Catherine Capdeville-Zeng - A French experience – About FEI Xiaotong 费孝通 and the French publication of Xiangtu Zhongguo 乡土中国 (1948), under the title “The Roots of Chinese Society” (2021)

societes-plurielles:14686 - Sociétés plurielles, November 6, 2024, 8 | 2024 - Social sciences between universalism and differentialism: the return of national schools? - https://doi.org/10.46298/societes-plurielles.2024.14686
A French experience – About FEI Xiaotong 费孝通 and the French publication of Xiangtu Zhongguo 乡土中国 (1948), under the title “The Roots of Chinese Society” (2021)Article

Authors: Catherine Capdeville-Zeng 1

  • 1 Institut français de recherche sur l’Asie de l’Est

Fei Xiaotong (1910-2005) is considered in China as one of the founding fathers of Chinese anthropology and sociology. His most important theoretical work, Xiangtu Zhongguo 乡土中国, published in 1948, was translated into English and published in 1992 as From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society. In 2021, to re-specify certain anthropological notions and put them within the reach of French-speaking readers, including in particular that of chaxu geju 差序格局 “(social) order based on status distinctions” which characterizes Chinese society according to the author, the work is published for the first time in French by Presses de l’Inalco under the title The Roots of Chinese Society.After a presentation of the author and his thinking anchored in the anthropological discipline, a reflection is proposed here on the academic debates between thinkers from different societies. A short biography of Fei Xiaotong precedes the exposition of the main concepts developed in his work, and the questions encountered regarding their translations. The old but complex links between Fei Xiaotong and French anthropology are then addressed, then his conceptions are compared to those of the French anthropologist Louis Dumont. The actual experience of publication and translation into French, involving Chinese and French collaborators, and the discussions about the preface written for this French edition are then recounted. A questioning concludes around the forms of censorship encountered in the human sciences in the light of different eras and distinct political horizons.


Volume: 8 | 2024 - Social sciences between universalism and differentialism: the return of national schools?
Section: Articles
Published on: November 6, 2024
Imported on: November 6, 2024
Keywords: Fei Xiaotong,China,social anthropology,translations in human sciences,censorship,Fei Xiaotong,Chine,anthropologie sociale,traductions en sciences humaines,censure,[SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences

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