Table Of ContentSOCIOLOGY TRANSFORMED
Series Editors: John Holmwood and
Stephen Turner
CHINESE
SOCIOLOGY
State-Building and
the Institutionalization
of Globally Circulated
Knowledge
Hon Fai Chen
Sociology Transformed
Series editors
John Holmwood
School of Sociology and Social Policy
University of Nottingham
Nottingham, UK
Stephen Turner
Department of Philosophy
University of South Florida
Tampa, USA
“In this concise and well-researched book, Chen Hon-Fai offers a fascinating
new conspectus of the discipline’s history and current situation. The role of the
state and transnational networks in shaping Chinese sociology are carefully ana-
lyzed. So too are the attempts of several pioneering individuals to indigenize the
discipline. Everywhere, the turbulent politics of China affects the sociological
scene. A stimulating contribution to the study of sociology as a global phenom-
enon, Chen Hon-Fai’s probing new book is highly recommended.”
—Peter Baehr, Professor of Social Theory, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
“Chinese Sociology is an essential analysis of the development of the discipline on
mainland China, adding to the existing literature on Hong Kong and Taiwan
with a historical imagination informed by an institutional perspective. Drawing
thoughtfully on the best current work in the sociology of ideas and knowledge,
Chen Hon-Fai manages to think comparatively and sociologically about main-
land Chinese sociology while also highlighting the contributions of the most
important Chinese scholars and their distinctive ideas, findings, research pro-
grams and institution building successes and challenges.”
—Neil McLaughlin, Professor of Sociology, McMaster University, Canada
The field of sociology has changed rapidly over the last few decades.
Sociology Transformed seeks to map these changes on a country by
country basis and to contribute to the discussion of the future of the
subject. The series is concerned not only with the traditional centres of
the discipline, but with its many variant forms across the globe.
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/14477
Hon Fai Chen
Chinese Sociology
State-Building and the Institutionalization
of Globally Circulated Knowledge
Hon Fai Chen
Department of Sociology and Social
Policy
Lingnan University
New Territories, Hong Kong
Sociology Transformed
ISBN 978-1-137-58219-5 ISBN 978-1-137-58220-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58220-1
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A
cknowledgements
I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to Peter Baehr. He suggested me
to write this book and helped me expand my studies in the comparative-
historical analysis of intellectual life. He is a respectable scholar, a reli-
able mentor, and an exemplary role model. Besides, I am grateful for the
series editors John Holmwood and Stephen Turner, for granting me this
good opportunity to write and reflect on the Chinese sociological tradi-
tion. My appreciation also goes to Neil MacLaughlin for his generous
comments at an initial stage of my research, and the anonymous review-
ers for their useful suggestions on the book project. I benefit a lot from
the discussions with my Lingnan colleagues during our informal lunch-
time seminars. I am indebted to the editorial and production teams for
their patience and professional assistance. Flora Lo, Man Kit, and Gary
Yip offer me indispensable help in preparing some of the primary data
and secondary literature for this study.
Last but not least, my academic career would not have begun without
the supports and guidance of Prof. Wong Suk-Ying of the Chinese
University of Hong Kong. A warm and pleasant family life is no less
crucial for a young academic, and for that reason I dedicate this book to
my mother and my wife.
v
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
2 Achievement Without Coherence: The Rise of Chinese
Sociology 9
3 Dramatic Rebirth: The Suspension, Reestablishment,
and Institutionalization of Chinese Sociology 29
4 Paradigm Shift: Sociological Theory and the Studies
of Social Transformation 53
5 Diversity Within Limits: Post-positivism, Gender Studies
and the Sociology of Consumption 83
6 Friends, Not Enemies: The Globalization
and Indigenization of Chinese Sociology 107
7 Conclusion 133
Bibliography 139
Index 143
vii
l t
ist of Ables
Table 6.1 Doctoral degrees of Chinese sociologists
in 8 major universities 111
Table 6.2 International collaborations by doctoral degrees
of Chinese sociologists in 8 major universities 112
ix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Abstract The history of Chinese sociology is a contingent process in
which globally circulated knowledge, above all the American sociologi-
cal tradition, has been adapted to the changing contexts of China from
the 1890s to the present. Since the beginning, Chinese sociologists have
devoted considerable efforts to assimilate the concepts, methods and
approaches of Western sociology while retaining their distinctive iden-
tity and addressing their specific problems. An institutional approach is
pertinent to the analysis of this historical and sociological process, as it
focuses on how academic community and its intellectual production are
being shaped by the state, universities, research institutes, professional
associations and other agencies.
Keywords American sociology · Chinese sociology
Globally circulated knowledge · Institutional approach
Knowledge assimilation and production
In many ways, Fei Xiaotong (1910–2005) was the embodiment of
Chinese sociology and its development in the twentieth century. Fei was
among the first batch of Chinese students receiving a more systematic
local training in sociology, thanks to the incipient growth and institu-
tionalization of the discipline from the 1920s onward. He was graduated
from the Yanjing University, a renowned American-run liberal arts col-
lege that was the center of sociological research in China prior to 1949.
© The Author(s) 2018 1
H.F. Chen, Chinese Sociology, Sociology Transformed,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58220-1_1
2 H.F. CHEN
Upon return from his overseas studies in Britain, Fei’s works on rural
China soon attained international fame and became the landmark of
the “Chinese school” of sociology. But after 1949, Fei’s fortune under-
went an abrupt reversal as “bourgeois sociology” constituted the target
of ideological attacks that culminated in the Cultural Revolution. After
almost three decades of total suspension, sociology’s potential value for
economic reform and socialist modernization was for the first time rec-
ognized by the socialist state. Sociology was thus reestablished and Fei’s
academic status restored, as he served as the leading representative of the
discipline in countless committees and delegations. This also marked the
beginning of a new and unprecedented level of policy and social inter-
vention on the part of Chinese sociologists: Fei himself was appointed as
the chief advisor of small town studies and development. Throughout his
life, Fei personified not only the ebb and flow of Chinese sociology, but
also its “problem consciousness,” that is, a practical emphasis on the use
of sociological knowledge for the effective solution of social problems. In
Fei’s own words, Chinese sociology was distinguished (and legitimized)
by its “realism in the pursuit of knowledge” (congshi qiuzhi).
Toward the end of his life, however, Fei showed a keen interest in the
fiction The Celestine Prophecy, a 1993 national bestseller by the American
novelist James Redfield translated into Chinese in 1997. Having read the
novel twice, Fei gave an account of his fascination during an interview in
2003. Generally unimpressed by literary works, his attention was never-
theless caught by the author’s name, James Redfield. Fei thought he was
the grandson of Robert Park, the American sociologist who in the early
1930s visited the Yanjing University and taught Fei about the impor-
tance of the direct observations of social life. Margaret Park Redfield,
putatively the novelist’s mother, was the editor of the English translation
of Fei’s Earthbound China and China’s Gentry, when Fei first visited the
USA in the early 1950s. Fei believed that he met little Redfield and his
parents during their visits in Tsinghua University and Yanjing University
in the same period. Though James Redfield later became a classics pro-
fessor at the Committee on Social Thought of the University of Chicago,
Fei’s hunch was that he could be the author of the novel. But the sis-
ter of James the classicist later clarified to Fei that he was mistaken (Fei
2003: 64–65).
Another reason for Fei’s interest in the novel resided in its popu-
larity in the USA, which seemed to confirm his emphasis on “cultural
self-awareness” at the final stage of his academic career. The Celestine
