Sociology And Anthropology In Twentieth Century China

Within this text, the contributors provide a historical perspective on the development of anthropology and sociology since their introduction to Chinese thought and education in the early twentieth century, with an emphasis on the 1930s and 1980s. The authors offer different windows on theoretical and research agendas of anthropologists and sociologists of the PRC and Taiwan, shaped as much by their political context as by disciplinary training. In examining the careers of several individual scholars, they also make note not only of their creative contributions, but also of the resonance of their intellectual concerns with contemporary issues in sociology and anthropology (culturalism, frontiers, women). Finally, the volume is organized loosely around the problem of how to translate these disciplines into a Chinese context(s), the issues of "indigenization" (bentuhua) or "making Chinese" (Zhongguohua), which have haunted the two disciplines since their establishment in the 1930s because of the contradictory expectations that they generate. This is where the case of China resonates with similar concerns in other societies where the disciplines were imported from abroad as products of a Euro/American capitalist modernity, conflicting with aspirations to create their own localized alternative modernities.

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.

Within this text, the contributors provide a historical perspective on the development of anthropology and sociology since their introduction to Chinese thought and education in the early twentieth century, with an emphasis on the 1930s and 1980s. The authors offer different windows on theoretical and research agendas of anthropologists and sociologists of the PRC and Taiwan, shaped as much by their political context as by disciplinary training. In examining the careers of several individual scholars, they also make note not only of their creative contributions, but also of the resonance of their intellectual concerns with contemporary issues in sociology and anthropology (culturalism, frontiers, women). Finally, the volume is organized loosely around the problem of how to translate these disciplines into a Chinese context(s), the issues of "indigenization" (bentuhua) or "making Chinese" (Zhongguohua), which have haunted the two disciplines since their establishment in the 1930s because of the contradictory expectations that they generate. This is where the case of China resonates with similar concerns in other societies where the disciplines were imported from abroad as products of a Euro/American capitalist modernity, conflicting with aspirations to create their own localized alternative modernities.

This volume provides a history of how “the human” has been constituted as a subject of scientific inquiry in China from the seventeenth century to the present.

Spanning the whole of the twentieth century, How China Works examines the labour issues surrounding the workplace in China in both the Republican and People's Republic epochs. The international team of contributors treat China's twentieth-century revolution as an industrial revolution, stressing that China's recent emergence as the new workshop of the world was a gradual change, and not a recent phenomena led by external forces. Providing the reader with extensive ethnographic research on topics such as culture and community in the workplace, the rural-urban divide, industrialization, subcontracting and employment practices, How China Works really does ground the study of Chinese work in the daily interactions in the workplace, the labour process and the micropolitics of work.

This book studies the development of the four fields of anthropology in China. Looking at both the political and social contexts, Greg Guldin demonstrates how political turmoil has shaped China's twentieth century anthropological landscape.

This book is a study of the change and continuity in paradigms in China studies, both inside and outside of China. In the last few years, the United States and China appeared to be moving in the direction of “de-coupling,” indicating that the engagement policy with China in the last four decade is ending. The “modernization theory” that is the theoretical foundation of the engagement policy has proved to be insufficient. This situation calls for a reexamination of the field of China studies. Historically, scholarly paradigms shifts often went hand in hand with drastic social change. As we have entered an era of great uncertainty, it is constructive to reflect on the paradigms in China studies in the past and explore the possibility of new paradigms in the future. How are the shifts of major theories, methods and paradigms in China studies in the west related to social change? How did some of China’s paradigms impact on the country’s social change and developments? This book will appeal to a wide readership, including scholars and graduate students, upper division undergraduate students of China studies, Asian studies.

This book offers a biographical, intellectual and academic history of sociology in the late Qing and Republic of China period. The 46 sociologists featured in this volume are chosen from the pantheon of notable scholars who labored in this burgeoning field. Each of the 46 chapters is devoted to introducing one sociologist. Every chapter begins with a short biography that sheds light on how one sociologist became the scholar they were and earned their place in not only sociology, but also, for some of them, other fields in the social sciences and the humanities. This is followed by a review and analysis of the representative works by this sociologist, and how those laid the foundation for and contributed to the early development of a particular field of research in sociology as we know it today. The book weaves together a history of this academic discipline in China over those turbulent decades that organically combines personal details, methodological development, institutional changes and also larger social, economic and intellectual trends.