Summary of SEAA Reads, session 15 from February 7, 2026
Seeking A Future for the Past; Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City by Philipp Demgenski (U.Michigan 2024) open access epub or PDF This evening our circle counted five colleagues in all stages of scholarly life, from graduate school and fieldwork to emeritus point of view. Laurel Kendall hosted and began by describing the Hsu Book award committee’s highlights, along with some of the defining features of this long-term ethnography composed of long periods in residence and intermittent returns, too. The formal commendation appears among SEAA past awards for the Hsu Book Prize . Unlike other ethnographic observers of the tension between developers and heritage/preservation advocates, the author weaves in many, many more voices and experiences: the colonial period families and individuals in residence (with or without documented title to the property), urban migrants (with or without registration/working and residential permission), civil servants, tourists, former residents now ...