Abstract:

The village, by the name of Jiangcun, is not only a place where Dr. Fei Xiaotong started his successful journey as a sociologist and anthropologist, but also a base where he continued his studies on the developmental course of Chinese rural communities in the past seventy years. Fei’s Jiangcun research has expressed the “wish for dream” of Malinowski, a master in the Western anthropology. It has also heralded a new epoch for the focal shift in anthropological research from studying savage to civil people. The author holds that, although Fei’s Jiangcun research was brought about by a chain of accidental factors, it was nevertheless a planned research program with clearly defined aims and high aspirations. Fei’s Jiangcun research, or the study of Chinese rural “civil communities,” transcended the “civil-savage distinction” and opened up new domains for anthropological research, for which he had received high regard from many western scholars. It was his time that helped create Peasant Life in China; it was Peasant Life in China that placed Fei at the forefront in the world academy. Fei Xiaotong’s goal was to let people getting wealthy. With a theme of investigating how peasants improved their productivity to free themselves from poverty and become wealthy, his Jiangcun research brought to light the changes in Jiangcun people’s ideology, social relationships, and lifestyles. Fei’s tremendous contributions from his Jiangcun research to theory building and practice are highly valued; so are the foundations that he laid for new scholars to continue this project. His unfinished cause will be undertaken by the successors of the “Jiangcun School.”

Key words:

Fei Xiaotong, civil-savage distinction, Jiangcun research, “Jiangcun School”