A professor drags a camera into rural China and accidentally captures academic existential crisis in 4:3.
In March 1997, a teaching and research team led by Professor Zhuang Kongshao came to the Tujia area along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River to conduct anthropological research, with the aim of establishing a link between anthropological academic knowledge and field studies, as well as finding valuable research points to achieve the possibility of interdisciplinary collaborative research. "Field Study Along the Yangtze River" is a synchronous film and television work based on this survey. Now re-edited and transferred to today's university classroom, it is intended to facilitate anthropology students who are preparing to enter the field study phase, and by watching this film, it will trigger them to think about the opportunity of academic docking between theory and research sites, and further transition them into their own fieldwork thinking.
Direction
Self-reflexive filming that questions its own purpose.
Production
Raw 1997 DV authenticity, zero polish, maximum sincerity.
Director
Zhuang Kongshao
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This captures a pivotal moment in Chinese anthropology, when Western academic frameworks were being awkwardly localized in rural field sites.
The 'failure' to establish clear research points becomes the actual subject—making this an accidental masterpiece of academic meta-commentary.
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