Spring 2008 news

The Fairbank Center invited noted population expert and anthropologist Susan Greenhalgh to give the 2008 Reischauer Lecture. Professor Greenhalgh received her PhD from Columbia University, and is currently Professor of Anthropology at the University of California at Irvine. Her research has focused on macro-level regulations of population and on the emergence of control over everyday life, and centers on China, home to the world’s largest population and to its largest communist party. Given the Chinese party-state’s intense interest in shaping the population for statist ends, inquiries into the regulations on population control in China inevitably become inquiries into the dynamics of the interaction between the state and science policy. Prof. Greenhalgh’s larger goal is to develop an anthropology of public policy and governance more generally. She has published on how the Chinese state’s policies to reduce China’s population, via the one-child policy, have intersected with efforts to enhance, through quasi-eugenic means, the population’s bodily and mental quality. This policy has stimulated the development of a gigantic apparatus of population surveillance, management, and control unparalleled in the world. In her talks at the Center, Prof. Greenhalgh extended her remarks to include her research on Vietnam.

The first lecture, delivered on Wednesday, April 16, 2008, and was entitled, “From Quantity to Quality: Population Governance in China and Vietnam.” The meeting was chaired by Prof. Martin Whyte, Department of Sociology at Harvard and Acting Director of the Fairbank Center, and the discussant was Prof. Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Kenneth T. Young Professor of Sino-Vietnamese History, Department of History, Harvard. The lecture was followed by a reception in Room S030 of the CGIS South Building.

The second lecture was held on Thursday, April 17, 2008. It was entitled, “Transforming Society: Making Global Persons and Families.” This session was chaired by Prof. Rubie Watson, Department of Anthropology at Harvard, and the discussant was Prof. Danièle Bélanger, Department of Sociology, University of Western Ontario.

The third and final lecture was held on Friday, April 18, 2008. It is entitled, “Vital Politics: Remaking Party, State and Nation.” The session was chaired by Prof. James Watson, Department of Anthropology at Harvard, and the discussant was Prof. Anthony Saich, Harvard Kennedy School and Director of the Harvard Asia Center.

Each session was held in the Belfer Case Study Room (S020) of the CGIS South Building at 1730 Cambridge Street on the Harvard campus. The lectures began at 4 pm and were free and open to the public. The Reischauer Lectures are sponsored annually by the Fairbank Center; and for the 2008 series, the lectures were co-sponsored by the Harvard Program in Asia and International Relations (HPAIR). Undergraduate students associated with HPAIR joined the Center staff in organizing the sessions.

Susan Greenhalgh