Guest Speaker: Dr. Xiao He, Lecturer at East China University of Political Science and Law
Introduced by: Prof. Sajida Tuxun
This event is co-hosted by the CSCC Meanings, Identities, and Communities Cluster, the Division of Social Sciences, and Anthropology@DKU.
Speaker’s Bio:
Xiao He is a lecturer at East China University of Political Science and Law. He received his Ph.D in Anthropology in from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Germany. Dr. He’s research and teaching focus on economic and legal anthropology. His most recent research project examines hierarchy and justice in the world of work in contemporary China.
3:30-4:15PM, Thursday April 16, LIB 1111
Student Workshop | Between Speech and Silence: Research Journeys into Ethics and Labor Justice
How to conduct qualitative research in the fields of law and justice?
What are the approaches to law-related research?
4:30-5:30PM, Thursday April 16, LIB 1111
Research Presentation | Suffering Without Complaint: Autonomy and Dependence Among Rural Migrants in Shanghai
Abstract:
Critical scholars have long diagnosed the willing to suffering as a symptom of authoritarian character. Scholars have recently also reflected on how our modern, secular, liberal sensibilities have limited our understanding of human agency and autonomy; they often show how people in other ethical traditions cultivate dependence in relation to the capacity to suffer and endure. Drawing on my ethnographic research with rural-to-urban migrant workers in Shanghai, this talk explores suffering as an affective and ethical force situated between autonomy and dependence. Suffering opens up a social space for recognition. Yet the social recognition of suffering is asymmetrical and even hierarchical. This dynamic often leads to a strong tendency to idealize arbitrary autonomy.
