Anthropology in China today

Chinese anthropology has traversed a hundred-year course. It started with bright achievements, and was expected to make indispensable contributions to world anthropology. In the second half of the twentieth century, however, it mainly served the state’s “ethnicities study” policy. Only in the past three decades has it experienced a process of restoration and progress. Anthropologists of other Eastern Asian countries have been conscious of the structure of world anthropology, and have reflected on their peripheral position within it, but Chinese anthropologists seem trapped in China’s particular circumstances, encountering different challenges from those of other East Asian societies. This article discusses four issues: the position of anthropology as a discipline in China, ideas of indigenous anthropology in China, the current situation of Chinese anthropology, and the gap between Chinese anthropology and anthropologies in other societies.