A curated list of my academic and public writings
Books
In 2024, my first book was published with Palgrave Macmillan, titled “The Invention of Tradition in China: The Story of a Village and Nation Remade“. In China, heritage projects are sprouting across the countryside as a call for the great revival and rejuvenation of the nation. My book examines the transformation of a Dong ethnic minority in Guizhou province into a state-led “Traditional Village” (传统村落) heritage site. Keywords: rural China, ethnicity, tradition, modernisation, nation-building
**Get in touch if you are interested in a free PDF copy of my book.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Are Ethnic Chinese Artisanal Practices in Need of Saving?: Heritage, Women’s Labor and the Commodification of Crafts and Textiles in a Dong Ethnic Minority Village is published in Journal of Anthropological Research. It looks at the women-led labour-intensive practices required to produce fabric and embroidery to adorn clothing and accessories in Meili, a Dong village in Guizhou province, where my previous research was based.
On Self-Reliant Masculinities and Rural Returnees in Ethnic China, is published in the Open-Access journal Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology . It contributes to critique on China’s state-led “crisis of masculinity” to better understand the felt anxieties of the country’s male rural returnees in Guizhou.
My first peer-reviewed article, Material Compromises in the Planning of a Traditional Village in Southwest China was published in the Open-Access journal, Social Analysis. The article focuses on the social dynamics of planning and compromise between the interests and perspectives of planners, officials, and local inhabitants in rural Guizhou.
Popular Media and Essays
My Dear Chi’: Love Letters at the Dawn of the Mao Zedong Era is the first piece of writing I have published on my current project. The essay reflects on the 1950s correspondence between my Chinese grandfather and Finnish grandmother. Intimate artefacts trace a cross-border romance and the idealism of a moment when a shared socialist future felt within reach.
Through the Eyes of an Anthropologist summarises an event I organised in December 2024 in Beijing with anthropologist He Beili. In the essay, we focus on both of our journeys to shed preconceptions and understand our interlocutors by placing ourselves into their environments and daily lives to gain as close to a real experience from their vantage point.
Essay in Made in China Journal in the Bending Chineseness: Culture and Ethnicity After Xi special issue. In Xi Jinping’s Traditional Villages, I discuss how heritage schemes validate statist views on tradition and civilisation. They also offer new ways of understanding discourse on ethnicity and multiculturalism.
Chapter in the Thames & Hudson book China Adorned: Ritual and Custom of Ancient Cultures, a beautiful visual encyclopedia on fashion, adornment and rituals of Chinese ethnic minority groups in Southwest China. My chapter is called The Social Relations of Textile Traditions in a Dong Ethnic Minority: A Photo Essay.
Beyond writing for academic audiences, I have contributed to Antroblogi, a Finnish independent science online publication on life and society from an anthropological perspective: “Ethnographic Postcards: Porch Small Talk” (2023); “Dressing the Dead” (2019); “Shaping Space, Shaping Gaze: Swimming naked in Yrjönkatu swimming pool” with Sonal Makhija (2017); “Addressing Abortion and my rebellious privates” (2017)
I have also written Book Reviews for numerous academic journals, including Ethnos, The China Journal, Asian Ethnicity, Social Anthropology, Suomen Antropologi, International Institute for Asian Studies, China Perspectives and Journal of Asian Studies.
**For a full list of my publications, please refer to my Google Scholar page and University of Helsinki Research Portal**
SUVI RAUTIO 