Abstract:

In political practices related to space, phrases such as "considering dishi"(考量地势) and "grasping dishi "(把握地势) are frequently employed by practitioners. The concept of dishi(地势, terrain) also serves as one of the expressions within the traditional Chinese political discourse of "shishuo "(势说, strategic positioning). This article begins with such everyday political language to discuss dishi within the broader context of contemporary social sciences. It starts with the political anthropological question of "how is 'political science' possible without taking the West as its departure?", suggesting that the discourse of shishuo (势说) embedded in political life offers alternative pathways. By adopting an anthropological perspective rooted in everyday language, this study goes on to examine the political approach of shishuo, contrasting it with fundamental issues in Western social sciences, such as causal inference. The discussion of key elements in understanding shishuo--particularly the perspective of everyday language--draws inspiration from contemporary linguistic anthropology and perspectival anthropology, supported by ethnographic findings in linguistic anthropology and "fieldwork" experiences in literary translation. The study, grounded in the anti-reductionist premises of linguistic phenomenology, conceptualizes dishi as a "general picture" formed by the heterogeneous elements through "intermediary links". It further argues that discourses of dishi often function as performative acts rather than descriptions of preexisting facts or conditions in the causal-inferential sense. In anthropological interventions, the discourse of shishuo and action are intertwined, rendering such discursive practices themselves methods for studying dishi. The final section explores dishi as a field research methodology. While the ontological and epistemological foundations of shishuo differ from those of mainstream social science methodologies, the paper contends that these paradigms--and even multiple paradigms--are mutually compatible at the level of fieldwork. Using mapping methods as an example, the paper in addition discusses the practical application of dishi-based approaches.

Key words: dishi (地势), political anthropology, everyday language perspective, perspicuous presentation