Xiaoyang Zhu

Xiaoyang Zhu is a distinguished professor at Yunnan Minzu University (from 2025), is an Emeritus Professor from the Department of Sociology at Peking University.  He once served as the deputy director of the Department of Sociology at Peking University from 2007 to 2015. He is mainly engaged in teaching and research in areas such as political/legal anthropology, urban-rural sociology/anthropology, visual anthropology, and social science methodology. He is specialized in political anthropology and legal anthropology. Currently, he is a member of the Academic Committee of the Chinese Ethnological Society.

In the past two years, he has published a series of articles on anthropological methodology。In the field of visual anthropology, he is a senior ethnographic film author and researcher. He has (co-directed) four "Small Village Series" ethnographic films around Dianchi Lake, which have an impact in the field of visual anthropology. Since 2018, he has organized and taken on the playwriting and composition of the "The Age of Kui Ge" drama series at Yunnan University, making the Kui Ge series of dramas a flag - bearer in campus dramas of universities in China.

The project

Title: Political Anthropology and lcoal governance in China

"This is a mini-course on Chinese political anthropology consisting of four lectures. The content is derived from the researcher's findings in field research and theoretical exploration in political anthropology over the past few decades up to the present. The lectures will focus on grassroots governance and community participation in China over the past two decades, set against the backdrop of the impact of urbanization on urban and rural societies. They will also explore the methodological and epistemological issues raised in the field research..  ."

Hosting Institution: École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)

Selective Bibliography

**Monographs**

• Zhu Xiaoyang. *Political Anthropology: From the Perspective of Everyday Language*. Social Sciences Academic Press, 2024.
• Zhu Xiaoyang. *Topography and Politics: A Perspective of Sociocultural Anthropology*. Social Sciences Academic Press, 2016.
• Zhu Xiaoyang. *Topography of Political in Rural China*. Singapore: World Scientific, 2014.

*Journal Articles (Selected)**

• 2025, Zhu Xiaoyang. “Dishi and the Everyday Language Perspective and Method in Anthropology.  Chinese Journal of Sociology, (2):  92-123.
• 2025, Zhu Xiaoyang, "From 'Half Wittgenstein' to the Complete Human Being: The Mission of Liberal Arts Education in the AI Era", *Cultural Review* (New Media · Social Observation), Issue 11, General Issue 231, reprinted by *The Paper*.
• 2025, Zhu Xiaoyang, "Weaving Baskets, Making Straw Stools, Building Homes in Ruins", *Journal of Original Ecological National Culture*, Issue 2.