THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Venera KHALIKOVA
The Ayurvedic Health Industry: Beyond Medicine, Beyond Tradition, Beyond Asia
Friday 28 March 2025, 7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
Ayurveda is a South Asian tradition of health and longevity. In academic and popular discourse, it is often described as a traditional, indigenous, and alternative medicine, yet these designations misrepresent the fact that Ayurveda also exists in a form of a large, innovative, and lucrative industry with significant influence both within and beyond Asia. This industry encompasses multiple market sectors and products: from classical or reformulated branded pharmaceuticals to food and beverages, personal care products, spa, restaurants, household cleaning, textiles, dyes, and biofertilizers. These commodities are not strictly medical yet invoke and capitalize on the Ayurvedic medical knowledge.
In this talk, I examine Ayurveda as a brand-oriented, transnational, and profit-driven industry, particularly focusing on its expansion beyond the domain of "medicine." By documenting various forms, infrastructures, technologies, stakeholders, policies, and ideologies of the Ayurvedic industry, I show how it intersects with geopolitics, big business, and Global Health. I also ask, what is at stake when the labels of "Ayurveda" find their way into everything from the chic to the trivial? What are the political, economic, and cultural regimes that facilitate such possibilities? And do these market transgressions betray the indigenous principles, or finally challenge the previously narrowly "medical" approaches to Ayurvedic knowledge?
Venera Khalikova is Assistant Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is a cultural anthropologist researching alternative medicine in India and the transnational migration of South Asians in Hong Kong. Her work has been funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong, and appeared in Medical Anthropology, Journal of Asian Studies, and Food, Culture, and Society, among others.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Gabriella ANGELINI
Chinese Men and White Women Couples in Hong Kong: Managing and Challenging Social and Family Expectations
Friday 28 February 2025, 7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
Hong Kong has a long history of "interracial" relationships and has been home to a significant population of Eurasians. This history together with the city's global status makes romantic couples involving Chinese men and White women relatively more common than in other places, especially in recent years. Still, due to historical legacies and media representation, such couples draw attention in public spaces because their race and gender pairing defies established dating patterns. Similarly, in the context of family relationships, the reactions of family members can vary significantly - ranging from excitement to opposition - depending on various factors, such as class position or cultural backgrounds. In this talk, Gabriella Angelini will explore these issues by sharing a few case studies from her 12-month research in Hong Kong and drawing from her personal experiences.
Gabriella Angelini is an Anthropology PhD student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Due to her life trajectory and experiences studying, living, and working abroad, her research interests include migration, "mixed" families, identity formation, and the intersectionality of race, gender, class, and cultural hierarchies.
THE HONG KONG ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY
AND THE HONG KONG MUSEUM OF HISTORY
PRESENT
An Anthropological Talk by Zheng LIU
Concealment and secrecy: the transmission of Yijing and divination techniques in contemporary China
Friday 17 January 2025, 7:00pm
Hong Kong Museum of History
Lecture Hall, Ground Floor, 100 Chatham Road, Tsim Sha Tsui
This research examines the resilience and vitality of Chinese divination in Mainland China. Condemned as superstitions in China since the early 20th century, and severely repressed during the Cultural Revolution, divinatory knowledge and practices - particularly around the philosophical and divinatory classic of Yijing - have enjoyed a remarkable boom since the early 1980s. Over the past decade, however, condemnation has once again become more virulent, affecting a previously booming divination market as well as the status and work of professional specialists. Against this backdrop, practitioners put in place various strategies of concealment, notably based on a distinction between philosophical texts (highlighted) and practices (concealed). This study is based on fieldwork among communities of students, often from business backgrounds, who attend collective divination courses with masters in Shenzhen. Drawing on the concept of "community of practice" and theories of "secrecy", this research explores how knowledge and practices are structured, ordered and controlled, in a context where strategies of concealment induced by the political context are articulated with a structural secret dimension traditionally associated with the transmission of esoteric knowledge such as divination. Taking the perspective of both teachers and students, the aim is to understand how "secret" knowledge is constructed and maintained within the "Yijing community", and how compartmentalized knowledge contributes to structure and hierarchize this type of community.
Zheng Liu is a third-year PhD student at Inalco. Her research interests include divination and prognostication in China, early Chinese systems of thought, and Yijing and related texts. Zheng Liu's doctoral project, Concealment and Secrecy: the Transmission of Yijing and Divination Techniques in Contemporary China, was funded by RENSEP.