Anthropology in Hong Kong According to the GSAP: A Celebration of Public Outreach

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines what the Global Survey of Anthropological Practice reveals about anthropology as practiced in Hong Kong, and notes that the statistical data offered by Hong Kong Anthropological Association members does not reflect professional anthropology in the city. This is because the Hong Kong Anthropological Society is a non-professional association dedicated to bringing anthropological knowledge to a larger public, with an astonishing diversity of members from all walks of life. The paper suggests that this motley society, in its implicit repudiation of anthropological professionalism, may offer a modest lesson in how, even in a society in which the number of anthropologists is too tiny to create a viable professional organization, bringing anthropology to the public may nonetheless be eminently achievable.