Preliminary Material -- Family Background and Early Schooling -- Education in Sociology and Anthropology -- Field Studies: Guangxi, Kaixiangong, Yunnan -- A Chinese Anthropologist Looks at the United States -- Plaintiff for the Chinese Peasants -- Politics, 1945-1948 -- The Bourgeois Intellectual in the People's Republic -- The Hundred Flowers and After -- Notes -- Annotated Bibliography of the Works of Fei Xiaotong -- Glossary -- Index -- Harvard East Asian Monographs.
This biographical study of one of China's leading social scientists follows his life history, and includes a bibliography of his books and articles. Trained in London under Malinowski, Fei Xiaotong achieved eminence in the 1930s and 1940s for his pioneering studies of Chinese peasant life and for his popular articles, which stirred a wide audience in China to an awareness of social and political problems. A non-Marxist who came to sympathize with the Communists, Fei was gradually constrained in his activities after the Revolution until, in the 1950s, a massive propaganda campaign vilified him as a bourgeois rightist intellectual. Almost twenty years of silence and disgrace followed. Following the death of Mao, Fei suddenly reemerged as a leader in the effort to revitalize the social sciences in China. The story of Fei's life told here is, in a sense, the story of Westernized intellectuals in China at a time of peasant revolution. His writings enunciate the views of a sensitive observer of Chinese and Western society during that period of dramatic change.
"A lucid and fascinating work about Chinese society and values. Fei's account of how China differs from the West is every bit as telling now as it was when this book was first published almost half a century ago."--Orville Schell "What are the fundamental characteristics of Chinese society and how does it differ from the West? In From the Soil, China's foremost sociologist offered his insights, based on fieldwork in China and residence in the West, into this fascinating question. Vivid and clearly written, it has long been a classic of Chinese sociology, widely read by Chinese. It is wonderful finally to have it available in English."--David Arkush, University of Iowa
A fascinating insight into the life of the vast majority of Chinese people at the end of 19th century. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s.
This book is rooted in an epistemological approach to sociology in which the boundaries between Western and non-Western sociologies are acknowledged and built on. It argues that knowledge is organised in conceptual spaces linked to paradigms and programmes which in turn are linked to ethnocentred knowledge processes; that until recently Western approaches, including Post-Colonial, French Social Science and American approaches, have dominated non-Western theories; and that Western theories have sometimes seemed incapable of explaining phenomena produced in other societies. It goes on to argue that the blurring of boundaries between Western and non-Western sociologies is very important; and that such a Post-Western approach will mean co-production and co-construction of common knowledge, the recognition of ignored or forgotten scientific cultures and a "global change" in sociology which imposes theoretical and methodological detours, displacements, reversals and conversions. The book brings together a wide range of Western and Chinese sociologists who explore the consequences of this new approach in relation to many different issues and aspects of sociology.
The Saga of Anthropology in China traces the development of and turmoil surrounding the discipline of anthropology during the tumultuous events of twentieth-century Chinese history. Narrating the growth of anthropology and its allied sciences, this book provides the reader with insights into the construction of national academic structures and the all too frequent reliance of Third World nations on foreign models and money. Against this sweeping historical background the author humanizes the saga by pausing repeatedly to consider the effect national and international trends had on the life and care of a single scholar, Liang Zhaotao of Zhongshan University. His is a story of relevance for all who are concerned not only with China or anthropology, but with the development of independent structures of knowledge outside the great intellectual centers of the West.
Putting China into the context of general anthropology offers novel insights into its history, culture and society. Studies in the anthropology of China need to look outwards, to other anthropological areas, while at the same time, anthropologists specialised elsewhere cannot afford to ignore contributions from China. This book introduces a number of key themes and in each case describes how the anthropology and ethnography of China relates to the surrounding theories and issues. The themes chosen include the anthropology of intimacy, of morality, of food and of feasting, as well as the anthropology of civilisation, modernity and the state.The Anthropology of China covers both long historical perspectives and ethnographies of the twenty-first century. For the first time, ethnographic perspectives on China are contextualised in comparison with general anthropological debates. Readers are invited to engage in and rethink China's place within the wider world, making it perfect for professional researchers and teachers of anthropology and Chinese history and society, and for advanced undergraduate and graduate study.
"Rarely does a reviewer or publisher encounter a milestone: this is it. It is the first major study of the development of Chinese feminism in what is arguably the most formative period in the history of modern China. In its women-centered approach, the book challenges the official women's history authored by the Chinese Communist Party and long accepted by Euro-American scholars. This book will set the agenda for future scholars researching the relationship between feminism and nationalism in China."—Dorothy Ko, author of Teachers of the Inner Chambers
