, be they “lived” or “imaginary”, highlight three corresponding sites of bio-political governance at once outside of, within, and right along the borders of Taiwan’s geographical territories. While all are in keeping with the agenda of heteronormativity, these sites are situated in a distinct circuit of transnational traffic of sexualities and thus require different modes of governance. Intentionally or coincidentally, these modes of governance coordinate with each other in helping construct a nation whose sovereignty has been in perpetual crisis within the international political community.

Introducing Dr. Jonathan Howlett

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Jonathan Howlett PortraitI received my BICC scholarship in 2006 and I was awarded my PhD from the University of Bristol in 2012. I now work as Lecturer in Modern Asian History at the University of York, a job which I came to in the autumn of 2012 after completing a one-year teaching fellowship at Newcastle University. In hindsight, being awarded a BICC scholarship was a crucial step in my development as an historian of modern China and in enhancing my career prospects because it allowed for two years of study at the University of Oxford before I commenced my PhD research in which I developed essential language skills.

My current research focuses on understanding the processes through
which the Chinese Communist Party attempted to transform Chinese
society following their seizure of power in 1949. In particular, my
forthcoming book focuses on the Communists’ policies towards British
businesses remaining in Shanghai after the revolution.  Rather than
treating the case of British business in isolation, I focus on
exploring the links between the Communists’ state-building efforts,
their political ideology, urban policy and their foreign policy in the
broader Cold War context.

My broader research and teaching interests include: the history of
Shanghai; China’s relationships with other powers; the history of
different forms of comparative socialisms and everyday life in
socialist societies; the role of ordinary (or unheralded) individuals
in history; urban transformations and decolonisation.

I am the co-ordinator for the British Inter-University China Centre
(Arts and Humanities Research Council) funded ‘Chinese 1950s‘ network.
The network was established to facilitate scholarly exchanges on this
subject and will be hosting an international workshop in July 2013.

China Dreams

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Callahan_ChinaDreamsCoverBICC researcher and former co-Director Professor William A. Callahan has started getting reviews of his new book, China Dreams: 20 Visions of the Future, which has just been published in the US, and is available in the UK from June.

An excerpt from the book and discussion by Geremie R. Barmé can be found on the The China Story blog, and the Wall Street Journal‘s ‘China Realtime Report’ has a new piece online about it, an interview by Tom Orlik:

The China dream has become a buzzword in Beijing, with new President Xi Jinping setting out a new vision of China as a muscular global power. But Mr. Xi is not the first person to have a China dream. The mainland’s foreign-policy experts, economists, dissidents and artists are already engaged in an active and public debate on the future of their country.

Bill Callahan, a professor of international politics at the University of Manchester who this year is researching China-India relations at the National University of Singapore, has been listening in on their conversations. His new book “China Dreams: 20 Visions of the Future” lets the rest of us in on what he heard. Continue reading.

Introducing Dr. Astrid Nordin

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Astrid Nordin

As a BICC student fellow I conducted my doctoral research at the University of Manchester, with difficult language training at Peking University. The thesis, titled ‘Time, Space and Multiplicity in China’s Harmonious World’, passed without corrections in November 2012 and has been nominated to the BISA Michael Nicholson thesis prize for best thesis in International Studies. It traces the foreign policy concept ‘harmonious world’ (hexie shijie) in Chinese policy and academic discourse, at the 2010 Shanghai Expo and in humorous online resistance, arguing that the concept has come to embody an irresolvable contradiction between sameness and difference. The access to expertise, the network and the training provided through BICC have been invaluable in making this project happen.

Beyond this thesis, my research interests fall in the intersection of contemporary Chinese politics and international relations, broadly conceived, and critical theories of global politics. I am particularly interested in the contemporary deployment of concepts drawn from Chinese history, such as harmony (hexie), civilisation (wenming), hegemony (baquan), or All-under-heaven (Tianxia), and their relation to contemporary continental philosophy, particularly the thought of Jean Baudrillard and Jacques Derrida. Within this scope I have written on alternative conceptions of time, space and world order; the politics of mega events (particularly Expo 2010 Shanghai China); Chinese censorship and resistance throughout history; Chinese discourses of online resistance and wordplay (egao); the ‘Chinese school’ of IR; the policy concepts of ‘harmonious world’ (hexie shijie) and ‘harmonious society’ (hexie shehui); soft power; East Asian regionalism and regionalisation; and spatial and temporal aspects of difference in the work of Derrida and Baudrillard.

Since September 2012 I work as Lecturer in China in the Modern World at Lancaster University.

Coming up… profiles of BICC researchers

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Over the next few weeks we will be posting profiles of some of the BICC research community, starting today, with Dr Astrid Nordin, now at Lancaster University. BICC has to date involved over 40 core researchers at all stages of their careers — although we have not yet had any retirements — and scores, if not hundreds, more through our conferences and workshops. The largest body of BICC researchers came through the studentships funded by the 2006-12 award, and their work is now starting to reshape the resarch landscape in their fields, nationally and internationally.

Old China on display: BICC working with the British Embassy,Beijing

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Press release, British Embassy Beijing

British Photographs from 1870-1950 Focus on Shared UK-China History

Beijing, 21 March 2013 – tonight British Ambassador to China Sebastian Wood CMG officially opened an exhibition of historical photos of China at the JW Marriott in Beijing. Organised by the British Embassy in Beijing, the exhibit presents China as seen through camera lenses dating back as far as 1870. This is the first time this exhibition has been displayed outside of the UK.

‘Picturing China 1870-1950: Photographs from British Collections’ presents a wealth of images of a country undergoing rapid change in its society, culture and heritage as well as providing snapshots of expatriate life at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.

These images are part of a unique collection gathered from private collections of photographs taken, commissioned or purchased by the tens of thousands of Britons who lived in or visited China from the 1870s until the 1950s.

Sebastian Wood, British Ambassador to China, said: “These wonderful images from British collections provide a unique visual record of the longstanding shared history between the UK and China. They are a reminder of the strength and depth of our relationship, one which is increasingly important to both countries as China continues its development.”

Professor Robert Bickers, Director of the ‘Historical Photographs of China’ project at the University of Bristol, said: “Our project is sustained through the generosity of British-based families whose forebears lived and worked in China, or visited it, and who come forward with wonderfully rich historical materials. Many of these have never been seen before outside their homes, and it is wonderful to be able to share them with audiences in China through this exhibition.”

Dr Alicia Greated, Director of Research Councils UK (RCUK), China, said: “These inspiring photographs bring to life many months of research and investigation and demonstrate the long lasting friendship between the UK and China. Research Councils UK and Chinese funding agencies have made significant steps in enhancing our collaborative research programmes. We very much look forward to further progressing this partnership in the future.”

David Wilson, Managing Director of JW Marriott Hotel Beijing, said: “We are delighted to host this exhibition, ‘Picturing China 1870s-1950s: Photographs from British Collections’, with the British Embassy Beijing. It gives us the chance to share images of Chinese culture and heritage in bygone times with our guests living or travelling in Beijing, images which we are sure will leave a lasting impression.”

The Beijing exhibition, ‘Picturing China 1870-1950: Photographs from British Collections’, has been sponsored by the JW Marriott Hotel Beijing. The images on display come from the ‘Historical Photographs of China’ project at the University of Bristol, which is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council through the British Inter-university China Centre, and the British Academy.

Media Contact:

Martin Cui, Communications Officer (Prosperity)

British Embassy Beijing

T: +86 (10) 5192-4286

E: martin.cui@fco.gov.uk

Workshop: China and India in the 20th and 21st century, Where do international relations and history meet?

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An international workshop supported by the British Inter-university China Centre (BICC), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council

Speakers include: Manoranjan Mohanty (Institute for Chinese Studies, New Delhi); Alka Acharya (Institute for Chinese Studies, New Delhi); Meng Qinglong (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing); Chris Goto-Jones (University College, Leiden)

Tuesday 26 March 2013, 4 -6 pm, Wednesday 27 March, 9.30 am to 5 pm

Institute for Chinese Studies, Walton Street, Oxford

All welcome; for further details of programme please email rana.mitter@chinese.ox.ac.uk