Having been introduced to China from the West at the beginning of
the 20th century, anthropology as a new discipline is distinctive
for its purpose of serving the people and society by dealing with
actual problems and for the selfless devotion anthropologists bring
to their work. As a
Southern
Song Dynasty poet Lu You wrote: "I dare not forget for one
moment to concern myself with my country's destiny even in the
smallest detail." With this spirit of self-sacrifice and high sense
of responsibility, an earlier generation of scholars laid a
foundation for the basic anthropological research methods including
field investigations and observations of "alien cultures."
To
the earliest Chinese anthropologists, the establishment of a
complete discipline with its own system was not what was most
important. What was important was the question of how to apply
anthropological knowledge to the analysis of China's poverty and
undeveloped social conditions and to put forward proposals to
assist the county in becoming strong and the people prosperous.
With this calling, anthropologists probed deeply into the lowest
rungs of society and into areas inhabited by ethnic minorities
where they carried out thorough investigations. Social surveys
conducted around the 1930s -- including the research of Yang
Zhicheng and others at Zhongshan
University on the Yi
people in Sichuan and Yuannan, the Li
people in Hainan and the Yao
people in Guangxi, and Lin Huixiang's survey of the Gaoshan
people in Taiwan -- gave a full and accurate account of the social
life and cultural panorama of different ethnic groups. Their
anthropological work added a substantial body of knowledge about
China not covered in other subjects.
In
the mid-1930s, Fei Xiaotong
chose Jiangcun Village for his field studies. Based on his study on
local economy in Jiangcun Village, Fei raised new theories and
plans on how to tackle the land issue and develop industry in rural
areas. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression
(1937-1945), the Chinese Communist Party in Yan'an set up the
Research Institute on Ethnic Issues, which researched the Hui
and Mongolian
peoples, greatly contributing towards the establishment and
consolidation of the Anti-Japanese National United Front and the
strengthening of anti-Japanese base areas. During China's War of
Liberation (1946-1949), anthropologists voiced their opinions on
practical application of anthropology to deal with the intense
ethnic conflicts in the frontier regions.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, from 1953 to
1956, putting aside their individual research interests, almost all
Chinese anthropologists dedicated themselves to the nationwide
differentiation of ethnic groups. From 1956 to 1958, once again,
anthropologists plunged into the large-scale investigation on
social history of ethnic minorities. As leaders of the study group,
renowned anthropologists like Fei Xiaotong, Lin Yaohua and others
covered every corner of the country and collected a vast amount of
first-hand research materials.
The reform and opening-up have brought about all-round changes in
Chinese society. Anthropology is confronted with the challenge of
revamping to meet the requirements of the new circumstances. Based
on traditional field surveys, anthropologists study carefully all
kinds of problems emerging in the course of social development,
while enhancing academic exchanges with scholars from other fields.
As a result, anthropology manifests strong practicability and
all-inclusiveness.
For example, facing continuously accelerating modernization and
urbanization, urban anthropology has advanced the "terraced"
urbanization theory of "villages being changed into towns, towns
into small cities, small cities into big cities, and big cities
into international metropolises." Its studies on the Pearl Delta
model, southern Jiangsu model, Dandong model and southern Tibet
model also have been approved and adopted by other relevant
disciplines and policy-making agencies. Getting involved in
projects of social development, development anthropologists
actively participated in the evaluation of investment. They have
all along attached great importance to the social, overall and
long-term effects of the projects, avoiding unfavorable influences
on social development by non-economic factors. Physical
anthropology has achieved good results in terms of social
application, including: Studies on the development of the fetus;
research on the age of the onset of menstruation; comparison of
physical characteristics between those with schizophrenia and
others; and physical comparisons among workers from different
office environments. Ergonomics -- a burgeoning branch of
anthropology that studies workplace design and the safety of work
environments, matching the physical capabilities of workers and the
demands of the job -- can be applied in national defense, military
production, civil industry and design of articles for daily use.
Since the 1990s, the rise and development of a group of sub
disciplines or frontier sciences -- including film and TV
anthropology, women's anthropology, literary anthropology,
political anthropology, psychological anthropology, jurisprudential
anthropology, medical anthropology, artistic anthropology, etc. --
demonstrate that anthropology as a whole has been widely applied in
China.
Reviewing the anthropological research of the past years, one can
see that -- spurred on by their high sense of responsibility and
spirit of self-sacrifice -- Chinese anthropologists have focused on
practical application, to some degree neglecting theoretical
construction in anthropology. This has in turn limited further
application of anthropology in social development. Any discipline
is the integration of theory with practice. In the future, while
adhering to the tradition of "putting what one has learned into
practice," anthropologists should strengthen theoretical studies so
that anthropology can grow into a mature and promising subject in
China in the new century.
(光明日報
[Guangming Daily], translated by Shao Da for china.org.cn, May 16,
2002)