Tami Blumenfield

Tami Blumenfield is an anthropologist of China and documentary film producer who earned her doctorate from the University of Washington in 2010. While a college sophomore studying Chinese at Yunnan University, she took a short-term leave of absence to act in a Yunnan Minority Film Studios feature film, Garden of Happiness (Sun Sha, dir., 1999). Later she was recruited to help National Geographic Television film an episode of Taboo II: Blood Bonds in Yongning, China, home to the Mosuo people. Dr. Blumenfield has spent more than four years conducting fieldwork in ethnically diverse regions of southwest China on educational practices, cultural heritage politics, social change and media production. Much of her research has explored social change in Na villages located in and around tourist zones near Lugu Lake. Her book manuscript Screening Moso: Communities of Media in Southwest China, supported by a publication fellowship from the American Association for University Women, discusses a collaboration and participatory media project with the Moso Folk Museum. Dr. Blumenfield continues to collaborate with Moso Folk Museum directors Onci Archei and Ruheng Duoji, most recently on the documentary, Some Na Ceremonies. She is the James B. Duke Assistant Professor of Asian Studies at Furman University in South Carolina.