Reorienting Western Theories of Atmospheres: A case study of Feng Shui practices in Taiwan and Northeast England.

“风水”是一种流行的与“气”相关的方式，也就是空气的生命和精神力量。近一半的中国人相信这种做法(张等人，2021年)。在国际上，互联网和移民使风水成为“一种统一东西方的新的流行哲学，甚至是一种新的宗教”(Bruun，2003：24)。事实上，今天风水的吸引力确实是全球性的，但也是模棱两可的，经常被误解。一位研究这一话题的权威人士总结道：“风水在不同的社会和不同的人中意味着不同的东西”(Bruun，2008：3)。通过对风水练习者的研究，本项目提供了一种基于实践和基于地点的方法来理解气作为氛围。与目前在西方流行和占主导地位的对空气和氛围的更理论化和超脱的概念化相反，我将利用采访、录像、重复摄影和以叙事为基础的实验性写作模式，为我的祖国台湾和英格兰东北部的风水练习者制作一份以实践为基础的民族志。为此，我将与风水协会合作，该协会是风水顾问在英国和欧洲的领先独立风水注册组织。简而言之，我的项目批判性地分析了西方对风水的东方化改编。通过这样做，该项目在当前关于气氛的辩论中解决了知识转让的问题，同时也促进了以实践为基础的知识生产方法。

'Feng Shui' is a popular way of relating to 'qi', or the vital and spiritual power of air. Nearly half of the Chinese population believes in the practice (Zhang et al., 2021). Internationally, the internet and migration have led Feng Shui to become celebrated as "a new popular philosophy uniting East and West, even as a new religion" (Bruun,2003: xxiv). Indeed, today Feng Shui's appeal is truly global and yet also ambiguous and often misunderstood. An authority on the topic concludes that "Feng Shui means different things in different societies and to different people" (Bruun, 2008: 3). By studying Feng Shui practitioners, this project offers a practice-based and place-based approach to understandings of qi as atmosphere. In contrast to the more theoretical and detached conceptualization of air and atmosphere currently popular and dominant in the West, I will be drawing on interviews, videography, repeat photography, and a narrative-based experimental mode of writing to produce a practicebased ethnography of Feng Shui practitioners in my native Taiwan and in Northeast England. To do this, I will be working together with the Feng Shui Society, which is the leading independent Feng Shui registration organisation for Feng Shui consultants in the UK and Europe. In short, my project critically analyzes Western orientalised adaptations of Feng Shui. In so doing, this project problematises knowledge transfer in the context of current debates on atmosphere, while also contributing to practice-based approaches to knowledge production.