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

Bibliographic Data

ID6008367
AuthorsLiping Wang (0000-0001-6258-6818, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume46
Issue4
Pages339-371
Publication date2020-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueModern China (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0097-7004 • E-ISSN: 1552-6836
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0097700419857522
OpenAlexW2770742919
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited23

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