Fei Xiaotong or Fei Hsiao-tung (November 2, 1910 – April 24, 2005) was a Chinese anthropologist and sociologist. He was a pioneering researcher and professor of sociology and anthropology; he was also noted for his studies in the study of China's ethnic groups as well as a social activist. Starting in the late 1930s, he and his colleagues established Chinese sociology and his works were instrumental in laying a foundation for the development of sociological and anthropological studies in China, as well as in introducing social and cultural phenomena of China to the international community. His last post before his death in 2005 was as Professor of Sociology at Peking University.
Early years
Fei Xiaotong was born in Wujiang County of Jiangsu province in China on November 2, 1910. His world was one plagued with political corruption and abject poverty. He grew up in a gentry but yet not wealthy family. His father, Fei Pu'an () was educated in the Chinese classics, earned a shengyuan civil service degree, studied in Japan, and founded a middle school. Fei's mother, Yang Renlan (), the Christian daughter of a government official and also highly educated for her time, established a nursery school in Wujiang which Fei attended. Her brothers include Chinese politician Yang Qianli (father of Hong Kong director and lyricwriter Evan Yang), Architect Yang Xiliu (S. J. Young), Chinese-American animator Cy Young, and entrepreneur Yang Xiren.
Career in academic sociology
At missionary-founded Yenching University in Beiping, which had China's best sociology program, he was stimulated by the semester visit of Robert E. Park, the University of Chicago sociologist. For an M.A. in anthropology, Fei went to nearby Tsinghua University where he studied with Pan Guangdan and learned fieldwork methods from a White Russian, S. M. Shirokogoroff. Fei's first fieldwork experience, in the rugged mountains of Guangxi province in the far south, ended tragically after Fei's leg was crushed by a tiger trap, and his young bride Wang Tonghui () died seeking help.
"Functional" anthropology
From 1936 to 1938 Fei studied at the London School of Economics under the pioneer anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski. "From Malinowski and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, Fei learned to focus on the functional interrelationships of various "parts" of a community and on the meaning of a culture as seen by its members. He devised survey methods which incorporated the functional approach ... " Fei wrote his 1938 PhD thesis, based on earlier fieldwork in Kaixiangong (Chinese:) village, China and published it as Peasant Life in China (1939).
Among Fei Xiaotong's contributions to anthropology is the concept that Chinese social relations work through social networks of personal relations with the self at the center and decreasing closeness as one moves out. Among the criticisms of Fei Xiaotong's work is that his work tended to ignore regional and historical variations in Chinese behavior. Nonetheless, as a pioneer and educator, his intent was to highlight general trends, thus this simplification may have had significant justification for Fei's intent, even if they contributed to a bias in studies of Chinese society and culture.
An important work of the period, China's Gentry, was compiled from Fei's field interviews, and was published in the United States in 1953. It went on to become a staple of American university courses on China. The compilation and U.S. publication of China's Gentry grew out of a relationship Fei developed at Tsinghua University with the University of Chicago anthropologist Robert Redfield and his wife, Margaret Park Redfield.
Leading intellectual in People's Republic of China
1950s and 1960s: Politics in command
After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Fei played an important role in national intellectual and ideological life, and before long he began to hold a growing number of political positions. He was made vice president in 1951 of the Central Institute for Nationalities in Beijing (today, Minzu University of China), and in 1954 attended the First National People's Congress as a member of the Nationalities Affairs Commission.