"Fluid
Labor and Blood Money" portrays
several overlapping
levels of the circulation
of human plasma,
the origins and consequences
of the HIV epidemic,
and the author's
own involvement in
the aftermath during
his fieldwork starting
in 2003. This ethnographically
grounded study of
an epidemic shows
that “biotechnology
broadly defined can
be powerfully refracted
by local configurations
of economy, technology,
and social relations” in
China’s
liberalized economy.
This
year's doctoral
student jury--Joanna
Davidson (Emory U),
Maria McMath (Princeton
U) and Erkan Saka
(Rice U)--writes
that the article,
"combines
rich ethnographic
detail and vivid
portrayals of real
lives with broad
and cogent historical,
social, economic
and cultural analyses. SHAO Jing demonstrates that
one mode of ethnographic
writing need not
be sacrificed or
constrained by the
other. The writing
style is refreshingly
clear and powerful;
he offers complex
theoretical analyses
without resorting
to obscurantist language.
He writes simply
and intimately, without
giving in to sentimentality
or casting characters
as “victims” and “perpetrators.” Likewise,
he masterfully explores
how global neo-liberal
policies impact local
communities, going
well beyond conventional
evocations of neoliberalism
and simple, suggestive
links between the
global and the local
. . . . SHAO Jing’s article represents the best of a
critical, engaged,
and imaginative cultural
anthropology."
*
* *
Cultural
Anthropology essays can be accessed electronically through Anthrosource, http://www.anthrosource.net/, available through most research libraries and to all members of the American Anthropological Association. Other Cultural Anthropology essays of interest to researchers and teachers concerned with humanitarianism can be found at the journal's web site at http://www.culanth.org/?q=node21.
***
About
the Cultural Horizons Prize:
The SCA has long been distinguished by having the largest
graduate student membership of any section of the AAA. Recognizing
that doctoral students are among the most experimentally
minded--and often among the best read--of ethnographic writers,
this award asks of SCA's graduate student readers, "Who
is on your reading horizon?"
This spirit gave rise to the Cultural Horizons Prize, awarded
yearly by a jury of doctoral students for the best article
appearing in Cultural Anthropology.
Prize
winners include:
Saba
Mahmood (U Chicago), 2002
Paul
K. Eiss (Carnegie Mellon), 2003
William
Mazzarella (U Chicago), 2004
Sarah Jain (Stanford
U), 2005
Peter W. Redfield (UNC),
2006
