THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Jonathan Ross
Chinese Anthropology Then and Now from a Lawyer's Perspective
Friday 12 July 2024, 7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
This talk focuses on Jonathan's exciting and unique journey as a pioneer in Chinese Anthropology in 1970, his fieldwork in the mid-1970s in the mountains of Taiwan (with slides, including pictures of shamans with skewers through their cheeks), and his transformation into a lawyer in China with a background in Anthropology. He will share observations on what Anthropology was and what it has become, as it is currently practiced in Hong Kong. He will also discuss how having a background in Anthropology is useful for a lawyer. As Anthropology also has stimulated his interest in history and culture in China, and in Hong Kong in particular, he will talk about Sacred Spaces, a platform that arranges visits by local Hongkongers and expats to museums, temples, and cultural sites in Hong Kong.
Jonathan Ross is a lawyer who has lived in Hong Kong for over 30 years. He received his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Michigan in 1981 based on his fieldwork in a mountainous Taiwanese village where he lived for 18 months in 1976/7.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Gordon Mathews
Hong Kong Identity Past and Future
Friday 14 June 2024, 7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
Scholars have found that a sense of Hong Kong identity only came into existence in the 1970s. Initially it was based in "utilitarian familism" (Lau Siu-kai)-refugees from China sought to support their families apart from political tensions. By the 1990s, Hong Kong identity became more based in popular culture, which had become world famous through films and Cantopop. The first two decades of the 21st century saw Hong Kong identity become based in protest, but that era has now decisively come to a close. Where, then, might a new sense of Hong Kong identity emerge? Might it be based in music? Or in unique Hong Kong design, as the M+ Museum displays? Or in Hong Kong's nature, in its vast country parks? This talk will explore where, in this new era of Hong Kong indubitably belonging to China, a new sense of Hong Kong identity might perhaps emerge.
Gordon Mathews is a Research Professor in the Dept. of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the author of Ghetto at the Center of the World: Chungking Mansions, Hong Kong and the co-author of Hong Kong, China: Learning to Belong to a Nation.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Mankei Tam
Living with Fukushima
Friday 12 April 2024, 7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
After Fukushima, what does it mean to live with nuclear fallout? Japan's 3.11 triple disaster has created an uncertain world of imperceptible radioactivity. This talk is about Iitate, a village that was exposed following the Fukushima meltdown, where radiation lingers still. My interlocutors are villagers who explore damaged ecologies and seek pathways to let their homes co-exist with flora and fauna that have become uncanny. Based on my fieldwork from 2015-23, this talk will present an anthropological study of the livable future(s) created by those who refused to surrender their homes and tried to eschew the dichotomized realities enacted by the state and anti-nuclear activism.
Mankei Tam (譚萬基) is currently a postdoctoral fellow with the HealthXCross project at the Ca' FoscariUniversity of Venice. This project focuses on the relationships between global health/biopolitics and microbiome technoscience evolving in Hong Kong and other key hubs that situate China globally. His previous project concerned citizens' self-empowering practices in critical assessments of radiation risks and their collaborations with scientists to explore new forms of agriculture after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. His research interests include Political Ecology, Science and Technology Studies, multispecies ethnography, and studies in social movements.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Alexander Cheung
Tai Po Wun Yiu latest archaeological discovery and its future
Friday 15 March 2024, 7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
Wun Yiu Blue and White Porcelain Kiln Site in Tai Po is one of the better preserved kiln sites in China. This is also one of the major archaeological resources in Hong Kong. Numerous fieldworks have been conducted by different archaeologists over the years, unearthing some fruitful archaeological finds and discoveries. However, its potential in the aspects of heritage tourism and cultural education seem to be neglected. In this talk, I will present his recent discoveries in Tai Po Wun Yu and discuss its potential for Hong Kong cultural heritage management.
Mr. Alexander CHEUNG RPA, Vice Chairman of Hong Kong Archeological Society, graduated from Western Washington University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He became a Registered Professional Archaeologist in the United States in 2012. His research focuses on the neolithic maritime substance and adaptation, and lithic technology of the coastal people around the pacific rim. Alexander is working as an independent cultural heritage consultant in Hong Kong.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Don Kulick
What Good is Anthropology?
Friday 23 February 2024, 7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
Kulick addresses the question "What Good is Anthropology?" via a discussion of cultural critic Susan Sontag's review of photographer Diane Arbus's 1972 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. Sontag asserts that Arbus, in depicting individuals whom Sontag regards as "ugly", is necessarily exploiting them. He perceives an exact comparison between Diane Arbus's photographs and anthropology as an epistemological project and a representational practice. Kulick argues that anthropology, like Arbus's photographs, is good for subverting the smug, privileged protocol articulated by critics like Sontag, who are prepared to contemplate "ugly" people, vastly different from themselves, but only through an optic of pity, or of vicarious indignation at the supposedly unrelentingly grim conditions under which such people are imagined to live their lives.
Don Kulick is the author or editor of more than a dozen books on topics that range from the lives of transgendered prostitutes in Brazil to the anthropology of fat. He is Chair Professor of Anthropology at Hong Kong University and Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology at Uppsala University, Sweden.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Winsome Hin-Shin Lee
"Skeleton out of the Closet": Moving Forensic Anthropology in Hong Kong from the Past for the Future
Friday 19 January 2024, 7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
Forensic anthropology in Hong Kong has a long, fascinating and at times arduous history. In such a landscape, the medicolegal study of human remains has a great deal of potential to develop. In this talk, Lee will introduce forensic anthropology and its humanitarian foci to push forward the potential of forensic anthropology work, and discuss the significance for forensic anthropology in terms of modern human skeletal variability in Hong Kong in the hope of paving the way for such research here to benefit science and society.
Winsome Lee is currently a Body Donation Program Officer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is a biological anthropologist and works for various organizations, from humanitarian NGO to law enforcement agencies. Since 2017, she has partnered with a private DVI company working on disaster relief and response. She has published 8 books in Hong Kong and Taiwan and received various awards. In 2021, she was awarded the Hong Kong Humanity Award 2021 organized by the Hong Kong Red Cross and RTHK.