Knowledge Production in Mao-Era China: Learning from the Masses, written by Rui Kunze and Marc Andre Matten
Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: China under Mao represented a historical moment of unparalleled scientific pluralism.That is what Rui Kunze and Marc Matten argue in this slim yet ground-breaking new volume, which claims that "epistemological flexibility" shaped discourses on science and politics in Maoist and post-1978 China.The authors suggest that science under Mao actively incorporated and recontextualized local knowledges as a consequence of its emphasis on practice.Rui and Matten's examination of the making of scientific knowledge as a social process represents a welcome adoption of the methods and approaches of the history of science by Sinologists.To make these arguments, the authors draw primarily on published manuals and reports, following precedents set by Sigrid Schmalzer and others in taking propaganda seriously as a means of understanding scientific activity and knowledge dissemination.1 Published texts, images, and films from the Maoist period indeed offer a wealth of materials for analysis here; how might archival documentation or interviews have complemented, or complicated, these rich sources?The global COVID-19 pandemic has made the latter much more difficult to access, but this book offers a key foundation for future research using sources of all kinds.Two thematic chapters precede three case studies of Maoist science.The first chapter seeks to show how the disunity of science was created in the post-1949 era of socialist construction, arguing that Mao-era definitions of "correct science" and superstition were not consistent; this created possibilities for pluralizing knowledge in practice.The second chapter seeks to describe
Author: Mary Augusta Brazelton
Institution: University of Cambridge
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4384697388