试论历史人类学与中国近代史研究中的几个问题

兴起于20世纪80年代中后期的历史人类学,尽管从学术传承上分属于两个不同的学科,但它的出现为消融历史学与人类学的边界,促成两个学科的交叉与融合,起到了不可低估的作用。在历史学内,“历史人类学”的形成亦经历了一个从社会史、社会文化史到历史人类学的演变过程。而在中国近代史领域,历史人类学已经展开一些研究实践,但是尚需进一步提倡。这种提倡表现在三个方面:底层视角、区域经验、文本与田野互动。历史人类学会对中国近代史研究产生有益的影响,会成为一种介于宏大叙事与经验性实证研究的“中层理论”。从历史学科的本位出发,历史人类学对人类学的吸收借鉴颇多,但是不能轻易放弃历史学科本位。

Reviews on Historical Anthropology and Modern Chinese Research

Historical Anthropology, rising in late 1980s, belongs to two different subjects in scholarly perspective, but it played important roles to develop the combination of the two subjects. In history, historical anthropology experienced the process from social history to social cultural history and finally to historical anthropology. And in modern Chinese research field, there are some research practices in historical anthropology but more developments are needed. This kind of development lies in three aspects, namely, subaltern perspective, local experience and the interaction between text and field relating. Historical anthropology will have useful influence on modern Chinese research and become a kind of middle theory between grand narrative and experimental research. At the same time, historical anthropology absorbs much from anthropology but we cannot abandon the essence of history subject.