Internal Orientalization or Deorientalization? Disciplinary Conflicts and National Imaginations in China, 1912–1949

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6008367
AutoresLiping Wang (0000-0001-6258-6818, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, autor de correspondencia)
Año2020
Volumen46
Número4
Páginas339-371
Fecha de publicación2020-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaModern China (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0097-7004 • E-ISSN: 1552-6836
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0097700419857522
OpenAlexW2770742919
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas23

Early twentieth-century China, as with other post-imperial states, faced the challenge of creating a nation encompassing different social groups and cultures. How to identify ethnic groups living in the borderlands and generate nationwide social cohesion became a fundamental question that concerned multiple intellectual communities. This article traces the formation of two approaches to ethnicity—ethnology and sociology—at that time. These two approaches, configuring “ethnic differences” in dissimilar ways, were received differently by the public. In the end, the ethnological approach prevailed and the sociological approach was marginalized. This outcome exemplifies a possible hierarchy of knowledge, but also involves the politics of knowledge. This article shows that the disparate visions of “ethnic others” were produced by intellectuals differently positioned within the social context of post-imperial China. The positionalities of these disciplines explain much of their intellectual alignment

China · Cohesion (chemistry · Context (archaeology · Discipline · Ethnic group · Hierarchy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Vision · Anthropology · China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations · Chinese history and philosophy · Gender Studies · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies