Fei Xiaotong
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Fei Xiaotong | |
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费孝通 | |
Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress | |
In office 13 April 1988 – 5 March 1998 | |
Chairman | Wan Li Qiao Shi |
Vice Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference | |
In office 6 June 1983 – 23 March 1988 | |
Chairwoman | Deng Yingchao |
Chairman of the China Democratic League | |
In office January 1987 – November 1996 | |
Preceded by | Chu Tunan |
Succeeded by | Ding Shisun |
Personal details | |
Born | sociologist | November 2, 1910
Known for | The development of sociological and anthropological studies in China |
Fei Xiaotong | |
---|---|
Hanyu Pinyin | Fèi Xiàotōng |
Wade–Giles | Fei Hsiao-t'ung |
Part of a series on |
Sociology |
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Fei Xiaotong or Fei Hsiao-tung (November 2, 1910 – April 24, 2005) was a Chinese
Early years
Fei Xiaotong was born in
Career in academic sociology
At missionary-founded
"Functional" anthropology
From 1936 to 1938 Fei studied at the
Among Fei Xiaotong's contributions to anthropology is the concept that Chinese social relations work through social networks of personal relations with the self at the center and decreasing closeness as one moves out. Among the criticisms of Fei Xiaotong's work is that his work tended to ignore regional and historical variations in Chinese behavior. Nonetheless, as a pioneer and educator, his intent was to highlight general trends, thus this simplification may have had significant justification for Fei's intent, even if they contributed to a bias in studies of Chinese society and culture.
An important work of the period, China's Gentry, was compiled from Fei's field interviews, and was published in the United States in 1953. It went on to become a staple of American university courses on China. The compilation and U.S. publication of China's Gentry grew out of a relationship Fei developed at Tsinghua University with the University of Chicago anthropologist Robert Redfield and his wife, Margaret Park Redfield.[1]: 18
Leading intellectual in People's Republic of China
1950s and 1960s: Politics in command
After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Fei played an important role in national intellectual and ideological life, and before long he began to hold a growing number of political positions. He was made vice president in 1951 of the Central Institute for Nationalities in Beijing (today, Minzu University of China), and in 1954 attended the First National People's Congress as a member of the Nationalities Affairs Commission.[1]: 18
Soon thereafter, however, departments of sociology were eliminated (as a "bourgeois pseudo-science"). Fei no longer taught, and published less and less. During the “
1970s and 1980s: A 'second life'
In the 1970s, Fei, internationally known, began to receive foreign visitors, and after Mao's death he was asked to direct the restoration of Chinese sociology. He visited the United States again and was subsequently able to arrange the visits to China of American social scientists to help with the gigantic task of training a whole new cadre of Chinese sociologists. In 1980 he was formally rehabilitated, and was one of the judges in the long, televised trial of the Gang of Four and others held responsible for the crimes of the Cultural Revolution.
His 'second life' was more than ever that of the public intellectual, with important political posts and contact with policy makers. His influence is thought to have been important in convincing the government to promote rural industry, whose rapid growth in the 1980s raised the income of hundreds of millions of villagers all over China. Virtually every week in the 1990s his name was in the newspapers and his face on television. He traveled all over China, went abroad, to the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia, and elsewhere, and was showered with international honors: the Malinowski Award of the Society for Applied Anthropology, the Huxley Memorial Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, an honorary doctorate from the University of Hong Kong, and other honors in Japan, the Philippines, Canada. He played a role in promoting and directing the reestablishment of sociology and anthropology in China, training scholars and developing teaching materials after thirty years of prohibition.
Fei is also known for his influential theory on
The 1990s and 2000s: reminiscence and caution
Above all, it was as a writer that Fei flourished in his 'second life'. Virtually all of his old books were republished during these years, and he turned out new books and articles in even greater quantity. Of the fifteen volumes of his “Works” (1999–2001), new writings from the 1980s and 1990s fill over half. Many of the themes were familiar. He repeatedly and forcefully set forth the case for sociology and anthropology in China if modernization were to succeed. He reminisced about his village fieldwork, his studies, and his teachers. There were articles and books on rural industrialization, small towns, national minorities, and developing frontier areas. He championed the cause of intellectuals. He recounted what he had learned from his trips abroad and made some new translations from English. There was even a little book of his poetry. What is different in all this new writing is political caution; Fei had too much to do and too little time in the last decades to risk playing with fire again.
He was Professor of Sociology at Peking University at the time of his death on April 24, 2005, in Beijing at the age of 94. A memorial has been set up in the Department of Sociology at the university, where he has taught and directed since the 1980s.
Career landmarks
Major works
- Peasant Life in China: A Field Study of Country Life in the Yangtze Valley. Preface by Bronislaw Malinowski. London: G. Routledge and New York: Dutton, 1939, and various reprints and a Japanese translation.
- Fei and Chang Chih-I [Zhang Zhiyi 张之毅], Earthbound China: A Study of Rural Economy in Yunnan. University of Chicago Press, 1945.
- China's Gentry: Essays in Rural-Urban Relations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953.
- Neidi de nongcun 《內地的農村》(Villages of the interior). Shanghai: Shenghuo, 1946.
- Shengyu zhidu 《生育制度》 (The institutions for reproduction). Shanghai: Shangwu, 1947.
- From the Soil (Xiangtu Zhongguo, 《鄉土中國》). Shanghai: Guancha, 1948. (Translated as From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society, U. of California Press, 1992)
- Xiangtu chongjian 《鄉土重建》 (Rural recovery). Shanghai: Guancha, 1948.
- Fei Xiaotong et al. Small Towns in China: Functions, Problems & Prospects. Beijing: New World Press, 1986.
- Xingxing chong xingxing 《行行重行行》 (Travel, travel, and more travel). Ningxia Renmin Chubanshe, 1992.
- Fei Xiaotong wenji 《费孝通文集》 (Collected works of Fei Xiaotong), 15 vols. Beijing: Qunyan chubanshe, 1999.
Awards
- 1980: Bronislaw Malinowski Award of the International Applied Anthropology Association
- 1981: Huxley Memorial Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
- 1988: Encyclopædia Britannica Prize in New York
- 1993: USA and Asian Cultural Prize in Fukuoka, Japan
- Doctor of Letters degree, honoris causa by the University of Hong Kong
- Doctor of Social Science degree, honoris causa, University of Macau
- 1994: Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership in the Philippines.
Political positions
Fei also made significant contributions to the study and management of the development of China's
Before his death, Fei held a number of political positions, although these are mostly honorary; he was considered by many to be "active politically".
- Vice-president of the 6th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
- Vice-chairman of the 7th and 8th Standing Committee of the National People's Congress
- Vice-chairman of the Drafting Committee for the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China
- Honorary Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China
- Deputy Director of the Experts Bureau of the State Council
- Deputy Director of the National Ethnic Affairs Committee
- Chairman of the Central Committee of the Democratic Union
See also
References
- ^ a b c d Boorman, Howard L. (1968). ""Fei Hsiao=t'ung". Biographical Dictionary of Republican China. Vol. II. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 17–19.
- ^ 同里骄杨 (in Chinese)
- ^ “人天无据,灵会难期”:费孝通与王同惠 (in Chinese). Sina. March 31, 2009. Retrieved October 22, 2013.
- ^ a b citation?
- ^ by whom?
- ^ Gladney, Dru C. Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the people's Republic (2 ed.). Harvard University Asia Center. pp. 72–73.
Further reading
- Arkush, R. David (1981). Fei Xiaotong and Sociology in Revolutionary China. Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies Distributed by Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674298152.
- ]
- Pasternak, Burton, "A Conversation with Fei Xiaotong," Current Anthropology 29:637-62 (1988).
- "Fei Xiaotong [Hsiao-tung Fei]," American Anthropologist, 108.2:452–461 (2006).
External links
- Wolfgang Saxon, "Fei Xiaotong" New York Times obituary, 9 May 2005 (registration required)]
- Feuchtwang, Stephan (May 5, 2005), "Fei Xiaotong: Anthropologist and reformer", The Guardian]
- "Biographical information" at China Vitae.
- Obituary Xinhua (26 April 2005).