Domesticating Tourism Anthropology in China

Abstract

Anthropology in China, like in countries such as Brazil and India, has been strongly influenced by the hegemonic power of the knowledge system driven by the domination of English and the world institutional hierarchy.Over the last few decades, scholars from many countries (especially “Third World” countries, such as Brazil and some countries in Africa) have raised awareness of the essentialization of global anthropology (WAN 2003) in efforts to de-essentialize it by “building non-hegemonic anthropological practices” (Ribeiro and Escobar 2006). The pursuit of domesticating social science in recent decades has resulted in neither a Sino-centric nor fully Westernized outcome. This result, we argue, reflects Chinese projects of nationbuilding and modernization. With this in mind, in this essay, we examine the nature of tourism anthropology in China.