Abstract
In May 1980, the Secretary-General of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Hu Yaobang, led an inspection tour of Tibet. The visit contributed to and accelerated a reappraisal by the Chinese Party and government of the importance and sensitivity of the role played by the fifty-five minority nationalities in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The change emphasised the need to know about and understand the minority nationalities, and has resulted in an expansion of social science interest in them.
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Notes and References
Yang Zhengwang, in Zhongguo chuban nianjian 1982 (China Publishers’ Yearbook 1982) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1982) p.180: Zhongguo tongji nianjian 1983, p.529.
Wang Guodong, Minzu wenti changshi (General Knowledge on Nationalities Problems; (Yinchuan: Ningxia renmin chubanshe, 1982) p.1.
J. V. Stalin, ‘Marxism and the National Question’, Works, vol. II (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1953) p.307.
For example, Stalin’s definition is adopted, without acknowledgement, in the CCP’s official ideological journal: Zang Boping, ‘Zai diaozheng zhong wenbu fazhan minzu jiaoyu’ (‘In Investigation and Consolidation Steadily Develop the Education of the Nationalities’), Hongqi (Red Flag), 12, 16 June 1981, p.37.
Hsiao-tung Fei, ‘Ethnic Identification in China’, Social Sciences in China, A Quarterly Journal in English, I, 1, March 1980, p.107.
This article (pp.94–107) has been reprinted in Fei Hsiao Tung, Toward a Peoples Anthropology (Beijing: New World Press, 1981) pp.60–77.
Fei is the subject of a book-length biography in English: R. David Arkush, Fei Xiaotong and Sociology in Revolutionary China (Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1981).
See Wang Jun, ‘The Juno Nationality of Yunnan and Their Village Communes’, Social Sciences in China, III (4, December 1982) p.84.
Du Rongkun, ‘Beifang minzu shi’ (‘History of the Northern Nationalities’), in Zhongguo lizhixue nianjian (1983 nianban) (Chinese Historiography Yearbook 1983) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1983) pp. 136–42.
Hua Zugen, ‘Nanfang minzu shi’ (‘History of the Southern Nationalities’), in Zhongguo lizhixue nianjian 1983, pp. 142–50.
Li Weihan, ‘Minzu ronghe wenti’ (‘Problems of the Assimilation of Nationalities’), in Lunwen ji, vol. II, pp.771–2. The article was first published in 1980.
Karl Marx, ‘The Future Results of British Rule in India’, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Works, 3 vols (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1977) vol.I, p.494.
See the discussion of differing points of view before the Cultural Revolution in Zhang Lu, ‘Tantan minzu tonghua he minzu ronghe de qubie wenti’ (first published 1962), in Lunwen xuangji, pp. 143–4 or Lunwen ji, vol. II, pp.731–2. Zhang sums up his own point of view, which follows Lenin’s, Lunwen xuanji, pp. 162–3 or Lunwen ji, vol. II, pp.749–50. The dominant view of the 1980s, which is extremely close to Zhang’s, is given by Wang Guodong in Minzu wenti changshi, pp.21–3.
Song Shuhua, ‘Zhongguo de minzuxue yanjiu bixu he lishixue jinmi jiehe’ (‘Chinese Ethnological Research must be Integrated Closely with Historiography’), Minzuxue yanjiu, 1 (August 1981) p.194.
For example, Tang Zhengfang, ‘Cong minzuxue de mingcheng shuoqi’ (‘Beginning from the Name Ethnology’), Minzuxue yanjiu, 1 (August 1981) p.183.
Liu Xiaoyu, ‘Lüelun minzuxue de dingyi he duixiang’ (‘A Brief Discussion of the Definition and Target of Ethnology’), Minzuxue yanjiu, 1 (August 1981) pp.127, 130.
Yan Ruxian, ‘Fengsu xiguan shi minzuxue yanjiu de zhongyao lingyu’ (‘Customs and Practices are Important Territory for Ethnological Research’), Minzuxue yanjiu, 3 (May 1982) p.129.
Yan Ruxian and Song Zhaolin, Yongning Naxi zu de muxi zhi (The Systems of Matriarchy of the Naxi Nationality of Yongning) (Kunming: Yunnan Renmin chubanshe, 1983), ‘Qianyan’ (‘Foreword’), pp.1, 2, 7.
Yan Ruxian, ‘A Living Fossil of the Family — A Study of the Family Structure of the Naxi Nationality in the Lugu Lake Region’, Social Sciences in China, III, 4 (December 1982), pp.60–83.
Hou Fangyue, ‘Guanyu minzuxue yanjiu de jige wenti’ (‘A Few Problems in Ethnological Research’), Minzuxue yanjiu, 1 (August 1981) p.36.
The subject of Chinese ethnology from the 1920s to the 1960s is discussed in Siu-lun Wong, Sociology and Socialism in Contemporary China (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979) pp.78–92. Wong (ibid., p.79) pinpoints 1926 as the year in which Cai Yuanpei first used the term minzuxue as a translation of ethnology.
See also Chen Yongling, ‘Xifang minzuxue zhi chuanru Zhongguo’ (‘Western Ethnology’s Introduction into China’), Minzu tuanjie (Nationalities’ Unity), 9 (15 September 1982) p.36. Arkush discusses Fei Xiaotong’s ethnological work from 1950 to 1956 in Fei Xiaotong and Sociology, pp.225–38.
Jin Tianming and Yang Qingzhen, ‘Dangqian woguo minzuxue de tedian he renwu’ (‘The Characteristics and Tasks of Our Country’s Contemporary Ethnology’), Minzuxue yanjiu, 1, August 1981, p.70.
See Wong, Sociology, p.86. See also the strong defence of Morgan and Engels by the well-known ethnologist Lu Guangtian in ‘Lun Moergen de yuanshi shehui shi fenqi’ (‘On Morgan’s Periodisation of the History of Primitive Society’), in Lu Guangtian, Beifang minzu yuanshi shehui xingtai yangjiu (Research on the Primitive Social Formations of the Northern Nationalities) (Yinchuan: Ningxia Renmin chubanshe, 1981) pp.27–49. The article was first published in 1964.
See a brief summary of ‘Morgan’s sociological anthropology’ in Jerzy Szacki, History of Sociological Thought (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1979) pp.231–4. Szacki (p.232) calls Morgan ‘a great scholar’ despite the ‘glaring faults in his works’ revealed by the later development of social anthropology.
Yan Ruxian and Song Zhaolin, Yongning Naxi zu de muxi zhi, p.439. Another example where a Chinese ethnologist, in a recent book-length study, bases himself on Engels’ theory but finds it not wholly applicable to a Chinese minority nationality is Zhou Ziqiang, Liangshan Yizu nuli zhi yanjiu (Research on the Slave System of the Yi Nationality of Liangshan) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1983). He argues that the slave system of the Yi of Liangshan was different from those named by Engels. See especially p.8.
Hou Shaozhuang and Wei Siqing, ‘Minzu shi zenyang xingchen de’ (‘How Are Nationalities Formed?’), Minzuxue yanjiu, 3 (May 1982) p.104.
Fan Rongchun, Li Zhiren and Jiang Yongxing, ‘Lun minzu de xingcheng he fazhan’ (‘On the Formation and Development of Nationalities’), Minzuxue yanjiu, 3 (May 1982) pp.106–9.
Ben Ji, ‘Guanyu minzu xingcheng wenti de taolun jinkuang’ (‘Recent Discussions on the Problem of the Formation of Nationalities’), Xinhua wenzhai (New China Digest), 6 (25 June 1983) p.10.
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© 1987 Michael B. Yahuda
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Mackerras, C. (1987). Contemporary Chinese Social Science Study of the Minority Nationalities. In: Yahuda, M.B. (eds) New Directions in the Social Sciences and Humanities in China. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08077-9_5
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