The group of anthropologists at HKU has come together to propose the establishment of a Centre for Anthropological Research. We were spurred into action by Professor Robert Le Vine, who is visiting here from Harvard University, and who commented on the large number of active anthropologists in the university. Established in Year 2002, the Centre provides a meeting point for anthropologists who are spread across various disciplines and faculties at the University of Hong Kong, and a basis for research collaboration among them and other scholars. It also provides a venue for anthropologists from elsewhere who are visiting Hong Kong.

CAR is a virtual centre which brings together anthropologists from several Faculties to exchange ideas, host guest lectures and conferences, and arrange seminars on anthropological topics. It aims at providing the location the functions and activities concerned with research, teaching, publication and international scholarly exchange, seeking to formalize and strengthen the many intellectual and institutional ties that exist between anthropologists at HKU and traditions of anthropological study in East Asia especially China and Japan, Southeast Asia and the West. The existence of a Centre would also provide a convenient platform from which to seek research funding and co-ordinate research teams.

The Centre is an institutional partner for co-operation with the Department of Anthropology at the Chinese University, the South China Research Group at the University of Science and Technology. It also intends to support the initiative by the Hong Kong Anthropological Society, in conjunction with the anthropology department at the Chinese University, to launch a new journal called Asian Anthropology. We also have contacts with the Kuangsi University of Nationalities, Zhongshan University, Hanoi University, Oxford.and the ANU.

Such a Centre would provide a vehicle for an ongoing seminar programme in anthropology, which would accommodate not only the research interests of its members, but also be a forum for postgraduate students and visiting academics. It sponsors symposia and conferences. It also offers advanced intensive training courses for students, advanced postgraduates and professional anthropologists from the region.

Anthropology has been an established presence at the University of Hong Kong since the late 1960s. The previous Professor of Sociology, Murray Groves was an anthropologist who was the Chair of the Sociology Department at HKU for 20 years. Professor Groves studied for his Ph.D in anthropology at Oxford under the supervision of one of British Social Anthropology's most interesting researchers.  The department in its early days was very small and therefore Professor Groves decided that it would be pointless to call it a department of Sociology and Anthropology. Since then, there has been recruitment of anthropologists in the Department of Sociology and many other departments of HKU. Presently, there are at least 13 social anthropologists in the university (more then twice the size of the CUHK’s Department of Anthropology), located in the faculties of Social Sciences, Arts, and Education, and in the Centre of Asian Studies. Their fieldwork extends from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam and many areas in Southeast Asia, to Europe and transnational and diasporas communities.

Outside the university, however, many people, including visiting academics, are unaware that there is a substantial body of anthropologists at HKU. This has meant that visiting anthropologists have sometimes failed to contact us and overseas students wishing to study anthropology have by-passed us by because there is “no anthropology” at the HKU. Also, potential international research partners have been missed because of the lack of any institutional profile for anthropology here. A centre for Anthropology is thus in need of establishment so as to  change that situation.

The Centre has four distinctive areas in which its research strengths lie:

Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Transnationalism

This is the area that involves the majority of anthropologists at HKU. Dr. Kuah-Pearce Khun Eng's Rebuilding the Ancestral Village (2000) examines the relationship between the emigrant village in South China and the overseas Chinese in village development. Her current work explores ancestor worship and socio-cultural capital in South China. Dr. John Thorne’s fieldwork in Taiwan and China concerns the nationalism and the ideological manipulation of ethnic identities by national and global powers. Dr. Tsung-Rong Yang studies violence and ethnic relations of Indonesia. Works related to this area also include those by Doctors. Satohiro Serizawa, and Aihe Wang. Dr Grant Evans has also conducted long term research in this area.

Linguistics and Language

Dr. Kirsten Refsing, The current Head of the Department of Japanese, has made seminal contributions to the anthropology of Japan in particular studies of Ainu linguistics, seen in the 25 volumes she edited, Origins of the Ainu language : the Ainu Indo-European controversy. Dr. Christopher Hutton focuses his research on  political issues in language and linguistics. He is investigating the links between linguistic theory and race theory, following on from his 1999 study of linguistics and ideology in Nazi Germany, Linguistics and the Third Reich. In addition, he is researching the sociology of the language situation in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.

Psychological Anthropology and Education

Dr. Peter Cave's main research focus is education in contemporary Japan in comparative context, especially education and selfhood, educational reform, and history of education. Dr. Gerard Postiglone's work on education in China has also made significant contributions to the Anthropology of Education. Dr. Grant Evans has also conducted some research on this area among Lao and Tai peoples.

History and Religion

 Dr. Aihe Wang’s Cosmology and Political Culture in Early China (2000) examines the dynamic mutual production of cosmology and empire. Her current research combines history with fieldwork to investigate the culture of body and healthcare in China, particularly their role in social change, identity formation, and transnational communities. Dr. Wong Heung Wah studies the Japanese companies and the history of consumer culture in Hong Kong. Dr. Kuah-Pearce Khun Eng examines the relationship between state, society and Reformist Buddhism in Singapore. Most works mentioned in other categories also have a strong historical orientation, thus contribute greatly to the area of historical anthropology.

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