Producing Knowledge about China: Social Science Perspectives

Berkeley presents a conference to evaluate how China's recent transformation might have necessitated a parallel transformation of the multi-faceted ways in which we produce knowledge and represent understanding about China's past, present, and future.

Over the past thirty years China has undergone an unprecedented transformation.  Recently, many conferences have explored the various salient dimensions of this transformation, including industrialization, urbanization, migration, mobility, media and communication, urban architecture, energy consumption, the environment, public health, food security, law, legal and public culture and practices, global connections, regional and ethnic politics, the changing forms and norms of everyday Chinese life and so forth.

Building upon on-going research and discussions, this conference aims to evaluate how China’s recent transformation might have necessitated a parallel transformation of the multi-faceted ways in which we produce knowledge and represent understanding about China’s past, present, and future.  Participants will examine this production of knowledge in a multidisciplinary way, with cross-fertilization across disciplines and times, and drawing on substantive empirical work to engage the broader issue of how we produce knowledge about China.  The conference seeks to serve as a forum for inter-disciplinary dialogue and evaluative examination on the question of how China studies has been placed and pursued in North America and beyond in recent decades.