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SIPA Faculty
Martin Schoenhals
International Affairs Building, 13th Floor
Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs
Phone: 212-854-3213
ms4219@columbia.edu
Biography:
Martin Schoenhals is a cultural anthropologist specializing in contemporary Chinese culture, with a secondary interest in India. His work in China over the past two decades spans the period during which that nation’s massive industrialization has taken place.
Schoenhals was appointed Visiting Scholar in International Development at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies during 2006-07. His research that year focused on the migration of peasants from interior China to coastal factories and the effects of this migration on rural life in the nation’s heartland. His critical insights attracted the attention of Chinese officials and academics, leading to an invitation to deliver a lecture, in English and Mandarin Chinese, at the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as well as a lecture to the faculty China seminar at Harvard University. Publications have addressed the role of face in Chinese culture and education and the caste systems of the ethnic minority Yi people.
Additional field research has focused on microenterprise among disadvantaged women in central India. He strives to embody the ideals of a scholar-activist, and has used his knowledge in a variety of venues to promote greater equality and tolerance, both nationally and internationally.
Schoenhals received his PhD in anthropology in 1991 from the University of Pennsylvania. He is Chair of the Anthropology Department at Dowling College in suburban New York, a position he has held since 1993.
Publications:
Intimate Exclusion: Race and Caste Turned Inside Out, (University Press of America, 2003)
Visions of the 21st Century (Global Publications at SUNY Binghampton University, 2001), with
co-author Joseph E. Behar.
The Paradox of Power in a People's Republic of China Middle School (M E Sharpe Inc, 1993)