Expertise

Legal and Political Anthropology, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Social and Cultural Theory, Asia-Pacific, Taiwan

Biography

Chris Upton is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology. He is a legal anthropologist working in the Asia-Pacific, with a focus on Taiwan. His expertise includes anthropology of law, human rights, and law, society, and Indigeneity in the Asia-Pacific. His research examines Indigenous rights and access to justice, Indigenous identity, and Indigenous legal institutions in Taiwan. He is presently engaged in two research projects. The first project studies the creation and operation of specialized Indigenous court units in Taiwan’s national court system, and how local actors in these units navigate the tensions between Indigenous and non-Indigenous discourses of law and culture. The second project examines contemporary Bunun hunting practices in Taiwan and how everyday acts of hunting form an emergent, unstable edge of Indigenous sovereignty-making. Grants from the National Science Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Taiwan Fellowship, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, Native American & Indigenous Studies Fellowship at Indiana University, and Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Program in Chinese Studies have supported his research. 

Upton received his BA from Baylor University (1999), MA from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (2004), JD from Notre Dame Law School (magna cum laude, 2007), and PhD from Indiana University, Bloomington (2020). Prior to joining Temple University, he was a Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) Postdoctoral Research Fellow at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, and a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at University of Richmond. As a lawyer, Upton practiced for many years at an international law firm in the areas of antitrust, international law, and human rights, including representing a group of Guantanamo Bay detainees in US federal court.

Selected Publications

• Forthcoming. “Hunting Rights.” In Encyclopedia of Taiwan Studies, Hsiao, M. (ed.). Koninklijke Brill NV.
• 2023. “Legal Indigeneities: Identity, Authenticity, and Power in Taiwan’s Indigenous Courts.” International Journal of Taiwan Studies 6(2023): 5-32.
• 2022. “Courts of Being and Non-Being: Taiwan’s Indigenous Courts and Judicial Hybrid Practice.” Journal of Legal Anthropology 6(2): 25-51.
• 2022. “From Thin to Thick Justice and Beyond: Access to Justice and Legal Pluralism in Indigenous Taiwan.” Law & Social Inquiry 47(3): 996-1025.
• 2022. “Courts and Indigenous Reconciliation: Positivism, the A Priori, and Justice in Taiwan.” In From Stigma to Hope: Indigenous Reconciliation in Contemporary Taiwan, Simon, S., J. Hsieh, and P. Kang (eds.), 96-118. London and New York: Routledge.
• 2022. “Of Rich Points and Reflexive Teaching: Minding My Own Social Business as an Anthropology Instructor.” In Teaching as if Learning Matters: Pedagogies of Becoming by Next-Generation Faculty, Robinson, J. M., V. D. O’Loughlin, K. Kearns, and L. Plummer (eds.), 206-218. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
• 2021. “The Hallowed Halls of Justice: The Poetics and Politics of a Taiwan Indigenous Court.” Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Working Paper Series, No. 206, 1-33.
• 2017. “CAFTA’s Symbolic Nod to Environmental Protection: Legal Perspectives on CAFTA’s Citizen Submission Process.” Society & Natural Resources 30(10): 1277-1287. With Catherine Tucker and Seleste Sanchez.

Courses Taught 

• ANTH 0856: Evolution of Culture
• ANTH 2322: Outlaws, Law, and Culture
• ANTH 2368: Peoples of the Pacific
• ANTH 2374: The Anthropology of Modern China
• ANTH 3301/5396: History of Anthropological Theory
• ANTH 8310: Fractious Legacies in the Anthropology of Law