Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2024
Antibiotic shortages have become a global issue, affecting countries worldwide. These shortages o... more Antibiotic shortages have become a global issue, affecting countries worldwide. These shortages often lead to the overuse of specialized or emergency-reserve antibiotics, which impacts the treatment and increases the risk of drug resistance, making infections harder to treat over time. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the severity of these shortages, showing they are neither rare nor isolated but rather common and widespread. This short commentary explores two main questions: firstly, how has antibiotic shortage developed into a serious concern for countries like the United States and Europe, once leaders in antibiotic production; and secondly, how has antibiotic shortage grown from localized and isolated issues into the global concern, affecting countries around the world? By employing historical analysis, this commentary aims to underscore the growing but overlooked issue, pointing to a broad and deeply rooted problem of the pharmaceutical production landscape.
Many countries have reported supply shortages of antibiotics in recent years. The COVID-19 pandem... more Many countries have reported supply shortages of antibiotics in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked interesting discussions among government officials, public health practitioners, and scholars on how to maintain the security of the global pharmaceutical supply chain and how to decrease dependency on countries such as China. This article discusses the experiences and initial findings of tracing global pharmaceutical supply chains through pharmaceutical trade fairs and events at multiple locations. I argue that the reasons behind antibiotic supply shortages are multifold. Although the geographical concentration of the production of key raw materials and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) in China is considered the main reason for the unstable and disrupted supply chain, it is also important to recognize that the same forces that have driven Western pharmaceutical companies to shift some of their less profitable manufacturing lines to China are also challenging Chinese pharmaceutical companies to adjust and reorient their strategies. As such, antibiotics are facing a conundrum in which the governance of excessive use is complicated by a shortage problem that hampers access to essential drugs.
China and India have become major producers of antibiotics, and the world has become highly depen... more China and India have become major producers of antibiotics, and the world has become highly dependent on them. Since 2000, the competition among Chinese and Indian manufacturers on key antibiotic ingredients has become increasingly intense in a series of trade disputes involving anti-dumping investigations. Analyzing these trade disputes, we find that they provide a space of communication and contestation where seemingly objective facts about pharmaceutical ingredients are transformed into debatable subjects, which are used and sometimes manipulated by stakeholders of conflicting interests. The disputes reveal entangled configurations and multilayered stakes in the China-India pharmaceutical nexus that often defy polarized national interests. Stakeholders must juggle multiple factors, including public health interests, nationalist sentiments, and corporate profit, in negotiating the national identities and the physical and chemical properties of "standard" pharmaceutical ingredients. The disputes also highlight the coexistence of collaboration and competition among Chinese and Indian stakeholders in global pharmaceutical supply chains. [antibiotics, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), pharmaceutical nexus, dumping, trade disputes, China-India]
Since 2009, the Chinese state-owned corporation SINLANX has been managing the Anjava Sugar Planta... more Since 2009, the Chinese state-owned corporation SINLANX has been managing the Anjava Sugar Plantation, previously managed by French, Malagasy, and Mauritian companies, in northern Madagascar. Built upon the infrastructure constructed by the French colonial regime and operating based on a collaboration agreement between SINLANX and the Malagasy state-owned sugar company, Anjava presents a telling story of spatialized acts of survival and racialized conflicts over land and water in the interstitial spaces between capitalist production and subsistence economy. Malagasy villagers’ access to resources is often squeezed by multiple enclosures: a water-delivery system and a land-distribution system that prioritize sugar production and a bureaucratic system that punishes those who transgress the enclosures. Although Anjava villagers take advantage of the rhythm of sugar harvests and the nature of fire to sabotage sugar production or to make water claims for their livelihood, the agrarian and infrastructural arrangements at Anjava have perpetuated conditions of chronic precarity and profound marginalization of a landless population. The struggles at Anjava must be contextualized in the complex and ambiguous spaces between capital and labor, livelihood and resistance, dominance and adaptation, and ethnic collaboration and hostility.
The Confucius Institute (CI)-a worldwide educational project sponsored by the Chinese government ... more The Confucius Institute (CI)-a worldwide educational project sponsored by the Chinese government aiming to promote Chinese language and culturehas established its regional headquarters in Madagascar since 2008. The spread of China's educational projects represents China's intensive engagement in Africa in the past two decades, as it is usually considered as a form of 'soft power.' This paper aims to bring anthropological insights into discourses related to 'soft power' where the concept of 'culture' is often used but rarely analyzed. Based on longterm ethnographic fieldwork, this paper critically examines the practices of teaching and learning Chinese language and culture on the ground. In Madagascar, CI classrooms provide much desired yet unsatisfying opportunities for Malagasy students. CI represents 'Chinese culture' as a timeless, bounded, and homogeneous entity by only emphasizing its 'traditional' elements. As a result, CI instructors often find their individual understandings of 'Chinese culture' incommensurable with the hegemonic concept promoted by CI. Such disjuncture benefits actors of knowledge production but disadvantages those of knowledge application. Malagasy students often find the knowledge they have gained from CI inadequate. As such, CI educational projects share with many other development projects the features of disconnectedness and discontinuity that characterize Africa's participation in the postcolonial world.
Chinese migration to the Western Indian Ocean since the 1800s was part of an earlier historical t... more Chinese migration to the Western Indian Ocean since the 1800s was part of an earlier historical trend that saw European colonial powers setting up plantation economies that required foreign laborers. Migrants from Southern China arrived in Mauritius and Madagascar first as indentured laborers, and later as free merchants. Despite many similarities between the two diasporas, they differed in terms of their cultural and linguistic propensities. Furthermore, since the 1990s, both Mauritius and Madagascar have been experiencing rising influences of Mandarin-speaking Chinese immigrants working in infrastructure construction, commercial and educational sectors. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in these two Western Indian Ocean countries between 2015 and 2020, this paper applies the theoretical lens of ‘diaspora-for-others,’ featured in this special issue, to explore the similarities and differences between Chinese migration trajectories to Mauritius and Madagascar, and their respective diasporic identity formations. Local socio- historical contexts in Mauritius, Madagascar, and China influence the transnational experiences of Mauritian and Malagasy Chinese communities, which further contributes to their heterogeneous, fluid and changing cultural identities. In addition, the People’s Republic of China’s increasing engagement in Western Indian Ocean countries as a gateway to Africa in the past two decades has also created more nuances in the distinguishable boundaries within the Chinese diaspora communities in the region.
Since the first coronavirus outbreak hit China in January 2020, how different countries respond t... more Since the first coronavirus outbreak hit China in January 2020, how different countries respond to the crisis has sparked interesting discussions regarding their respective history, political systems, and culture. In the West, many people attribute the acceptance of universal mask-wearing among Asian populations to a so-called "mask culture." This paper argues that "mask culture" emerges during the pandemic as an Orientalist concept in Western public discourses to define the East and to freeze differences between "self " and "other." Orientalism in its everyday manifestation has not only contributed to the initial underestimation of the pandemic in the West; but has also provided a culturalist foundation for essentialist representations of Asian cultures. Self-other binary has greatly shaped Western responses to and narratives of the pandemic in two prominent ways: first, mask-wearing has been considered as an "Asian" practice associated with other Asian cultural stereotypes such as submissiveness to state power; and second, the threat of the coronavirus was initially viewed as minimal because outbreaks in Asia were far and distanced, and thereafter, the suffering of the Other was not considered urgent in the West.
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository, The University of Western Ontario, 2018
My PhD dissertation explores how the meaning of “being Chinese” is culturally and socially constr... more My PhD dissertation explores how the meaning of “being Chinese” is culturally and socially constructed in northern Madagascar, focusing on identity-shaping encounters between Mandarin-speaking Chinese and Malagasy people in three particular contexts: 1) a sugar plantation managed by a Chinese stated-owned corporation; 2) networks of Chinese and Malagasy private businessmen who enable the movement of cheap Chinese commodities from Guangzhou, China to northern Madagascar; and 3) the classrooms of the Confucius Institute - a worldwide educational project sponsored by the Chinese government aiming to promote Chinese language and culture. The dissertation provides an ethnographic account of Chinese-Malagasy encounters by discussing a number of prominent themes: the perceived homogeneity and actual heterogeneity of Chinese people in Madagascar, the influence of particular constructions of gender on intimate relationships between Chinese and Malagasy people, Chinese-Malagasy encounters mediated by global commodity chains and the selective representation of Chinese culture in the classes and events sponsored by the Confucius Institute. By juxtaposing the three contexts, this dissertation strives to bridge the growing literature on China-Africa encounters with broader discussions of Africa in the postcolonial world that has long been dominated by the dual protagonists of the “West” and Africa. The main argument is that all three contexts of Chinese-Malagasy encounters demonstrate the features of discontinuity, unpredictability, exclusiveness and disconnectedness entailed in Africa’s participation in the contemporary world order. Although Chinese-led projects bring certain benefits to Malagasy communities, Chinese stakeholders in Africa are reinforcing and perpetuating the power hierarchy of a postcolonial world that systematically disadvantages underdeveloped countries such as Madagascar. The frictions in Chinese-Malagasy encounters are caused by different and unequal ways in which Chinese and Malagasy people are aspiring for better lives.
The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology, 2015
This paper explores how the Chinese customary ritual of burning paper money to commemorate the de... more This paper explores how the Chinese customary ritual of burning paper money to commemorate the dead ancestors challenges the nature-culture dichotomy. The paper argues that the practice of burning paper money reflects a Chinese cosmology that is not based on a dichotomy between the living and the dead, instead, the dead is often mobilized to exert influential power over the living. Th paper money that people use in such rituals are active actors that participates in people’s social, cultural and economic life. Th paper also investigates how the conflict between government policy and traditional practice demonstrates that the modernists’ efforts to mobilize modern dichotomies have failed to triumph over the entanglement among networks of the living and the dead, the human and the spirit, the object and the subject, nature, culture, and super-nature.
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository, University of Western Ontario, 2014
This research examines the reciprocal influences of the Old Order Mennonite community and tourism... more This research examines the reciprocal influences of the Old Order Mennonite community and tourism in St. Jacobs, Ontario. It is an ethnographic account of encounters between tourists and the Old Order Mennonite community who have both benefited from and been challenged by tourism development for four decades in the area of St. Jacobs. Cultural generalization and different ways of over-representing and misrepresenting the Old Order Mennonite identity has triggered tourists’ curiosity to seek the nostalgic past and social interactions with the Old Order Mennonite community. Even though tourism in St. Jacobs has been initiated and managed with the purpose of protecting the Old Order Mennonite community by providing a proper way of introducing the Old Order Mennonite lifestyle to outsiders, the thriving of tourism has brought an excessive amount of attention to the Old Order Mennonite community. Tourism provides more economic opportunities to the Old Order Mennonite community, while at the same time; it brings new risks. With the development of tourism, the village of St. Jacobs has been transformed from a rural farming service centre to a tourism town, and lost its main service functions to the Old Order Mennonite community. The data of this research is gathered through in-depth participant observation, formal and informal interviews by living within the Old Order Mennonite community in the area of St. Jacobs.
Centre for Critical Development Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough, 2020
What have Chinese-led development projects brought to Africa since the 1960s? Based on research f... more What have Chinese-led development projects brought to Africa since the 1960s? Based on research findings from ethnographic fieldwork conducted over 16 months since 2015, this talk explores the hopes and struggles on a sugar plantation managed by a Chinese state-owned corporation in northern Madagascar.
In her research, sociocultural anthropologist Mingyuan Zhang asks a deceptively simple question, ... more In her research, sociocultural anthropologist Mingyuan Zhang asks a deceptively simple question, "What does it mean to be Chinese?" in a remarkably complicated context: Madagascar. This week, Viki Telios and Yimin Chen learn that there's more to Africa's largest island than just lemurs. Plus, how to introduce yourself in the Malagasy language. To read more about Mingyuan's work check out Academia.edu.
This week, Hour of History sits down with Mingyuan Zhang an anthropologist at the University of ... more This week, Hour of History sits down with Mingyuan Zhang an anthropologist at the University of Western Ontario. Mingyuan lived in Madagascar to study the Chinese community and understand how “being Chinese” is culturally and socially constructed between Mandarin-speaking Chinese and Malagasy people.
Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough
Teaching Project: #SayMyNameAnthro... more Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough
Centre for Critical Development Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough
Course Description: Discussions of African development in the postcolonial world have long been d... more Course Description: Discussions of African development in the postcolonial world have long been dominated by the dual protagonists of the "West" and Africa. Since the turn of the 21 st century, China's intensive engagement in Africa and its effects have come under local and global scrutiny. Chinese investment, development and educational projects in Africa carry associations with distinctive visions of modernity and global connectedness, some of which are clearly understood as alternatives to European visions of the same. Using ethnographic examples from various countries on the African continent and in the western Indian Ocean, this course takes an anthropological approach to critically examine the multifarious effects of Chinese-led projects in Africa. It will not only provide a cultural contour of contemporary Chinese society, but also offer interesting glimpses of the societies of various African countries that are gradually adapting to, and sometimes resisting the intensifying influence of the Chinese presence. The course will include weekly lectures and discussions, during which we will explore together topics including but not limited to: 1) how China and Africa are two historically interconnected regions and how their roles have changed in the global world order since colonial times; 2) how global flows of people, capital and commodities have added new meanings of "being Chinese" in Africa; 3) how Chinese-led development projects are similar to and different from counterpart Western-led projects; 4) how frictions in China-Africa encounters take place in networks of power and privilege in relation to factors such as race, gender, and social economic background; etc. Course evaluation includes weekly class participation, reading quizzes, a research paper, and a final exam.
Department of Anthropology, University of Western Ontario
What are the differences across cultures, social practices and belief systems? Despite all the di... more What are the differences across cultures, social practices and belief systems? Despite all the differences that we learn about people from other parts of the world, what are the similarities that we all share as human beings? This course introduces students to the basic theoretical and methodological principles of sociocultural anthropology, and uses examples from all over the world to explain themes such as identity, religion, kinship, globalization, hierarchy, violence etc. The aim is to encourage students to be critical when thinking about what seems to be “familiar” in their own society and what seems to be “strange” in others. By familiarizing themselves to the rich and broad anthropological work, students will develop the ability to recognize, understand, respect and engage in cultural differences in the fascinating diverse human world.
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2024
Antibiotic shortages have become a global issue, affecting countries worldwide. These shortages o... more Antibiotic shortages have become a global issue, affecting countries worldwide. These shortages often lead to the overuse of specialized or emergency-reserve antibiotics, which impacts the treatment and increases the risk of drug resistance, making infections harder to treat over time. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the severity of these shortages, showing they are neither rare nor isolated but rather common and widespread. This short commentary explores two main questions: firstly, how has antibiotic shortage developed into a serious concern for countries like the United States and Europe, once leaders in antibiotic production; and secondly, how has antibiotic shortage grown from localized and isolated issues into the global concern, affecting countries around the world? By employing historical analysis, this commentary aims to underscore the growing but overlooked issue, pointing to a broad and deeply rooted problem of the pharmaceutical production landscape.
Many countries have reported supply shortages of antibiotics in recent years. The COVID-19 pandem... more Many countries have reported supply shortages of antibiotics in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked interesting discussions among government officials, public health practitioners, and scholars on how to maintain the security of the global pharmaceutical supply chain and how to decrease dependency on countries such as China. This article discusses the experiences and initial findings of tracing global pharmaceutical supply chains through pharmaceutical trade fairs and events at multiple locations. I argue that the reasons behind antibiotic supply shortages are multifold. Although the geographical concentration of the production of key raw materials and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) in China is considered the main reason for the unstable and disrupted supply chain, it is also important to recognize that the same forces that have driven Western pharmaceutical companies to shift some of their less profitable manufacturing lines to China are also challenging Chinese pharmaceutical companies to adjust and reorient their strategies. As such, antibiotics are facing a conundrum in which the governance of excessive use is complicated by a shortage problem that hampers access to essential drugs.
China and India have become major producers of antibiotics, and the world has become highly depen... more China and India have become major producers of antibiotics, and the world has become highly dependent on them. Since 2000, the competition among Chinese and Indian manufacturers on key antibiotic ingredients has become increasingly intense in a series of trade disputes involving anti-dumping investigations. Analyzing these trade disputes, we find that they provide a space of communication and contestation where seemingly objective facts about pharmaceutical ingredients are transformed into debatable subjects, which are used and sometimes manipulated by stakeholders of conflicting interests. The disputes reveal entangled configurations and multilayered stakes in the China-India pharmaceutical nexus that often defy polarized national interests. Stakeholders must juggle multiple factors, including public health interests, nationalist sentiments, and corporate profit, in negotiating the national identities and the physical and chemical properties of "standard" pharmaceutical ingredients. The disputes also highlight the coexistence of collaboration and competition among Chinese and Indian stakeholders in global pharmaceutical supply chains. [antibiotics, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), pharmaceutical nexus, dumping, trade disputes, China-India]
Since 2009, the Chinese state-owned corporation SINLANX has been managing the Anjava Sugar Planta... more Since 2009, the Chinese state-owned corporation SINLANX has been managing the Anjava Sugar Plantation, previously managed by French, Malagasy, and Mauritian companies, in northern Madagascar. Built upon the infrastructure constructed by the French colonial regime and operating based on a collaboration agreement between SINLANX and the Malagasy state-owned sugar company, Anjava presents a telling story of spatialized acts of survival and racialized conflicts over land and water in the interstitial spaces between capitalist production and subsistence economy. Malagasy villagers’ access to resources is often squeezed by multiple enclosures: a water-delivery system and a land-distribution system that prioritize sugar production and a bureaucratic system that punishes those who transgress the enclosures. Although Anjava villagers take advantage of the rhythm of sugar harvests and the nature of fire to sabotage sugar production or to make water claims for their livelihood, the agrarian and infrastructural arrangements at Anjava have perpetuated conditions of chronic precarity and profound marginalization of a landless population. The struggles at Anjava must be contextualized in the complex and ambiguous spaces between capital and labor, livelihood and resistance, dominance and adaptation, and ethnic collaboration and hostility.
The Confucius Institute (CI)-a worldwide educational project sponsored by the Chinese government ... more The Confucius Institute (CI)-a worldwide educational project sponsored by the Chinese government aiming to promote Chinese language and culturehas established its regional headquarters in Madagascar since 2008. The spread of China's educational projects represents China's intensive engagement in Africa in the past two decades, as it is usually considered as a form of 'soft power.' This paper aims to bring anthropological insights into discourses related to 'soft power' where the concept of 'culture' is often used but rarely analyzed. Based on longterm ethnographic fieldwork, this paper critically examines the practices of teaching and learning Chinese language and culture on the ground. In Madagascar, CI classrooms provide much desired yet unsatisfying opportunities for Malagasy students. CI represents 'Chinese culture' as a timeless, bounded, and homogeneous entity by only emphasizing its 'traditional' elements. As a result, CI instructors often find their individual understandings of 'Chinese culture' incommensurable with the hegemonic concept promoted by CI. Such disjuncture benefits actors of knowledge production but disadvantages those of knowledge application. Malagasy students often find the knowledge they have gained from CI inadequate. As such, CI educational projects share with many other development projects the features of disconnectedness and discontinuity that characterize Africa's participation in the postcolonial world.
Chinese migration to the Western Indian Ocean since the 1800s was part of an earlier historical t... more Chinese migration to the Western Indian Ocean since the 1800s was part of an earlier historical trend that saw European colonial powers setting up plantation economies that required foreign laborers. Migrants from Southern China arrived in Mauritius and Madagascar first as indentured laborers, and later as free merchants. Despite many similarities between the two diasporas, they differed in terms of their cultural and linguistic propensities. Furthermore, since the 1990s, both Mauritius and Madagascar have been experiencing rising influences of Mandarin-speaking Chinese immigrants working in infrastructure construction, commercial and educational sectors. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in these two Western Indian Ocean countries between 2015 and 2020, this paper applies the theoretical lens of ‘diaspora-for-others,’ featured in this special issue, to explore the similarities and differences between Chinese migration trajectories to Mauritius and Madagascar, and their respective diasporic identity formations. Local socio- historical contexts in Mauritius, Madagascar, and China influence the transnational experiences of Mauritian and Malagasy Chinese communities, which further contributes to their heterogeneous, fluid and changing cultural identities. In addition, the People’s Republic of China’s increasing engagement in Western Indian Ocean countries as a gateway to Africa in the past two decades has also created more nuances in the distinguishable boundaries within the Chinese diaspora communities in the region.
Since the first coronavirus outbreak hit China in January 2020, how different countries respond t... more Since the first coronavirus outbreak hit China in January 2020, how different countries respond to the crisis has sparked interesting discussions regarding their respective history, political systems, and culture. In the West, many people attribute the acceptance of universal mask-wearing among Asian populations to a so-called "mask culture." This paper argues that "mask culture" emerges during the pandemic as an Orientalist concept in Western public discourses to define the East and to freeze differences between "self " and "other." Orientalism in its everyday manifestation has not only contributed to the initial underestimation of the pandemic in the West; but has also provided a culturalist foundation for essentialist representations of Asian cultures. Self-other binary has greatly shaped Western responses to and narratives of the pandemic in two prominent ways: first, mask-wearing has been considered as an "Asian" practice associated with other Asian cultural stereotypes such as submissiveness to state power; and second, the threat of the coronavirus was initially viewed as minimal because outbreaks in Asia were far and distanced, and thereafter, the suffering of the Other was not considered urgent in the West.
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository, The University of Western Ontario, 2018
My PhD dissertation explores how the meaning of “being Chinese” is culturally and socially constr... more My PhD dissertation explores how the meaning of “being Chinese” is culturally and socially constructed in northern Madagascar, focusing on identity-shaping encounters between Mandarin-speaking Chinese and Malagasy people in three particular contexts: 1) a sugar plantation managed by a Chinese stated-owned corporation; 2) networks of Chinese and Malagasy private businessmen who enable the movement of cheap Chinese commodities from Guangzhou, China to northern Madagascar; and 3) the classrooms of the Confucius Institute - a worldwide educational project sponsored by the Chinese government aiming to promote Chinese language and culture. The dissertation provides an ethnographic account of Chinese-Malagasy encounters by discussing a number of prominent themes: the perceived homogeneity and actual heterogeneity of Chinese people in Madagascar, the influence of particular constructions of gender on intimate relationships between Chinese and Malagasy people, Chinese-Malagasy encounters mediated by global commodity chains and the selective representation of Chinese culture in the classes and events sponsored by the Confucius Institute. By juxtaposing the three contexts, this dissertation strives to bridge the growing literature on China-Africa encounters with broader discussions of Africa in the postcolonial world that has long been dominated by the dual protagonists of the “West” and Africa. The main argument is that all three contexts of Chinese-Malagasy encounters demonstrate the features of discontinuity, unpredictability, exclusiveness and disconnectedness entailed in Africa’s participation in the contemporary world order. Although Chinese-led projects bring certain benefits to Malagasy communities, Chinese stakeholders in Africa are reinforcing and perpetuating the power hierarchy of a postcolonial world that systematically disadvantages underdeveloped countries such as Madagascar. The frictions in Chinese-Malagasy encounters are caused by different and unequal ways in which Chinese and Malagasy people are aspiring for better lives.
The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology, 2015
This paper explores how the Chinese customary ritual of burning paper money to commemorate the de... more This paper explores how the Chinese customary ritual of burning paper money to commemorate the dead ancestors challenges the nature-culture dichotomy. The paper argues that the practice of burning paper money reflects a Chinese cosmology that is not based on a dichotomy between the living and the dead, instead, the dead is often mobilized to exert influential power over the living. Th paper money that people use in such rituals are active actors that participates in people’s social, cultural and economic life. Th paper also investigates how the conflict between government policy and traditional practice demonstrates that the modernists’ efforts to mobilize modern dichotomies have failed to triumph over the entanglement among networks of the living and the dead, the human and the spirit, the object and the subject, nature, culture, and super-nature.
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository, University of Western Ontario, 2014
This research examines the reciprocal influences of the Old Order Mennonite community and tourism... more This research examines the reciprocal influences of the Old Order Mennonite community and tourism in St. Jacobs, Ontario. It is an ethnographic account of encounters between tourists and the Old Order Mennonite community who have both benefited from and been challenged by tourism development for four decades in the area of St. Jacobs. Cultural generalization and different ways of over-representing and misrepresenting the Old Order Mennonite identity has triggered tourists’ curiosity to seek the nostalgic past and social interactions with the Old Order Mennonite community. Even though tourism in St. Jacobs has been initiated and managed with the purpose of protecting the Old Order Mennonite community by providing a proper way of introducing the Old Order Mennonite lifestyle to outsiders, the thriving of tourism has brought an excessive amount of attention to the Old Order Mennonite community. Tourism provides more economic opportunities to the Old Order Mennonite community, while at the same time; it brings new risks. With the development of tourism, the village of St. Jacobs has been transformed from a rural farming service centre to a tourism town, and lost its main service functions to the Old Order Mennonite community. The data of this research is gathered through in-depth participant observation, formal and informal interviews by living within the Old Order Mennonite community in the area of St. Jacobs.
Centre for Critical Development Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough, 2020
What have Chinese-led development projects brought to Africa since the 1960s? Based on research f... more What have Chinese-led development projects brought to Africa since the 1960s? Based on research findings from ethnographic fieldwork conducted over 16 months since 2015, this talk explores the hopes and struggles on a sugar plantation managed by a Chinese state-owned corporation in northern Madagascar.
In her research, sociocultural anthropologist Mingyuan Zhang asks a deceptively simple question, ... more In her research, sociocultural anthropologist Mingyuan Zhang asks a deceptively simple question, "What does it mean to be Chinese?" in a remarkably complicated context: Madagascar. This week, Viki Telios and Yimin Chen learn that there's more to Africa's largest island than just lemurs. Plus, how to introduce yourself in the Malagasy language. To read more about Mingyuan's work check out Academia.edu.
This week, Hour of History sits down with Mingyuan Zhang an anthropologist at the University of ... more This week, Hour of History sits down with Mingyuan Zhang an anthropologist at the University of Western Ontario. Mingyuan lived in Madagascar to study the Chinese community and understand how “being Chinese” is culturally and socially constructed between Mandarin-speaking Chinese and Malagasy people.
Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough
Teaching Project: #SayMyNameAnthro... more Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Scarborough
Centre for Critical Development Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough
Course Description: Discussions of African development in the postcolonial world have long been d... more Course Description: Discussions of African development in the postcolonial world have long been dominated by the dual protagonists of the "West" and Africa. Since the turn of the 21 st century, China's intensive engagement in Africa and its effects have come under local and global scrutiny. Chinese investment, development and educational projects in Africa carry associations with distinctive visions of modernity and global connectedness, some of which are clearly understood as alternatives to European visions of the same. Using ethnographic examples from various countries on the African continent and in the western Indian Ocean, this course takes an anthropological approach to critically examine the multifarious effects of Chinese-led projects in Africa. It will not only provide a cultural contour of contemporary Chinese society, but also offer interesting glimpses of the societies of various African countries that are gradually adapting to, and sometimes resisting the intensifying influence of the Chinese presence. The course will include weekly lectures and discussions, during which we will explore together topics including but not limited to: 1) how China and Africa are two historically interconnected regions and how their roles have changed in the global world order since colonial times; 2) how global flows of people, capital and commodities have added new meanings of "being Chinese" in Africa; 3) how Chinese-led development projects are similar to and different from counterpart Western-led projects; 4) how frictions in China-Africa encounters take place in networks of power and privilege in relation to factors such as race, gender, and social economic background; etc. Course evaluation includes weekly class participation, reading quizzes, a research paper, and a final exam.
Department of Anthropology, University of Western Ontario
What are the differences across cultures, social practices and belief systems? Despite all the di... more What are the differences across cultures, social practices and belief systems? Despite all the differences that we learn about people from other parts of the world, what are the similarities that we all share as human beings? This course introduces students to the basic theoretical and methodological principles of sociocultural anthropology, and uses examples from all over the world to explain themes such as identity, religion, kinship, globalization, hierarchy, violence etc. The aim is to encourage students to be critical when thinking about what seems to be “familiar” in their own society and what seems to be “strange” in others. By familiarizing themselves to the rich and broad anthropological work, students will develop the ability to recognize, understand, respect and engage in cultural differences in the fascinating diverse human world.
Uploads
Papers by Mingyuan Zhang
A talk based on this article is available here: https://youtu.be/E9GMIDfahqg
super-nature.
Talks by Mingyuan Zhang
Produced by Ariel Frame
https://gradcastradio.podbean.com/e/episode-187-being-chinese-in-madagascar/
https://youtu.be/LaOFFC4sg0Y
Teaching Documents by Mingyuan Zhang
Teaching Project: #SayMyNameAnthro - A Student Project of UTSC Anthropology
https://youtu.be/LdpCrS6JSFw
A talk based on this article is available here: https://youtu.be/E9GMIDfahqg
super-nature.
Produced by Ariel Frame
https://gradcastradio.podbean.com/e/episode-187-being-chinese-in-madagascar/
https://youtu.be/LaOFFC4sg0Y
Teaching Project: #SayMyNameAnthro - A Student Project of UTSC Anthropology
https://youtu.be/LdpCrS6JSFw