In the late 1970s and ’80s, socialist countries in Asia began reopening their borders to overseas scholars. Today, a growing number of social scientists are embarking on fieldwork in China, Vietnam, and Laos. Red Stamps and Gold Stars brings together all the messiness, compromise, and ethical dilemmas that underscore fieldwork in upland socialist Asia and elsewhere in the Global South.
The volume’s contributors – accomplished geographers, anthropologists, and ethnohistorians – foreground the importance of questioning one’s subjective gaze and of debating representations of “the other.” Reflecting on the realities of fieldwork in socialist regimes and analyzing their positionality and subjectivity in the field, they debate a range of ethical quandaries and the rewards that can be gained from critical reflection. Together, these unique contributions will advance the study of the practice of international fieldwork.