Fei Xiaotong

Fei Xiaotong was a pioneering Chinese anthropologist and sociologist.

Sociology is the study of how people live in groups. Anthropology is the study of human cultures and societies. Fei's work helped build the foundation for these studies in China. He also helped the international community understand Chinese social and cultural life. His research focused on how communities function and how ethnic groups interact.

Fei's academic journey involved studying with many famous scholars. He attended Yenching University in Beiping, which had a top sociology program. There, he was inspired by the sociologist Robert E. Park. He later studied anthropology at Tsinghua University. He learned important fieldwork methods from a teacher named S. M. Shirokogoroff. Fieldwork is when a researcher lives among a group to observe them directly. This method allowed Fei to gather real data about how people actually lived.

Fei's early fieldwork was marked by significant personal tragedy. While researching in the mountains of Guangxi province, Fei was injured by a tiger trap. His leg was crushed during this accident. His young wife and research partner, Wang Tonghui, went to find help. Sadly, she fell into a pond and drowned while seeking assistance. Despite these hardships, Fei continued his academic career. He eventually studied at the London School of Economics from 1936 to 1938. He studied under Bronisław Malinowski, a pioneer in anthropology.

From his teachers, Fei learned the concept of functionalism. This approach looks at how the different parts of a community work together. It also examines how members of a culture find meaning in their own lives. Fei used these ideas to develop new survey methods. He applied this functional approach to his study of Chinese villages. In 1939, he published his PhD thesis, *Peasant Life in China*. This work was based on his research in Kaixiangong village.

One of Fei's most famous ideas involves social networks. He suggested that Chinese social relations work like a series of circles. In this model, the individual is at the very center. As you move outward from the center, the personal connections become less close. This concept helps explain how social structures are organized in China. Another major work was *China's Gentry*, published in the United States in 1953. This book became a standard text in American university courses about China.

Fei's life was deeply affected by the political changes in China. After 1949, he held several important positions. He was a vice president at the Central Institute for Nationalities in 1951. However, sociology was later labeled a "bourgeois pseudo-science." This meant the government stopped supporting the field. In 1957, during the Anti-Rightist Movement, Fei faced great hardship. He was forced to confess to crimes and was treated as an outcast. He could not teach, publish, or do research for twenty-three years. He described this period as a wasted part of his life.

During the Cultural Revolution, Fei faced further physical attacks. He was forced to perform menial tasks like cleaning toilets. Despite these dark years, his "second life" began in the 1970s. After the death of Mao, Fei helped restore sociology in China. He worked to train a new generation of Chinese sociologists. He also traveled to the United States to arrange visits for American scientists. In 1980, he was formally rehabilitated by the government.

In his later years, Fei became a very influential public intellectual. He held many honorary and political posts. He helped convince the government to support rural industries. This helped raise the income of hundreds of millions of villagers in the 1980s. He also shared theories about how the Han ethnic group formed. He argued the Han became a central nucleus that attracted other groups. Fei died in Beijing in 2005 at the age of 94. He left behind a massive collection of fifteen volumes of his works.