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中国人类学研究的发展
Development of
the anthropological studies of China
Fried, Morton H.
1954
Community
Studies in China. Far Eastern Quarterly
14(1): 11-36.
Contents:
Fried在文中分析了基于功能社区概念的中国文化研究的主要流派，回顾了19世纪末20世纪初中国研究的成果，指出为什么这些研究不属于社区研究，接着分析了中国社区研究的早期作品、生活调查以及几部在很大程度上以人类学方法写成的社区研究著作。第二部分主要就当代中国社区研究的方法论、田野方法及典型的组织方法与解释方法等问题进行了讨论。第三部分，重点论述了经济学、社会学、心理学等分支学科。
他 认 为， Daniel H. Kulp II’s 的 Country Life in South China (New York, 1925), 是 最 早 的社 区 研 究 著 作。 十 几 年 之 后， 费 孝 通 的 Peasant Life in China
(London, 1939), 陈 达 的Emmigrant Communities
in South China(New York, 1939) 才 发 表。 之 后，C.
P. Fitzgerald 的The
Tower of Five Glories(London,1941), Fei Hsiao-tung and Chang Chih-yi 的 Earthbound
China(Chicago, 1945),Francis L. K. Hsu 的 Under the Ancestor’s
Shadow(N.Y, 1945), Martin Yang 的
A Chinese Village(N. Y., 1947), Lin Yue hwa 的The Golden Wing(London, 1948), Morton H. Fried 的 Fabric of Chinese
Society(N.Y.,1953) 等 相 继 问 世。
在文中他对Hsu将西镇典型化，将其视为中国社会文化的典型代表表示异议。
他认为，对文化与个体心理方面资料的应用，将会清晰地描述异常的个体结构，而中国社区研究缺乏心理方面的研究。Hsu的“祖荫之下”虽然接近于心理研究，但没有运用传统的心理测试技术，只侧重行为模式而忽略了个体与自我。
经济学的方法主要基于产品的生产、分配与消费的细致分析，然而，全面的社区研究需要同样细致的社会关系的分析。社会学研究侧重社会关系的形式、作用及意义的研究。以此，要细致地研究家庭组织，不仅仅要关注它的经济功能，而且要关注其育儿方式、祭祖、娱乐、性生活以及其他许多方面。Kulp,Hsu和Yang更关注家庭与亲属结构的研究而Fei和Fried则侧重非亲属及民间制度等问题。
他指出，在社区研究方面，对历史资料的运用远不如社会调查。中国是个历史久远的国家，其谱系及历史资料对社区研究具有重要价值。
最后他指出，从宏观上看，早期的中国社区研究主要局限于从山东到云南的沿海地区。这凸现出人类学在中国文化研究上方法论的缺陷。社区研究方法当然不是分析中国文化与社会问题的捷径。它仅仅是一种比较有效的调查方法而已，而且必须与其他方法相结合，方能产生最佳效果。本文重点指出了现行社区研究方法的弱点与不足之处。同时，也突出了这一方法的长处与优势。人类学所强调的文化整合是社区研究的核心。人类学源自于简单文化的研究，将其应用于庞大而复杂的文明社会时，仍有其价值。社区研究给我们呈现的是一副许多文化行为类型交错的画面。因为其描述基于特定地点受控的观察，其资料与结论可被验证、检验、补充或修改。最后，社区研究所呈现的是一副独特的文化现象的动态画面。社区研究所揭示的是具有人格的人们的文化与文化过程。通过揭示潜藏于人类内心深处的象征的文化运作过程，社区研究对于某些学者来说，如费孝通等，是解决诸如揭示文化进化过程之类的社会科学问题的有力工具。为此，社区研究必须保持其民族志的、比较的以及历史的方法。这样，社区研究才能够阐明区域研究，在方法上结合许多独立学科以理解任何特定的文化，不管其多么复杂。
Freedman, Maurice
1962 Sociology in and out of China, in the British Journal of Sociology, vol. 13, 1962: 106-116.
Contents:
人们习惯于把1898年严复发表斯宾塞的译文《社会学研究》作为中国社会学的开始。在共产党统治之前，为中国社会学发展作出重大贡献的人主要有：吴文藻、陈达、费孝通、许踉光、李景汉、李安宅、林耀华、冯汉义、杨庆坤以及田汝康等。这些人的研究主要限于非汉族地区。最早的研究是有关人口的（如李景汉，陈达等）。在Kulp对广东村落研究的影响下，费孝通、林耀华、许踉光等用美国乡村社会学的理论进行了社区研究。早期在中国从事人类学教学的外国学者有Kulp,Shirokogoroff,Radcliffe-Brown等。中国的社区研究可以被看作是英美乡村社会学与人类学的一种扩延形式，以国外的理论来套用中国的调查。运用拉德克利夫－布朗的结构理论，林耀华于1936年以中文发表了社区研究成果“从人类学的视角来观察中国的宗亲村落”，并于1948年用英文发表了《金翼》。就中国大陆而言，1959年出版的“A Chinese Village in Early Conmmunitst Transition”（杨庆坤）可以说给中国社区早期研究史划上了一个句号。新中国成立后，社会学与人类学的发展几乎停止不前，如陈达从解放到1957年没有发表任何成果，李景汉被迫改行去中央政府财经学院教授他一无所知的学科－－机械学与纺织学。陈达可以说是中国最优秀的人口学家，却未能参与1953年的人口普查。1957年，费孝通呼吁在全国成立中国社会学学会，在大学重建社会学系。但不久，他与同伴们就被打成了右派分子。在之后的各种运动中，社会科学步履艰难。
在台湾，社会学的发展也相当缓慢。在社会学界最有影响力的要数ChenShao-hsing了。
国外研究中国社会较为突出的要算美国和日本了。时下有很多美国社会学家与人类学家从事中国研究。如Marion
Levy, wolfram Eberhard, G.William Skinner, Morton H. Fried, Francis L.K.Hsu,C.K.Yang,和RobertM.Marsh等。日本人类学家在中日战争期间在中国大陆做了大量的田野调查，战后在台湾留下了大量有关社会学与人口学资料。在英国，有四位人类学家和一位社会学家为中国研究作出了贡献。其中有两位在香港乡村、一位在新加坡、另一位在英国的利物普的中国社区进行过田野，最后一位在战前研究过南中国的瑶族社区。过去的中国社会研究可以说是在历史学家的协助下进行的。多数人类学只对家族制度分析感兴趣，他们分析法律、土地租佃、政治控制等，这就使得他们不管是否情愿需与社会学家联手。
Freedman认为，对于人类学家来说，认为在中国大陆以外无法研究中国的看法是错误的。香港就可以作为了解中国内陆的窗口。像BarbaraWard,JeanPratt,Topley等已经在香港做了研究。台湾同样可以作为研究中国的地区。此外，还有海外华人社区，尤其是东南亚地区的华人社区。对于他们的乡村聚落、社会团体、企业的研究，不仅能锻炼社会学家和人类学家，而且可以为我们理解中国文化提供大量资料。
Freedman极力提倡研究中国社会文化,而且身体力行，做出了成绩，获得了“汉学人类学家”的声誉。他培养了一批对中国文化有研究兴趣的社会人类学者，甚至有人认为他开创了一代用社会人类学方法研究东方悠久历史的国家的社会文化的风气（费，1999）。
Skinner, G. Willia
1963 What the Study
of China Can Do for Social Science. Journal
of
Asian Studies, 23(4)1964: 507-522.
Contents: 所有的社会都有其独特性，其中一些可能要比其他的更独特些。在Skinner 看来，中国是最具特色的。中国的例证对理解文明本身的发展是极其重要的。但中华文明却往往被社会学家所忽视。我们知道，社会体系的规模是社会的特色之一，而中国正是一个具有庞大社会体系的国家，但却被遗忘。中国社会的另一个特色是其悠久的社会历史及其在社会政治与文化体系中的连续性。官僚帝国主义是中国社会体系的特色之一，抛开文化多样性不说，它有助于说明其悠久的历史、庞大的社会体系及其社会政体系。用Webber的话来说，中国拥有任何前现代社会所能达到的最为复杂的，毫无疑问是最有效的官僚制度。 因此，对中国帝国官僚主义的细致的社会学分析，不仅会拓宽我们时下的理论，而且会理清官僚组织与前工业时代中国的独特性。但中国民族志对社会科学的重要意义却因注重中国村落与家庭的研究而长期被忽略。Skinner有意强调传统中国有两个目的：第一，向在中国研究领域流行的假说提出挑战，此假说认为，社会科学仅对当代感兴趣，而过去则留给历史学家和人文学者去研究；第二，强调前共产主义中国对社会科学的有力挑战。他坚持认为传统中国社会要比任何历史上已知的农业社会更具有研究价值。对于比较社会学家、政治科学家或者经济学家所提出的关键性问题，如有关乡民社会或前帝国社会的问题，中国的例证要比印度或者任何其他社会的例证都更加完美与可信。他之所以强调中国社会，主要有四点：1、就其对整个人类社会的重要性而言，中华文明仅次于西方文明。2、从体现独特性或特色而言，发展普遍理论的比较分析，中国社会之独特性绝对不能忽略；3、中国社会发展的历史在世界历史上是记录最完美之一,它对制度分析极为有用。4、分布于世界各地的华人社区为比较研究提供绝好机会。
总之Skinner认为，传统中国社会的独特性在于其庞大的社会体系及其复杂性、其表意文字与极其浩繁的文献记载。这一方面使中国研究本身具有无限的生命力。另一方面，使社会科学者不知所措。但是，对于一般社会科学而言，正是这些独特性使中国 具有其自身的重要意义。其挑战性就在于此。
Freedman, Maurice
1979 What Social
Science Can Do for Chinese Studies. In The
Study of Chinese Society, by Maurice Freedman. Stanford, California:
Stanford University Press.
Contents:
在这篇文章中，Freedman对社会科学界普遍忽略中国研究通提出了批评。他指出，似乎社会科学能为中国研究的发展所做的事很少，很多人便以此为借口，极少关注中国研究，尤其是年轻一代的人类学家。他认为社会科学不仅可以为Sinology(汉学)而且也可以为Sinologues作出有益的贡献。由于中国大陆长期处于封闭状态，西方人类学家难以进入大陆去进行田野，但是还有台湾，有香港和海外华侨。尽管台湾与香港都处于边际地带，具有特殊性，但它们仍是中国。田野资料是很重要，但最好是为汉学注入新的观念，这些社会科学的理论并不一定要来自中国。
社会科学家提出的模式本身，是无法解决任何中国问题的。他们假设、推论、提出答案。答案的价值就在于这些答案是基于想象的系统探求，并通过特殊的思维逻辑加工。应用于中国的社会科学不能替代汉学；它是使汉学问题系统化的一种方式。社会科学是研究社会的；汉学是研究中国的；它们的交叉之处，体系、理论的构建，以及一方的基本知识都可以为另一方的问题提供可选择或补充性的答案。这并不是说我们要把社会科学置于汉学的从属地位；因为Skinner教授提出汉学能为社会科学做些什么，我最好还是说说我们能为汉学做些什么。他认为，社会科学对汉学研究的贡献有赖于我们对社会科学本身的理解。
同时，他还提出，要注重区域研究与学生的培养。
关于社区研究的争论：
Firth1938年曾寄了一篇论文给燕京大学出版社的《社会学界》，在这篇论文里他提出了“微型社会学”的概念，用来专指马林诺夫斯基所说的“社会学的中国学派”的特点。马林诺夫斯基曾说过，“通过熟悉一个小村落的生活，我们犹如在显微镜下看到了整个中国的缩影”。后来（1944），他再次强调微型社会学是人类学在战后可能的发展方向，微型社会学人类学是指以小集体或大集体中的小单位作研究对象去了解其中各种关系怎样亲密地在小范围中活动或是以一个人数较少的社会或一个较大的社区的一部分为研究对象，研究者亲自参与到当地的社会活动，进行亲密的观察。从马林诺夫斯基的“社会学的中国学派”到Firth的“微型社会学”是一个飞跃，并为Freedman后来提出的“社会人类学的中国时代”开辟了道路。
而且他不赞成一个初学人类学的人从研究自己的民族入手，就是说他怀疑本民族的人从事研究本民族能进入社会人类学的殿堂。费认为，在人文世界中所说的“整体”并不是数学上一个一个加起来而成的“总数”。这点是正确的。但他又认为，同一个整体中的个体有点像从一个模式里刻出来的一个个糕饼，就是这个别是整体的复制品。生在社会里又在生活里生活的一个个人，他们的行为以至思想感情的方式是从先于他存在的人文世界里学习来的。学习基本上就是模仿，还加上社会力量对个人发生的规范作用，即所谓教育，社会用压力强制个人的行为和思想纳入规范中，一个社区的文化就形成个人生活方式的模子。这个模子对于满足个人生活需要上是具有完整性的，每个人生活需要的方方面面都要能从这个人文世界里得到满足，所以人文世界不能是不完整的。“微型社会学”有它的优点，它可以深入到人际关系的深处，甚至进入语言所难于表达的传神之意。费孝通在强调微型社区研究的重要性的同时，还指出，用微型社会学的方法去调查研究像中国这样幅员辽阔、历史悠久、民族众多的生活文化，不应当看不到它的限度：（1）在空间坐标上它难于全面反映和该社区有密切联系的外来辐射；(2)时间上的限制，人们对过去的记忆可以因当前的需要和实际与过去的情况不相符合，而且在当前决定个人行为的心理因素还包含对未来的希望和期待；（3）文化层次上的限制，它有已接受了的大传统，而同时保持着原有的小传统的本身，有些是暴露在“地上”的，有些是隐蔽在“地下”的，甚至有些已打进了潜意识的潜文化。作为大传统载体的士绅在近代已有很多离乡入镇，而其社会活动和影响还在农村里发生作用。如果以农村社区为范围进行微观研究，这方面的情况就难于做深入具体的观察了。
Freedman, Maurice
1979
“A Chinese Phase in Social
Anthropology.”The Study of Chinese Society: Essays by Maurice Freedman,
selected and introduced by G. William Skinner. Stanford , California: Stanford
University Press.
Contents:
1938年，马林若夫斯基在费孝通的《中国农民生活》（1939）一书的序言中写道：在社会人类学田野调查与理论方法上，此书是一个里程碑。他认为未来的人类学发展可能会以中国研究为开端，进入一个复杂社会（相对于原始的简单社会）、本土社会研究的时代。1962年，Freedman在马林若夫斯基纪念演讲会上宣读了“社会人类学的中国时代”的论文。此文论述了中国研究为社会人类学所能作出的具体贡献。他赞同中国社会的研究存在着把人类学从原始部落推向文明社会的潜能。但他对社会人类学社区研究的功能方法提出了质疑，指出中国在人类学中的独特之处就在于它是一个具有悠久历史的、有社会分化的文明大国，因而功能主义的社区研究方法和反历史倾向（共时性）分析，在中国研究中便会显现出其局限性。Freedman的批评是：马林若夫斯基认为，吴文藻领导下的“中国社会学派”之所以成功，是因为他们运用了小型社群研究法，而这种研究法一旦在不同的村落社区反复实施，便可借以理解整体中国社会。实际上，马林若夫斯基之所以如此看，是因为他们原来十分习惯原始部落的研究，而对如此广大的中国社会，他们不免觉得无计可施，不得已将无法驾驭的中国分割为可以用传统社会人类学反复分析的“社区”。Freedman认为，如果人类学者对中国社会的独特性没有充分的了解，进行再多的社区调查也无法说明问题。社会人类学要出现一个“中国时代”，首先应该向历史学家和社会学家学习研究文明史和大型社会结构的方法，走出社区，在较大的空间跨度和较广的时间深度中探讨社会运作的机制。总之，Freedman认为小地方的描述难以反映大社会，功能的整体分析不足以把握具有悠久历史的文明大国的特点，社区不是社会的缩影。Freedman对汉学人类学的贡献就在于他指出中国社会的人类学研究，应注重探讨历史与现代以及国家与社会的关系，并力图提出适于文明大国的方法论。毫无疑问，他提出的历史的、宏观的社会学方法，对社区研究方法是一个补充。
1979 The Study of Chinese Society: Essays by Maurice Freedman.
Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Contents:
Freedman wrote three books treating Chinese society and edited a fourth.
In this introduction, I mean to do three things: place the essays in this
volume in the context of Freedman’s career, review one aspect of their
substantive contribution, and point up the significance of Freedman’s work for
both sinology and anthropology.
Part of the
attraction of the Overseas Chinese was surely the analogy with Jews, but the
influence of his mentors at the LSE is also apparent. China had penetrated
British social anthropology a decade earlier. In 1936, when Radcliffe-Brown was
lecturing in China, Fei Hsiao-tung was writing his celebrated village
ethnography at the LSE under Malinowski’s direction. In 1938, Raymond Firth
published a paper in a Chinese journal, and during the 1939’s and 1940’s
several Chinese in addition to Fei studied at the LSE, among them Francis
L.K.Hsu, Lin Yueh-hwa, and Tien Ju-kang. During this period, two books on
Chinese were published, Tien’s The
Chinese of Sarawak (1953) and Alan J.A.Elliott’s
Chinese Spirit-Medium Cults in Singapora(1955).
In Singapore, Freedman and his wife Judith, also a doctoral candidate at
the LSE, conducted research from January 1949 to November 1950, he on the
Chinese family, she on the Malay family. Both dissertations were subsequently
published as monographs: Maurice’s Chinese
family and Marriage in Singapore (1957) and Judith’s Malay Kinship and Marriage in Singapore.
For Freedman the Overseas Chinese were also a window on China proper. As
recounted later, he had striven passionately to see beyond the Singapore
Chinese to the society from which they had come. The book that resulted from
this “obsession,”Lineage Organization in
Southeastern China (1958), revealed an exceptional skill for recreating
social institutions in the round from myriad facts and clues in the published
literature. On the methodological side, it taught us how “to sit in archives or
at least in libraries and interview the dead”. On the substantive side, it
drew, wherever appropriate, on the concepts developed by Evens-Pritchard, M.
Forts and other Africanists, but went on to discuss topics that had no
counterpart in the African kinship literature: social differentiation within
the lineage, the relationship of lineage structure to political power and
economic control, and relations between the lineage and state. The main
significance of Freedman’s research in HK, however, is its profound effect on
the subsequent course of sinological anthropology. Having shown that we could
learn about mainland Chinese society from the overseas Chinese and from the
archives, he now showed what we could learn form observation in what he later
came to call “residual China”, notably HK and Taiwan. Several of his students,
e.g. Hugh D.R. Baker, subsequently carried out field research in HK or Taiwan.
During the 1960’s studies that in number and scope exceeded the sum total of
the anthropological work done in China proper before 1949. Nearly all of this
research was inspired by Freedman’s work.
His book Chinese Lineage and
Society (1966) is not only on geomancy but on every aspect of society on
which New Territories communities and the libraries could be made eloquent. As
early as 1961, he tracked down and interviewed Daniel H. Kulp, the American
sociologist who had published the first ethnography of a Chinese village in
1925; and in 1969 he had confessed an abiding fascination with “the rhythm and
pace of the anthropological studies of China.” During his last few years he
spent time in Leiden and Paris interviewing people who had know his
distinguished predecessors, De Groot and Marcel Granet. His translation of
Granet’s classic study of Chinese religion (1975), with a long critical
introduction, was published shortly after he died, and his papers include
extensive notes on De Groot’s life.
Kinship and Religion: Freedman’s brilliant work on Chinese kinship and religion has had the
unfortunate effect of obscuring his excellent scholarship on other aspects of
Chinese society, notably economics, politics, law, inequality, and ethnicity.
During the first
fifteen years of his scholarly career, Freedman’s chief concerns with the
Chinese family were sociological. He strove to get control of the ethnographic
facts in order to specify the relevant structural principles and jural rules
and examine how those principles and rules shaped family interaction and
composition. The results were presented in his book on Chinese family life in
Singapore. In Freedman’s initial formulation everything hinged on the de facto
power of the father in the exercise of his authority as family head. Where the
father drew political and economic strength from outside the family he could
successfully enforce the obedience of his sons and suppress the competition
among them. Where his social and economic resources in the community were
inadequate, his sons could defy him either directly or by an allowing their
wives to sow dissension leading to family division. Margery Wolf (1972) has
challenged this view for its male-centeredness, holding that mothers are as
strongly motivated as fathers to mute conflict among married sons, and better
situated to do so successfully; Myron Cohen (1976) offers yet another view:
married sons suppress their differences as long as it is in their economic
interest to do so, and unleash their wives when continued cooperation is no
longer economically advantageous.
Freedman holds that the Chinese family was not an enduring corporation,
saying that “the Chinese family is a property-owning estate which dissolves on
the death of each senior generation to reform into successor-estates, none of
which can be said to have the identity inhering in its predecessors.” In Wolf’s
view, the Chinese family is an amalgam of two distinct institutions: the chia,
the basic unit of production and consumption and a component part of the
empire, and the line, property-owning descent group and the social unit
responsible for domestic ancestral rites. Emily Ahen (1974) holds that marriage
creates a ranking in which wife-givers are distinctly superior to wife-takers.
Freedman argued that whereas her argument might be sustained for ritual
superiority, it could not be correct for social superiority. As Arthur Wolf has
pointed out this debate forces us to rethink what ritual statements say about
social reality.
In moving from the family to the lineage, we encounter another of
Freedman’s dualisms---that between the cult of immediate jural superiors and
the cult of descent groups. The former, the care and commemoration of forebears
“as it were for their own sake,” is a domestic cult associated with the family,
whereas the latter, “a set of rites linking together all the agnatic
descendants of a given forebear”, is associated with extrafamilial kin groups:
clans, lineages, and lineage segments. Little was achieved in the study of
Chinese ancestor worship until this distinction was clearly drawn by Freedman.
Both forms of ancestor worship, in turn, are crosscut by yet another dualism,
in which tablets are counterpoised with tombs. Ancestors in their yang
manifestation are given ritual care as tablets housed in domestic shrines or
lineage halls, whereas ancestors in their yin guise are tended at their graves.
“The study of lineage structure and organization is one of the main ways
in which social anthropology has established itself within the general study of
Chinese society”(1974). We have Freedman alone to thank for that achievement,
not to mention it’s observe: the successful introduction of the Chinese case
into the comparative ethnology of lineage organization and ancestor worship.
Freedman’s interest in religion developed naturally out of his initial
concern with kinship. His essays on religion in Chinese society is basically
sociological: from which social categories did different sects, temples, and
religions draw their priests and their followings, and why? In a review of main
trends in social and cultural anthropology, Freedman wrote: some
anthropologists have placed the accent on the pragmatic side of religious
belief, to stress the support it may give to the arrangements of social like
and to deprive it of its independence as a mode of experience and thought. In a
narrow sociologism of religion the nuances and complexity of belief are lost to
view, and the problem of striking deep into its roots dies not present itself.
In many areas of anthropology, the last decade and a half or so have market a
shift from religion as only an institution to religion as a way, however
difficult of access, of knowing and apprehension. There has been a “religious
revival.” Anthropology and Sinology: Although Freedman’s discipline was
anthropology, his impulse was not to view China through the miniaturizing
lenses that might make it accessible to traditional anthropological methods,
but rather to reshape the discipline so that it might rise to the challenge
posed by the world’s largest society. In the 1950s, most of the anthropologists
hold that the village was somehow a microcosm of the total society. In essay A Chinese Phase in Social Anthropology
he demolished the notion. In general he saw a practical danger in the
anthropological preoccupation with the small in scale: the risk of speaking
generally of a society with the confidence bred of an intimate acquaintance
with local communities in it. For China proper, the dominant paradigm has been
the distinction between the elite and the masses, or in Fei’s terms the gentry
and the peasantry, which draws inspiration in the cultural realm from
Redfield’s distinction between the Great and Little Traditions. In Freedman’s
view, however, far from raising the sights of anthropologists to incorporate
the totality of civilization, Redfield’s paradigm has been seized by most of
them as a license for delimiting their domain to village communities and fold
culture, and indeed has served to direct attention away from “the
interpenetration of the cultivated and the popular, the high and the low, the
gentry and the peasantry”(1975).
Freedman in his own writing presented not so much a paradigm as a
conceptual framework. Implicit in his view of Chinese society were two kinds of
hierarchy: that of community and region on the one hand, that of class and
status on the other. The hierarchy of segments within localized lineage and of
localized lineages within higher-order lineages was shown to be shaped by the
differentiating forces of class, status, and power, whose locus was likely to
be in other territorially based hierarchical systems. It is in this sense that
he emphasized “the need to keep the study of the lineage within the framework
of the study of all groups and relationships.” In The Politics of an Old State: A View from the Chinese Lineage he
notes that “to move from countryside to town in traditional Chinese society was
not to leave one social world and enter another.” In Geomancy he shows that geomancy is but one expression of a
universal Chinese system of metaphysics. In Ritual
Aspects of Chinese Kinship and Marriage he comments that the investigation
of virtually every topic in the study of Chinese society “leads to numerous
points in the total system of Chinese social behavior and the total system of
Chinese ideas.” In On the Sociological
Study of Chinese Religion he identifies himself with an intellectual
tradition within sinology “that takes Chinese religion to be an entity.”
“Members of the elite might stand by a puritanical version of Chinese religion,
and in that posture deplore the antics of the superstitious masses; but the
elite as a group was bound to the masses indissoluble by its religious beliefs
and practices.”
“Well documented”---it is an important qualification, central to Freedman’s view of sinological anthropology. Anthropologist naturally “graze in the field,” as he once wryly put it, but in studying China they must also learn to “feed on documents.” Facts about the past need to be built into analyses of what is studied in the field, not just as “background to the present” but as “integral to the matter under study. ” China offers special opportunities not only for advantageous “interplay between the anthropologist as fieldworker and the anthropologist as bookworm,” and not only for history-in-the-field, but also historical sociology per se