Podcast Summary:

Podcast: New Books Network—Anthropology Channel
Episode: Di Wu et al, eds., China As Context: Anthropology, Post-globalisation and the Neglect of China (Manchester UP, 2025)
Host: Yadong Li
Guests: Dr. Wu Di & Dr. Ed Pulford
Date: January 16, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode of the New Books Network spotlights the edited volume China As Context: Anthropology, Post-globalisation and the Neglect of China. Host Yadong Li is joined by Dr. Wu Di and Dr. Ed Pulford, two of the book’s editors. The conversation centers on a provocative question: What happens if we stop treating China only as an object of study, and instead try to think with "China as context"—as a constitutive background of today’s anthropology, geopolitics, and lived experience? The editors unpack the marginalization of China within Anglophone anthropological theory and explore methodological innovations for a more dialogical, comparative, and context-sensitive anthropology.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Guests’ Research Journeys

• Wu Di (03:22): Entered anthropology through migration studies, with fieldwork on Chinese communities in Zambia. This trajectory places him at an intersection between African studies and anthropology of China, raising methodological challenges about belonging and perspective.
  • Quote (Wu Di, 04:30):
    "When you study migration itself... you sort of lose both ends on the field."
• Ed Pulford (05:29): Trained initially in European languages; gravitated towards anthropology to explore connections across Russia and China, especially at their Northeastern borderlands, where local lives reflect global dynamics.
  • Quote (Pulford, 07:13):
    "At a border you get this convergence of lots of different flows... on the scale that far exceed the relatively small town where I actually was living."

2. Geopolitical Backdrop & Book Genesis

• The idea for the book crystallized after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which triggered new global anxieties and curiosity about China’s geopolitical stance (08:43–12:54).
• Both editors noticed "China" being rapidly foregrounded in conversations among anthropologists, exposing intellectual gaps and prompting reflection on the limitations of treating China as peripheral.
  • Quote (Wu Di, 09:58):
    "As anthropologists by training, we always stand back and then ask why people ask about this... suddenly it occurred to me: why have people started to get into China?"
  • Quote (Pulford, 11:18):
    "Anthropologists... concern ourselves not with geopolitics as a topic in itself, but exactly how people are thinking about these things, and what questions at a more granular level these raise."

3. The “Neglect” of China in Anglophone Anthropology

• Despite its world stature, China remains marginal in the major theoretical developments in Anglophone anthropology ("turns"—ontological, infrastructural, ethical), often treated more as a data source than as a generator of theory (13:37–18:22).
  • Quote (Wu Di, 14:05):
    "China as a field... hasn't produced enough anthropological theory to be considered as a paradigm for anthropologists to theorize non-Chinese regions."
• Bridges, Not “Turns”: The book aims not to inaugurate a new theoretical “turn,” but to build bridges—between China and other regions and between Anglophone and Chinese-language anthropological communities (18:22).
  • Quote (Wu Di, 18:22):
    "We want to create a channel for both anthropologies on both sides to actually talk to each other."

4. Problematising “Context”

• The volume argues against taking "context" for granted. In Mandarin, multiple notions—yǔjìng, bèijǐng, huánjìng—capture its multifacetedness (20:39–25:58).
• Context as Dynamic Process: Not a fixed background, but co-created, shifting with actors’ interactions; context can be both grounding and heuristic (25:58).
  • Quote (Pulford, 24:22):
    "We’re arguing for an attunement to those background phenomena as normal, as ordinary, and not as some remarkable, specific thing."
  • Quote (Wu Di, 25:58):
    "Context... is not fixed. It's very much constantly co-created by the actors and interactors within certain scenarios."

5. Against Binaries and Essentialism

• How can anthropologists recognize China’s expanding influence without reifying “Chineseness” or reinforcing binaries like "China vs. the West"? (28:38)
• Strategies include:
  • Comparative work: Always considering China alongside other regions to avoid exceptionalism.
  • Focus on process: Highlighting interaction and improvisation over fixed identities.
  • Decentering the state: Attending to how local actors reinterpret, adapt, or “tokenize” China.

6. Navigating Issues of Scale

• How to avoid oversimplification (seeing "China" as a unitary, exotic entity) or being lost in infinite contextual detail?
• Cross-comparison and careful specification of what “China” refers to in each case (nation, global networks, local flows) are essential (35:28–41:45).
  • Quote (Wu Di, 35:28):
    "The complexity... in terms of the scale and the scale of power dynamics makes study China... problematic... just doing systematic comparisons."
  • Quote (Pulford, 41:45):
    "You’re researching... a place and potentially people who have been writing and theorizing about themselves for a very long time in a way... that can’t really be overlooked."

7. Case Studies: China’s Imprint on New Contexts

• Chapters explored range from the “absent presence” of China in global commodity chains and flows (Alessandro Ripa’s chapter on Poland/Mexico), to Buddhist temple-building in Africa rendering new “third spaces” (Qiuyu’s ethnography in Tanzania) (43:02–50:41).
• Mundane or Spectral Presence: China’s influence manifests not just through people or state actions, but intangibly—through residual effects, infrastructures, or expectations.
  • Quote (Pulford, 47:25):
    "Why is it that China is somehow more absent and less tangible than things that are coded as from the United States? [US presence] is taken as a given... whereas for China, it’s more notable—partly because it’s new."

8. Methodological Implications

• Proposing an "ethnography of encounter": Focus on how context is made and remade in situated interactions (51:13–56:41).
  • Explicit and implicit comparisons: Not just between China and the West, but three-way (local, Chinese, “Western”), especially for Chinese anthropologists.
  • Attunement to ordinariness: Treating China’s global presence as part of everyday life, not always as exceptional.
  • Quote (Wu Di, 51:13):
    "...not to take any kind of social relations or social actions as sustainable by default, but to pay attention to moment by moment how the social relations change..."

9. Beyond Data Extraction—China as Partner in Theory

• How might anthropology shift if China became not only an object of ethnography but an equal partner in theorization? (57:03–63:19)
  • Avoiding the trap of “Sino-centrism”—instead, systematic comparison and knowledge integration.
  • Recognizing China’s internal complexity and multiplicity as a resource.
  • Quote (Wu Di, 57:32):
    "Chinese and Chinese experience... hasn't been incorporated into the general knowledge system. That doesn't mean we need a Sino-centrism... only by embracing... we can move forward."

10. Audience and Future Aspirations

• Intended for China specialists, anthropologists generally, and a broader audience open to comparative, context-sensitive work (64:05–69:29).
• Hope: Inspire more “border-crossing” ethnographic research, including by Chinese scholars, to go beyond political or habitual boundaries.
  • Quote (Pulford, 66:04):
    "My hope would be that more PhD students with backgrounds in China do research just anywhere... again, China is part of the ordinary background of a lot of things going on anywhere in the world."

11. Future Projects

• Pulford: Continuing research on how ideas of nationhood and ethnicity are shifting globally, especially in Chinese and post-Soviet borderlands (70:14–72:25).
• Wu: Fieldwork prospects in the Philippines and ongoing interest in affect and emotions in diaspora, migration, and China’s global expansion (72:25–75:26).

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Anthropology’s Relationship with China:
  "When you study migration itself... you sort of lose both ends on the field." (Wu Di, 04:30)
• On Context as Dynamic:
  "Context... is very much constantly co-created by the actors and interactors within certain scenario and then through their interactions context change and also needs to be recontextualized..." (Wu Di, 25:58)
• On Neglect and Niche:
  “One of the responses included description of the whole project as niche and not interesting to a broad audience and why should people care... It's a feature of how China fits, or is understood to fit..." (Pulford, 16:56)
• On Sino-centrism and Comparisons:
  "Sino-centrism is not one we want to promote... only by embracing comparison can we move forward rather than radicalizing or relativizing China on its own." (Wu Di, 57:32)
• On Future Research:
  "I think part of that mingling is the work being done... by anthropologists with some kind of educational upbringing, institutional backgrounds in China, but working elsewhere..." (Pulford, 61:13)
• On Audience:
  "We hope different audiences will take different reflections specific to their own situations and their own context." (Wu Di, 66:04)

Key Timestamps

• 03:08–08:04– Editors’ Academic Backgrounds
• 08:43–12:54 – Book’s Genesis and Ukraine Invasion Context
• 13:37–18:22 – On “Neglect” in Anthropology
• 20:39–27:19 – Problematising “Context” & Translation Issues
• 28:38–34:28 – Against Essentialism and Binaries
• 35:28–41:45 – The Problem of Scale
• 43:02–50:41 – Case Studies of China’s Absence & Presence Globally
• 51:13–56:41 – Methodological Implications: Encounter and Comparison
• 57:03–63:19 – From Data Provider to Theory Partner
• 64:05–69:29 – Intended Audiences & Aspirations
• 70:14–75:26 – Current and Future Projects of Editors

Concluding Thoughts

China As Context invites anthropologists and social scientists to rethink China’s place not only as a “field site” or “Other,” but as part of the lived, theoretical, and methodological environments in which contemporary research unfolds. The book and this conversation call for greater comparative work, dialogical engagement, and methodological attentiveness—urging researchers to build bridges across linguistic, disciplinary, and political boundaries.