Joseph BoscoPhD

Cultural anthropologist, taught for 24 years in the Department of Anthropology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong until 2016, and an Adjunct Associate Professor there since.

Now also a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

Full curriculum vitae, with all publications, grants and teaching.

anthropological fragments: random comments about culture and life, posted on Substack.

Recent and major publications. For the full list, see the CV.

1. 2024“Rugby Sevens, Globalization, and Cosmopolitan Nationalism: Hong Kong’s Surprising Role in Rugby’s Rise to Olympic Sport.” In Tobias Zuser and Lawrence Ho, eds., Sport in Hong Kong: Culture, Identity, and Policy, 105–135. New York: Peter Lang.
2. 2023“On the use of Chinese characters and Romanization in English publications.” Asian Anthropology 22(3): 220–225.DOI
3. 2017“The View from Hong Kong Anthropology.” Asian Anthropology 16(1).Read
4. 2016“The Sacred in Urban Political Protests in Hong Kong.” International Sociology 31(4): 375–395.DOISelected as one of six Outstanding Papers in Hong Kong Studies for 2015/16 by the Academy of Hong Kong Studies, Education University of Hong Kong.
5. 2015“Urban Processions: Colonial Decline and Revival as Heritage in Postcolonial Hong Kong.” In Peter van der Veer, ed., Handbook of Religion and the Asian City: Aspiration and Urbanization in the Twenty-First Century, 110–130. Berkeley: University of California Press.
6. 2015“Chinese Popular Religion and Hong Kong Identity.” Asian Anthropology 14(1): 8–20.DOI
7. 2014“The Problem of Greed in Economic Anthropology: Sumptuary Laws and New Consumerism in China.” Economic Anthropology 1: 167–185.DOI
8. 2013“The Hong Kong Ocean Park Kidnapping Rumor.” Ethnology 50(2): 135–151.
9. 2012“The Formula as a Managerial Tool: Audit Culture in Hong Kong.” Journal of Workplace Rights 16(3–4): 383–403.
10. 2009“Underground Lotteries in China: The Occult Economy and Capitalist Culture” (with Lucia Huwy-Min Liu and Matthew West). In Donald C. Wood, ed., Economic Development, Integration, and Morality in Asia and the Americas, Research in Economic Anthropology 29. Emerald.PDFOutstanding Author Contribution Award, Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2010.
11. 2007“Young People’s Ghost Stories in Hong Kong.” The Journal of Popular Culture 40(5): 785–807.
12. 2004“Local Theories and Sinicization in the Anthropology of Taiwan.” In Yamashita, Bosco and Eades, eds., The Making of Anthropology in East and Southeast Asia, 208–252. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
13. 2003“The Supernatural in Hong Kong Young People’s Ghost Stories.” Anthropological Forum 13(2): 141–149.DOI
14. 2001“The McDonald’s Snoopy Craze in Hong Kong.” In Gordon Mathews and Lui Tai-lok, eds., Consuming Hong Kong, 263–285. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
15. 1999屏東縣萬丹鄉萬惠宮 (The Wanhui Temple of Wandan Township, Pingdong County). Pingdong: Pingdong Cultural Center. (Bilingual.)
16. 1999Temples of the Empress of Heaven (with Puay Peng Ho). Images of Asia. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
17. 1994“Faction versus Ideology: Mobilization Strategies in Taiwan’s Elections.” The China Quarterly 137: 28–62.Read
18. 1994“Yiguan Dao: ‘Heterodoxy’ and Popular Religion in Taiwan.” In Murray A. Rubinstein, ed., The Other Taiwan, 1945 to the Present, 423–444. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
19. 1992“The Emergence of a Taiwanese Popular Culture.” American Journal of Chinese Studies 1(1): 51–64.Reprinted in Rubinstein, ed., The Other Taiwan (1994), 392–403.
20. 1992“Taiwan Factions: Guanxi, Patronage, and the State in Local Politics.” Ethnology 31(2): 157–183.JSTORReprinted in Rubinstein, ed., The Other Taiwan (1994), 114–144.

Recent and major awards and grants. For the full list, see the CV.

• 2014–16Hong Kong Research Grants Council General Research Fund, “Pesticides and Pollution: Sustainable Agriculture and the Risks of Development in Taiwan.”Based on more than eight months of fieldwork in Pingtung, on how farmers, consumers, officials and scientists understand pesticide risk, and why some farmers do not follow the official standards for pesticide use.
• 2013Exemplary Teaching Award in General Education, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
• 2001–04Hong Kong Research Grants Council grant, “Selling Soap to China: Global Consumerism and the Sources of Desire.”

• 1989PhD, Anthropology, Columbia University
• 1984MPhil, Anthropology, Columbia University
• 1982MA, Anthropology, Columbia University
• 1980BS, Biology, with a concentration in Anthropology, University of Notre Dame