By Huang Jianbo, East China Normal University
An anthropology with a "human touch" must first begin with being "human." And for scholars, being human, especially when conducting research, means first and foremost "speaking human language."
Academic writing, particularly the eight-legged essay style of journal papers, often ends up as a dry, seemingly standardized pile of text lacking substance, rhythm, and beauty. From the perspective of student training and the formatting requirements of academic journals, this is understandable. Yet the problem is clear: academic language has largely distanced itself from the everyday life and the living world, to the point that much of the thinking of scholars has no connection to their own lives. In other words, their thinking cannot be used to understand how they live.
As for anthropology, the field I am familiar with, I understand it as a modern social science — though some also view it as a humanity. In this sense, anthropology, beyond conducting academic research, indeed aims to help us understand the problems of human beings and human society.
Anthropology emphasizes the study of others, the study of other people. In the past, this meant the study of "foreign lands"; more recently, it has become the study of people who are different, especially those with cultural differences. Because by studying others, we can better understand this world. But it is crucial to remember that while studying others, turning the lens back on oneself is particularly important. In a sense, studying others is precisely for — or at least can achieve — a better understanding of oneself.
Lévi-Strauss's “Tristes Tropiques” is beautifully written and widely read, even serving as a source of inspiration for many young people, especially travel bloggers, Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book) users, and "travel bibles." Beyond that, Lévi-Strauss also produced highly specialized writings, particularly his monumental “Mythologiques” series. Similarly, Fei Xiaotong, while writing his academic work “Peasant Life in China,” also wrote a novel entitled “The Cocoon.” This novel was not published until recent years, when it was discovered in a London library, translated into Chinese, and finally released. This shows that beyond his academic writing, Fei made an effort to use a different literary form to express what he could not convey in his scholarly work.
When it comes to anthropology, first, beyond focusing on others, it also focuses on the self. Second, anthropology is "about" human beings. Therefore, it must have a human touch. Moreover, anthropology is "concerned with" human beings — and I mean by this not just "about" human (i.e., "about human") but "for human" and "of human." "For human" means for the sake of human beings, for the sake of understanding people and human society. Thus, the ultimate landing point of such research must be on human beings themselves. If even anthropological writing lacks a human touch, it seems to me that it has already strayed very far from the kind of anthropology initially imagined or hoped for. More importantly, the human beings that anthropology cares about are not merely humans as a category — that is to say, not an abstract concept of "the human" — but concrete, specific individuals.
Third, an anthropology with a human touch hopes to express its observations and its understanding of the world and of people in authentic, familiar, and intimate Chinese. However, a Chinese-language anthropology is not a centrist one — not Sinocentric or China-centric — but a cosmopolitan one, an open and sincere expression offered to the world.
Published in Social Sciences Weekly, April 2, 2026