Thoughts of Fei Xiaotong in His Later Years: The Tradition and Creation of Culture

Author: Fang Lili
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-01
Features: Fei Xiaotong, born in 1910, graduated from Yenching University in 1933 with a Bachelor's degree in Sociology, earned his Master's degree from Tsinghua University in 1935, and obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of London, UK, in 1938. His doctoral dissertation, Economic Life in a Chinese Village, was hailed as a "landmark in the development of anthropological fieldwork and theoretical work" and became a classic in the international field of anthropology. Over the next decade, he wrote a series of highly acclaimed articles, including The System of Birth, First Visit to the United States, Return to England, TheChina, and Rebuilding the Rural China, which had a broad impact. However, in 1957, he became a nationally renowned "rightist" due to his article Early Spring for Intellectuals during the anti-rightist campaign and remained silent for 20 years. From 1979, he served as President of the Chinese Society of Sociology. In 1980, he led the establishment of the Institute of Sociology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Starting in 1982, he became a professor at the Department of Sociology at Peking University and served as Director of the Institute of Sociology at Peking University from 1985. In 1980, he received the Malinowski Honorary Award from the Society for Applied Anthropology in Denver, USA, and was elected a member of the society. In 1981, he accepted the Huxley Medal from the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain in London. In 1982, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. In 1988, he received the Britannica Award from Encyclop?dia Britannica. Since the reform and opening-up, with the changes in rural China, Fei Xiaotongly proposed the topic of studying small towns and personally led surveys, writing a series of articles such as Small Towns, Big Problems, which were widely valued by grassroots cadres in rural areas, academia, and high-level decision-makers. From the late 1980s of the last century to the mid-1990s, Fei Xiaotong's field research expanded from rural areas and small towns to regional development, conducting field surveys in areas such as the Yellow River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta in China, and proposing important development ideas and specific strategies for each region that were both grounded in local realities and of global significance. While continuing his field research, Fei Xiaotong began to summarize his lifelong academic work. In a series of long academic reflective articles he had published, he proposed and elaborated the significant concept of "cultural consciousness" and published works such as , Academic Autobiography and Reflections, and From Practice to Knowledge. This book is a collection of his late-life thoughts, primarily reflecting his visits to the western regions and his thoughts and ideas on the opening-up of western China.