An interview with Jules Liu

ed note: as part of our on-going initiative examining how theory gets made, we are featuring interviews with recent Anthropological Theory authors, inquiring into their writing and thinking process. This interview, with Jules Liu (HKU, Hong Kong) about his article “Improvisation, collective structure, and culture change: A theory of bricolage” (2024), is the eleventh of these interviews. See here for others.

Could you say a bit about your own trajectory and research interests?

I think my academic trajectory is pretty discursive. I got my B.A. in French literature and M.A. in art history. Then I began my Ph.D. research at the University of Hong Kong. Since sociology, anthropology and criminology are bracketed in the same department at HKU, I got academic training in both anthropology and sociology during my Ph.D. This experience shapes the interdisciplinary characteristics of my research. Due to my diverse research interests including art, religion, and politics, I find it difficult to connect my publications in a linear trajectory. In hindsight, I would use rhizomatic to describe my research concern. On the surface, my publication seems separate and discrete, but they are connected by a consistent concern hidden underneath: the tension between modern states and societies, especially in an authoritarian regime such as China.

This tension is manifest in diverse aspects of our daily lives, such as culture, art, religion, and politics. I regard this tension as an engine, providing incessant dynamics to drive the development or transformation of Chinese society and culture. My Ph.D. thesis traces this tension between popular religion and statebuilding from the 1910s to the 1970s based on a single locale Pingxiang, a city in Jiangxi province. Throughout the 20th century, state leaders in China launched wave after wave of campaigns to repress, strike, or eradicate popular religion as it was regarded by political/intellectual elites as a root cause of China’s backwardness/underdevelopment. However, popular religion could always evade state annihilation: it survived these campaigns, revived in the lacunas of state power, and thrived again. So, examining popular religion against the backdrop of state repression brings its impressive resilience to the fore. My thesis reveals the diverse elements that constitute popular religion’s resilience.

What drove you to write this specific article?

This article is a chapter of my upcoming book project: a systematic study of this resilience, including its flexibility, regenerability, adaptability, and transmutability. In the AT article, my case study of Kitchen God worship refracts the plasticity of popular religion. This ability enables popular religion to camouflage itself, survive repression, and continue practice under the harshest circumstances. Such capacity is boiled down to the technique of bricolage. Bricolage helps people achieve their goals or aspirations by resolving existing limitations/restrictions. These restrictions/limitations are created by the tension between the state and popular religion; bricolage is an agentic ability to solve or alleviate the tension. Although bricolage can resolve existing limitations, it changes the cultural expression of rituals. So, it is a micro-mechanism of culture change. When I wrote this article, I did not think about the issue of culture change. It is Professor Nina Glick Schiller who guided me to develop my article in that way. I hereby would like to thank Professor Schiller for her thought-provoking ideas. She is one of the best editors in the world.

In brief, in which set of theoretical discussions the article engages and what is the article’s contribution to those debates?

This paper is engaged with Levi Strauss’s concept of bricolage. I think bricolage is an underexplored concept compared with LS’s other theories. Actually, bricolage is ubiquitous in our daily lives in all cultures and societies because it is an innate human ability, a practical skill, and a cost-effective way to solve all sorts of problems in our lives. Existing discussions on bricolage are categorized into two strands of scholarship. The first group of scholars inheriting Lévi-Strauss’s structuralism tends to emphasize the structural patterns or constraints of bricolage, whilst the second group shows more interest in the individuality, subjectivity, or contingency of bricolage. My paper aims to integrate the merits of both strands and enrich scholars’ understanding of the concept’s multidimensionality.

Moreover, this paper is engaged in a dialogue with evolutionary anthropologists on the topic of culture change – although this aspect was not elaborated enough due to word limitations. I think more research could be carried out in that direction given that culture change is a common theme for humans. Finally, I think we should connect studies of improvisation and bricolage since I find that experts in improvisation and in bricolage seldom cite each other’s work. We should bridge this gap and build communication between different sub-fields in the humanities.

Why does theory matter (to you or in a broader sense)? 

I think theory is an important bridge to link scholars and their research. Without theory, we are all doing separate, discrete, and empirical studies. We live in a diversified world. Every individual has his experience; every society has a unique culture; every territory has its distinctive geography; every country has its peculiar social system. If we focus only on the distinctiveness or uniqueness, we all speak for ourselves. Theory provides a channel to establish dialogues between scholars. It makes us see that we are connected somehow—our experiences, knowledge and concerns share something in common—despite we live in different parts of the world. Dialogue makes us better know, understand, and learn from each other.

Moreover, theory establishes a scholarly genealogy. It groups together scholars with similar concerns; summarizes the similarities from diverse research findings; leads us to reveal something hidden underneath. A theoretical genealogy shows where we get the ideas, which strand of scholarship we are connected with, and how we may develop this strand of knowledge. In other words, genealogy subsumes scholarly research in the long historical development of a common concern, helping us see where we come from and where we may go. For example, when Lévi-Strauss put forward bricolage, it was more a metaphor than a concept (although scholars may argue on this point). I tend to take it as a metaphor because LS used it to metamorphize mythical thought. Over decades of development, scholars’ collective efforts have turned this metaphor into a concept and enlarged the scope of its application. As I find that existing studies tend to apply the concept rather than define it theoretically, my research fills in this gap. So to speak, my research is based on the contribution of all these scholars. I am part of this lineage.

Finally, I think theory can deepen our understanding of a phenomenon, but, at the same time, it may also blunt our creativity to develop innovative and original ideas. Because theory predisposes scholars to view, think, and dissect research subjects from a particular perspective. This disposition to a certain degree precludes other possibilities. So, we should learn to “domesticate” theory to help us with thinking and at the same time prevent it from solidifying our mindsets and blinding our eyes. On top of that, we should keep in mind that theory should never gloss over the diversity of our world.