The Enigma of Village Brawls in Southeastern China
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:00 pm to 6:30 pm
- Room
- TBC
- Event type
- Seminar
About this event
Ethnographic field notes from south-eastern China, taken in the period of vanishing imperial rule and the early republic, describe a lunar New Year custom in which village people assembled to form sides that started fighting, including pelting one another with stones.
It is suggested that these dramatic New Year sessions expressed contradictory features characterising southern Chinese culture. Momentary explicit and brutal antagonism publicly displayed was an outcome of conflicting cultural tenets relating to the affinity between bride-givers and bride-takers. In terms of cultural semantics such relationships were understood as ambiguous and in an ambivalent way influencing the construction of social continuity into the future.
Registration
This event is open to the public and free to attend; however, registration is required. This event is taking place on campus and will not be recorded or live-streamed.
Organiser
This event has been organised by the SOAS China Institute.
Image credit: Chengyu Wang on Unsplash
About the speaker
Göran Aijmer is Professor Emeritus and former Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His research focuses on symbolic expression in politics, economics and religion, with regional expertise in southern China, Southeast Asia and Melanesia. He has held appointments at institutions including Harvard-Yenching Institute, the University of Cambridge, All Souls College, Oxford, Australian National University, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and the University of East Anglia. His fieldwork has focused particularly on Hong Kong’s New Territories and the Pearl River Delta. His publications include several books and numerous journal articles, alongside research in historical anthropology, particularly in southern China.
Chair
This event will be chaired by Dr Lars Laamann (Senior Lecturer, SOAS Department of History).
Contact
Email: sci@soas.ac.uk
