演講公告
講題：福壽螺來台源流考：一段跨物種技術網絡史
講者：蔡晏霖（國立交通大學人文社會學系副教授）
地點：清華大學人社院C304
講題：尪仔：一個台灣投射人性的方式（Ang-a: A Taiwanese Mode of Animation）
講者：司黛蕊 Teri Silvio（中研院民族所副研究員）
地點：清華人社院C304
時間：2020/03/11 Wed. 15:00-17:00（結束後會有Happy Hour）
主辦單位：國立清華大學人類學研究所
演講簡介：本演講介紹我新書, Puppets, Gods, and Brands: Theorizing the Age of Animation from Taiwan, 的一個論點。 本書探討人們如何把自身的行動力與個性投射至外在的物質或虛擬環境，賦予非人類的東西他自己的生命力、靈魂等人類特色。透過在台灣十五年來的田野調研發展出一個新的人類學概念, 人性的投射(animation)。 連在同一個文化, 人性投射的方式會多元; 什麼樣的東西適合給予行動力? 人類的什麼特色能夠被投射到物質世界? 投射的過程如何? 在不同文化或次文化, 不同時代, 這些問題的回答會有差別。 在台灣漢人文化裡, 最傳統統投射人性的對象就是[尪仔]或[偶]。 這個範疇包含木偶, 神像, 公仔, 等擬人化的物品。 本演講要探討尪仔的特色和行動力的來源為了了解台灣漢人對人性的概念。
This talk will introduce part of my book, Puppets, Gods, and Brands, which attempts to outline an anthropological theory of animation, which I define as the process of projecting qualities perceived as human outside of the self and into the environment. My hope is that animation might serve as a complement to “performance,” a conceptual platform which allows us to compare practices across different social fields, different cultures, and different historical eras . Here I posit a Han Chinese/Taiwanese mode of animation which centers on a specific type of object, called ang-a in Holo or ou in Mandarin — a small, three-dimensional, human-form (or anthropomorphized animal or object-form) figure. The ang-a is invested with specific human qualities – personality, affect, and charisma — through specific types of actions – ritual, iconographic, and communicational practices. Examining the qualities of the ang-a and the sources of its agency can help us understand how Han Taiwanese people see the nature of humanity and what divides the human from the non-human.
講題：”You have to trust them”: Countervailing Relational Tendencies among Chinese Migrants in Tanzania
講者：Derek Sheridan（中研院民族所助研究員）
地點：清華人社院C304
時間：2020/03/04 Wed. 15:00-17:00
主辦單位：國立清華大學人類學研究所
Bio:
Derek Sheridan is an Assistant Research Fellow with the Institute of Ethnology at Academia Sinica. His research interests include China-Africa connections, migration and transnationalism, ethics, inequality, political economy, race, semiotics, knowledge production, global imaginaries, (global) China, and East Africa (Tanzania). His first project, the Mutualities of Being Chinese in Tanzania, is based on seventeen months of ethnographic fieldwork studying the everyday lives of migrant Chinese entrepreneurs in Tanzania. The book will examine how Chinese expatriates and ordinary Tanzanians negotiate a “South-South relationship” through the interpersonal ethics of social interactions. His next project concerns the circulation of martial arts culture between East Asia and Africa, and its influence on subjectivities and cultural production (incl. film) in Tanzania.
演講簡介：
Chinese migrants in Africa often demonstrate a paradoxical orientation to the social relationships they develop with locals. Many seek relationships and friendships which are necessary for facilitating business transactions and capital accumulation, but many also avoid or minimize relationships and friendships in order to protect themselves and others from varied perceived dangers. Even migrants who pursue friendships for affective purposes may face discouragement from their associated businesses/institutions. This is despite a recognition that “people-to-people” relations are important for the China-Africa relationship. These countervailing tendencies complicate any attempt to categorize everyday Chinese-African interactions as either cooperative or conflictual, integrated or segregated, or even instrumental and affective. Instead, these tendencies suggest the need to problematize the concept of relationality as applied to both critical theories of political economy and ethnographic approaches to ordinary ethics. This question is particularly relevant in Tanzania, where the narrative of Sino-African friendship as an anti-imperial cooperation and alternative model of global relationships was perhaps most visibly conceptualized, but which has since been reimagined to describe new modes of trade and investment more similar to global capitalism. Based on seventeen months of ethnographic fieldwork among Chinese migrant entrepreneurs, managers, and employees in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania between 2013 and 2016, I examine and compare three situations involving countervailing tendencies to both establish and limit relationships. Comparing these situations demonstrates both structural imperatives to relate in order to accomplish transactions, and the limits on relationships due to the vulnerabilities of interdependency and uneven wealth. Considering these countervailing tendencies in terms of theories of capitalism as either binding or separating, I examine implications for ethical/political assumptions about the sometimes-claimed distinctive character of South-South commerce.