Allen Chun – författare

Unstructuring Chinese Society is a culmination of long term field work and archival research that challenges existing theories of social organisation and cultural change. The book makes new sense of historical contradictions, political conflicts and deep seated social transformations that have underlined the experience of colonial rule and the practices of local institutions in Hong Kong over the past century. By focusing on the ongoing interactions of discourse, practices and global-local relations in cultural terms, Unstructuring Chinese Society puts forth a fresh perspective in the field of historical anthropology, while addressing ongoing critical concerns in postcolonial theory and our understanding of tradition and modernity.

Unstructuring Chinese Society is a culmination of long term field work and archival research that challenges existing theories of social organisation and cultural change. The book makes new sense of historical contradictions, political conflicts and deep seated social transformations that have underlined the experience of colonial rule and the practices of local institutions in Hong Kong over the past century. By focusing on the ongoing interactions of discourse, practices and global-local relations in cultural terms, Unstructuring Chinese Society puts forth a fresh perspective in the field of historical anthropology, while addressing ongoing critical concerns in postcolonial theory and our understanding of tradition and modernity.

Examining the cultural, political, economic, technological and institutional aspects of popular music throughout Asia, this book is the first comprehensive analysis of Asian popular music and its cultural industries. Concentrating on the development of popular culture in its local socio-political context, the volume highlights how local appropriations of the pop music genre play an active rather than reactive role in manipulating global cultural and capital flows.

Broad in geographical sweep and rich in contemporary examples, this work will appeal to those interested in Asian popular culture from a variety of perspectives including, political economy, anthropology, communication studies, media studies and ethnomusicology.

Examining the cultural, political, economic, technological and institutional aspects of popular music throughout Asia, this book is the first comprehensive analysis of Asian popular music and its cultural industries. Concentrating on the development of popular culture in its local socio-political context, the volume highlights how local appropriations of the pop music genre play an active rather than reactive role in manipulating global cultural and capital flows.

Broad in geographical sweep and rich in contemporary examples, this work will appeal to those interested in Asian popular culture from a variety of perspectives including, political economy, anthropology, communication studies, media studies and ethnomusicology.

On the Geopragmatics of Anthropological Identification explores the discursive spaces of our speaking position, or what has routinely been referred to in the literature as the poetics and politics of writing culture. At issue here are its problematic underlying notions of cultural identity, authorial subjectivity and postcolonial critique. Contrary to the widespread assumption that cultural studies and the social sciences share a common discourse of culture and society, Allen Chun argues that ''modern'' disciplinary practices and axioms have in fact produced inherently incompatible theories. Anthropology''s ethical relativism has also created obstacles for a critical theory of culture and society.

This book began as a year-long ethnography of a school in Taiwan in 1991 then evolved more into a historical sociology of national formation and its cultural mindset.  Cultural nationalism is a widely debated but poorly understood process.  Contrary to prevailing perceptions, the Cold War may have given way to a more progressive open society, but the politicization of ethnicity hardened a more deeply entrenched cultural frame of mind.  Instead of liberating an indigenous reality, Taiwanese consciousness has ironically polarized the political dead ends of reunification and independence.  In the final analysis, the ethnography can serve as a paradigmatic case study for critical cultural studies. There are clear ramifications also for a comparative study of the cultural politics of other Chinese speaking or Asian societies and their histories.