The National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku) is a research center for ethnology and cultural anthropology.

Socio-cultural Reconstruction in China: Perspectives on Glocalization

Joint Research Coordinator　HAN Min

Reserch Theme List

Objectives

In discussing modernity and social change in modern China, revolution is one of the most important concepts to consider. A previous joint research project focused on this critical key word, revolution, to study how the concept of revolution permeated modern China. With this key word we considered the following among other questions: (1) representation and actualization of the revolution in clothing, art, narratives and movies; (2) reconstruction of social systems and customs/etiquette; and (3) memories of and structural change to the revolution during an age of globalization. Through these research efforts we were able to investigate to a degree the discourse concerning revolutionary ideology, the process of creation and actual form of various systems, practices and representations, discourse and various systems spawned by the Hsin-Hai Revolution (1911 Revolution) and socialist revolution (in 1949 and after) that followed, as well as disruption and continuation of traditions that preceded the revolutions.

This research aims to build on the previous research by considering contemporary China’s modernization and social change from the standpoint of glocalization. Amidst the trend towards global economic activities, there is problem consciousness concerning cultural globalization and localization that are occurring simultaneously. Amidst uniform globalization of politics, economics and culture, individuals are more and more becoming conscious of their localness, ethnicity, nationality, roots and traditions, their inheritance and history to search and rebuild. These can be summarized under the slogan, "think globally, act locally." (Robertson, 1997: 16)

This research will be implemented by a team of 18 anthropologists, whose subject of study is China. In an age of globalization and under a national policy of creating a harmonious society, that is, a society based on harmony, the anthropologists will consider how histories of civil affairs, families, localities, ethnic groups and the State, traditions, folkways, multiple value systems and intellectual systems are coexisting, reconstructed, represented (symbolized), consumed and disseminated. They will also consider the forms and mechanisms for glocalization in Chinese society.