Co-Creating Anthropology: Relational Knowledge and Collaborative Practice in China

Abstract

Within a global discipline still marked by uneven epistemic hierarchies, collaborations in Chinese anthropology provide a revealing lens for examining how knowledge can be produced relationally. This article analyses partnerships between Western and Chinese anthropologists from the 1990s to the 2020s to show how knowledge co-creation operates in practice. Using Nelson Graburn’s long-term engagements in China as an ethnographic point of entry, it traces how collaborative relationships developed through shared fieldwork, mentorship, institutional exchanges, and co-authorship. These practices enabled Chinese scholars, including those working in minority regions, to pursue research agendas grounded in local histories, philosophical traditions, and socio-political conditions. Across domains such as heritage, museum studies, ethnic tourism, foodways, and art, co-created scholarship generated analytical questions that extend beyond the Chinese context. While structural asymmetries persist, the article argues that relational forms of knowledge production emerging from these collaborations broaden anthropology’s conceptual repertoire and offer insights for rethinking collaborative practice in global anthropology.