Journal of China in Global and Comparative Perspectives
Volume 2, 2016
A practically minded person: Fei Xiaotong’s anthropological calling and Edmund Leach’s game
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Author: Stephan Feuchtwang
Volume number: 2
Year of publication: 2016
Language: English
Publisher: Global Century Press (London)
ISSN 2633-9544 (print)
ISSN 2633-9552 (online)
ISBN 978-1-913522-19-5
DOI https://doi.org/10.24103/JCGCP.en.2016.2
作者：王斯福
期号：第2期
出版年份：2016年
语言：英文
出版社：环球世纪出版社 (伦敦)
ISSN 2633-9560 (印刷版)
ISSN 2633-9579 (电子版)
ISBN 978-1-913522-19-5
DOI https://doi.org/10.24103/JCGCP.en.2016.2
About the article
Abstract: This is a continuation in print of the conversation between two famous anthropologists, Professors Fei Xiaotong and Edmund Leach. It compares their two callings, or senses of vocation, as anthropologists and puts each into their historical context. To this it adds consideration of Maurice Freedman, a British anthropologist of Chinese society. It praises Fei for his patriotic and critical anthropology; it praises Leach for his critical and committed anthropology, which frees the discipline from its functionalist limitations; it praises Freedman for his critical extension of the concept of the corporate lineage beyond functionalism and into history. With Fei, it criticizes the narrowness of much anthropological writing for purely academic readerships, but comes to the conclusion that at its best anthropology is an independent and open critical vocation.
Keywords: Fei Xiaotong, Edmund Leach, Maurice Freedman, patriotic anthropology, anthropology as a calling
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