Project Details
Description
BROAD OUTLINE OF THE AIMS AND METHODOLOGY OF THE CHINA KNOWLEDGE PROJECT
Australia and New Zealand
Professor Shih Chih-Yu of National Taiwan University initiated the transnational ‘China Knowledge’ project more than a decade ago, in 2004. With the help of coordinators in different places, he has now (January 2018) collected almost 400 interviews in more than 30 countries; most interview transcripts can be accessed from this page: http://www.china-studies.taipei/act02.php.
The interviews are the first stage of a multi-layered enterprise. They aim to elicit the ‘life stories’ of senior China specialists, people who began their engagements with China about four decades ago (in the 1960s or '70s) or even earlier. In Prof Shih’s argument, these stories collectively constitute an 'anthropology of China knowledge.' The project makes its starting point the China journeys of individuals who have sought to acquire and disseminate ‘China knowledge’ through a good part of their working lives.
In the second stage, project coordinators are asked to write introductory essays to the stories that they have assembled. One purpose of the essays will be to delineate the contexts—local, regional and global—that have, in various ways, shaped the individual life stories. Coordinators from 8 or 9 Asian countries and Australia-New Zealand will meet in Bangkok this June to present drafts of their introductions and to identify themes around which comparisons can be built. We expect that, after what is likely to be substantial revision, the collected essays will be published as a book.
Australia and New Zealand
Professor Shih Chih-Yu of National Taiwan University initiated the transnational ‘China Knowledge’ project more than a decade ago, in 2004. With the help of coordinators in different places, he has now (January 2018) collected almost 400 interviews in more than 30 countries; most interview transcripts can be accessed from this page: http://www.china-studies.taipei/act02.php.
The interviews are the first stage of a multi-layered enterprise. They aim to elicit the ‘life stories’ of senior China specialists, people who began their engagements with China about four decades ago (in the 1960s or '70s) or even earlier. In Prof Shih’s argument, these stories collectively constitute an 'anthropology of China knowledge.' The project makes its starting point the China journeys of individuals who have sought to acquire and disseminate ‘China knowledge’ through a good part of their working lives.
In the second stage, project coordinators are asked to write introductory essays to the stories that they have assembled. One purpose of the essays will be to delineate the contexts—local, regional and global—that have, in various ways, shaped the individual life stories. Coordinators from 8 or 9 Asian countries and Australia-New Zealand will meet in Bangkok this June to present drafts of their introductions and to identify themes around which comparisons can be built. We expect that, after what is likely to be substantial revision, the collected essays will be published as a book.
| Status | Finished |
|---|---|
| Effective start/end date | 1/08/17 → 1/08/20 |