Xintian Ma is from Guizhou province in Southwestern China. He is currently an MPhil student in Social Anthropological Research at the University of Cambridge. He recently graduated from the University of St Andrews with an undergraduate degree in International Relations and Social Anthropology. With research interests in politics, heritage, museums, religion and ethnicity, his MPhil dissertation focuses on the social life of Tibetan Buddhist Statues collected in Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
When an object is misidentified, is it a ‘mistake’ or something more? Using a Guanyin statue as a case study, I suggest that objects can inhabit two identities when embodying two simultaneous social meanings.
13 June 2023
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