Wrestling with ideas and practices of “modern” and “traditional” has animated scholarship for decades, and the many contributions in James Wilkerson and Robert Parkin's edited volume on the relationship of these two concepts to East Asia today show that this scholarly attention is alive and well. The editors arrange the volume to have contributions drawn from ethnographic work done with Tibetans and Qiang in Sichuan (Wang and Liu); Miao in Guizhou (Ho and Chien); a multi-sited analysis on migrants (Chang); Naxi in Yunnan (Bingaman); Amis, Paiwan, and Thao in Taiwan (Tsai, Hong, and Mitsuda); and Nung in Vietnam (Hsu). The chapters are bookended by an introduction written by the editors and an afterword by Wilkerson, both of which do the work of situating and narrating the chapters as being of a theme, which is largely successful given the “herding cats” element in editing such volumes. Other qualities found in the book demonstrate that the teaching of solid anthropology is alive and well in Taiwan, and the work by those so trained is holding its own when contributing to the archival function of anthropology.
The editors recognize the Chinese colonial setting of the peoples of East Asia and suggest that it can be compared to European colonization elsewhere; like with “fourth world” groups akin to those in the Amazon and South Asia, the editors rightly insist on attending to the agency demonstrated in the actions of these East Asian villagers. Wilkerson and Parkin choose practices that marquee the interface of tradition and modernity to express their commitment to human agency, and begin with a serious consideration of what change and modernity might be in lived experience. The editors provide a brief but penetrating overview of how anthropology has tended to think of the “thingness” and the “inventedness” of tradition and modernity, and they do a fine job of bringing the reader up to speed on recent scholarship about East Asian modernity. Each chapter then attends to the inventive agency of those who appropriate the things of tradition and modernity in the course of living their lives as particularly cultured peoples.
Wang Ting-yu's chapter on the meaning of modernity in a rGyalrong Tibetan village in Sichuan takes up the continuing use of Qing-era house naming to demonstrate the conditions and mechanisms of change. Liu Biyun's chapter on how traditional kinship formulations in a Qiang village have persisted in the face of nation-formation, the PRC, and post-Mao reform shows a flexible and adaptive system despite its long history. Ho Zhaohua's chapter on women's costumes as integral and meaningful measures of personal and social position in Guizhou is a continuation of her previous work on Miao embroidery arts and their significance, and is presented in her usual rich ethnographic detail. Chien Mei-ling's chapter on love song practices adds to the detailed picture of Miao life to show how these songs speak of individuality in a way that allows no erosion of social responsibility. Chang Kuei-min's chapter on the conflict between traditional childbearing ideas and modern population control in China as demonstrated by labor migrants adds to existing work on how translocation can circumvent policy and allow space for greater agency. Eveline Bingaman's chapter on the argument about culture inherent in the UNESCO World Heritage Committee's review of Lijiang's status as a World Heritage Site provides the finely situated ethnographic ground to mount an investigation of the terminological magic that goes into UNESCO's work on heritage. The chapter by Futuru C. L. Tsai is a careful analysis of “Amis Hip-Hop” performance that reveals modern practices not opposed to but rather accompanying traditional practices in the processes of changing identification. Li-ju Hong's chapter investigating history and memory in a Paiwan village in Taiwan focuses on how genealogical memory's technologies of verbal myth and legend coexist, interrelate, and compete with written history. Yayoi Mitsuda's chapter on the recent ethnogenetic recognition of the Thao both through their efforts and due to the needs of Taiwanese national politics provides a comparative case for recent work on the Minzu Shibie work in the PRC. Finally, Jenny Hsu's chapter takes up the topic of the “Third Morning Ritual” among the Nung of Vietnam, the exact mechanics of which have been flexible while the durably complex kinship interaction and the teknonymic name transformation demonstrate a sophisticated cultural logic.
Wilkerson's afterword ends the volume by trying to arrange the lot in a Goffmanian analytic that some may find useful. The chapters are worth reading and will be useful to anyone interested in their topics. I have a few quibbles with points made by the editors and several contributors on matters of fact and interpretation, but they do little to detract from the overall value of the work. This volume is a happy contribution of substance to our current golden age of Chinese margin and frontier studies.
