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Chapter 1 Anthropological Concepts for the Study of Nationalism AIHWA ONG The anthropological perspective China has been a very unique subject of study. There tends to be no comparative aspect to how we approach China and perhaps a kind of reluctance to apply to it a social theory that is developed in other parts of the world. I think it is extremely important to have that kind of comparative aspect in order to be engaged in a conversation about what China is like in other parts of the world. Dikötter on Ong’s chapter This lecture contains a whole panoply of notions that are very popular in cultural anthropology . Even if you feel a bit overwhelmed by the number of names and concepts, it is very useful to pay attention to them. You also have an opportunity to see how anthropologists think and work, the sort of knack anthropologists have for deconstructing all sorts of things that we considered to be unproblematically natural. It is undeniable that anthropology has had the biggest impact on other fields of social research since the 1980s–90s. The whole postmodernism is very much fueled by what anthropologists have developed in the last 10–20 years. I also use the notion of denaturalization : to denaturalize the nation or culture means no longer to see them as fairly unproblematic givens that you can more or less classify and examine, pretty much like an entomologist will look at different sorts of insects. You have to have that sort of anthropological reflexivity, a self-reflection in examining the very basic units of analysis that you deploy in your own world. There is no way escaping anthropology. That was possibly the case 10–20 years ago, but it no longer is the case. Even in the so-called hard economics no one would be a fool to think that you can more or less ignore this sort of cultural anthropological insights. This chapter will first talk about anthropology, which is my discipline, and present my approach to the subjects of the nation, nationalism, and transnationalism. Chine össze 2 2005.05.31 11:40 Page 1 Techniques of being human Anthropology is fundamentally the study of humanity in terms of the techniques that make us human. And when we talk about techniques, we mean a whole range of things: mechanical techniques like stone tool-making as well as poetry, religion, morality that people make up for themselves. So, anthropology is in fact the study of the different ways of life in history and around the world. By looking at the different ways, we constitute ourselves as human beings, and the ways our technologies shape our lives and values, we can address issues of what is at stake for humanity as a whole. Relativism: contextualization of subjectivity You will often hear the term “relativism.” Early anthropologists have been criticized for applying their ideas of being human to others. An anthropologist, an upper-class American, in the Brazilian jungle? This is crazy! Today, anthropology wants to appreciate the different ways in which people imagine and make their lives. In other words, to deconstruct “human nature.” There is no such thing as human nature: it is what culture makes of it. As a result, we want to think about the human subject as someone who is produced in particular historical and cultural circumstances. In other words, to study humanity you have to look at the variety of techniques— material and symbolic, cultural and social—through which we make ourselves as particular kinds of human beings. Modern technologies shape our societies and our values in ways that go beyond our ancestral cultures, which have in most cases been eroded and are now recast within technical forms of power—state apparatus, market rationalities, bureaucratic systems, and related dominant discourses. Thus while there is a tendency to think of nationalism as somehow purely cultural and primordial in origin, when we deal with modern nation-states, these modes of cultural knowledge are always selectively modified and shaped by modern political rationalities and technologies. Reflexivity and responsibility in anthropology The other point I want to emphasize about anthropology is reflexivity. To be reflexive is to be mindful of how you construct knowledge. The anthropos, the human, is the object of knowledge. We study humanity, but we are also members of humanity. So we are studying ourselves indirectly. Perhaps you can say in sociology you study society but in anthropology, the object of knowledge is humanity. But humanity...

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