著者

費 孝通[著] 塚田 誠之[翻訳]

出版者

国立民族学博物館

雑誌

国立民族学博物館研究報告 (ISSN:0385180X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.22, no.2, pp.461-479, 1997

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For sixty years, the author has been engaged in the study of ethnicgroups in China. This paper represents an attempt to provide an overallview of his personal experiences in this field which in turn sheds light onthe ways in which he has viewed ethnic identity. Prior to 1949, after havingbeen trained in the subjects of anthropology and sociology, theauthor started to conduct fieldwork in both Han and non-Han communities.After 1949, for the purpose of creating equality among all nationalitiesin China, the newly established People's Republic administereda major research program to identify ethnic groups within itsterritorial sovereignty. As a member of this program, the author was involvedin extensive nationality surveys. Through these surveys, he cameto realize that ethnic groups were shaped in the communal lives of theirmembers and transformative in time. This observation led the author toemphasize the significance of the social historical perspective inethnological studies.Even though the "Anti-Rightist Movement" and the "CulturalRevolution" deprived him of 23 years of academic life, the lessons ofethnic identification which he gained in the early fifties remained in theauthor's mind. In 1979, he re-started work among minority nationalities.Personal involvement in various research projects and in thepolicy-making process has made it possible to put forward a new argument.In 1989, summarizing his thoughts, the author put forword argumentthat China is an integrated nation with cultural diversity. In doingso, he had two criticisms in mind. On the one hand, he criticizes the ideathat one ethnic entity should be ruled by one independent state which haslegitimated various violent campaigns of ethnic separation in Europe.However, the author's own studies indicate that different ethnic groupshave lived together for centuries within China. Therefore, the Eurocentricdefinition of nation-state is not applicable in China. On the otherhand, historical studies of interrelationships among ethnic groups inChina have demonstrated that the Chinese nation was shaped through atwo-way process. From the bottom-up perspective, the history of theChinese nation is one through which diverse ethnic cultures and socialsolidarities became integrated into a higher level order. From the topdownperspective, the higher level order has never excluded lower levelethnic cultural systems. Such a two-way historical perspective offers acritique of those who attempt to draw a clear-cut demarcation line betweenthe Chinese nation and "other cultures" within it.