Why fieldwork is the foundation of ethnography

"So far, Western anthropology has been mainly concerned with the study of different cultures, and most of the theoretical paradigms have been born in societies with few written records, and the theories from such social experiences will certainly encounter difficulties in interpreting China. On the contrary, by rooting ourselves in the cultural experiences of the Chinese people and engaging in extensive and in-depth field research, we will surely refine our own anthropological theoretical interpretive paradigm." In the opinion of Du Jing, an associate professor at Qingdao University, engaging in fieldwork rooted in the people is undoubtedly a real path to promote the development of anthropology in China.

Du Jing is mainly engaged in research on Han Chinese society and the history of Chinese anthropology. In fact, as early as 2002, Du Jing began to conduct field research around a village called Min Village in Linyi City, Shandong Province, and after ten years, he conducted a modern ethnographic examination of the traditional nine-tribe system and wrote a 720,000-word-long scholarly monograph on the practice of the five-service, nine-tribe system in this village in East China, and in recent years, he has published more than 50 scholarly papers at home and abroad.

The theoretical model of "fountain society" or "nine clans in a chain" and the theoretical model of "nine clans - clan" in China, which was refined through grassroots fieldwork, has been published in anthropology, social history, overseas Chinese empirical research and other fields, The theoretical models of the "Fountain Society" or "Nine Clans Chain" and the "Nine Clans - Clan" in China have had a wide impact in the fields of anthropology, social history, and overseas Chinese experience.

Decade of fieldwork advances academic research

In the early 1990s, Du Jing was mainly engaged in researching and studying the folk culture of Lunan, accumulating a relatively rich knowledge of local folklore and regional social history and culture. Later on, Du Jing gradually shifted his research interests and fields of study to Han Chinese society and the history of Chinese anthropology. 2002-2003, Du Jing began to pay attention to his hometown of Min village, a small village in the Lunan region, and from then on, he began his decade-long investigation and research on this place.

During the Spring Festival of 2004, Du Jing began a rigorous anthropological investigation of Min Village, conducting in-depth research and making detailed records of the geographic profile of Min Village, the demographic and economic structure of the village, the historical process of the village, the organization and function of the clans in Min Village, and the funeral system and kinship system in Min Village, etc. The first phase of the investigation was completed in August 2004, and Du Jing obtained a large amount of fieldwork data. A large amount of fieldwork information.

Marinovsky, a British anthropologist and one of the founders of the Functional School, believes that anthropologists should adopt a participatory approach to observation, fully involved in the production and life of local people, to understand the local culture and collect local data. Du Jing told the reporter that in his investigation and research, he adopted a flexible strategy in order not to disturb the rhythm of life in the rural world: "What happens, I observe, interview and record. Observing and investigating during the day, and organizing notes at night. It should be said that a great deal of folk culture investigation is not obtained by inquiring; I get the information in the process of participation."

With the deepening of the investigation and research, Du Jing gradually got acquainted with the locals. Du Jing told the reporter that after slowly familiarizing himself with the people of Min village, the people of Min village often invited him to intervene in their folklore activities such as childbirth, marriage, funerals, rituals, celebrations, and even daily banquets. "I am not a spectator, and I am involved in many things according to the folklore system of the village world, or I am one of the practitioners of Min people's cultural activities."

To Du Jing, he is a standard "indigenous" reporter. Du Jing told reporters that Lin Yaohua and Fei Xiaotong also chose their early field locations in the local communities they knew. Du Jing believes that such a method of investigation can be seen as an active and distinctive pursuit of the early Yanjing school.

In the following years, Du Jing revisited Min Village dozens of times, and in order to clarify the lineage of the Min clan, Du Jing also traveled to Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and other provinces to conduct investigations and research, and many field villages were left in the footprints of Du Jing's field research. From 2002 began to focus on the Min village to the 2012 decade, Du Jing wrote 720,000-word monograph "Nine clans and the countryside - a Han world in the fountain society" published.

Fieldwork should be both "in" and "out"

Du Jing summarized his 10 years of fieldwork experience in bittersweet terms. "Into the Mengshan Mountain, Knight danger, nearly fell off a cliff and died; wading in the Yishui, by the flash floods, a few for the whirlpool engulfed." Du Jing told reporters that in the process of investigation in Min village, he had several encounters with distress, field survey was also once subject to a lack of funds, but still has been insisted on, ten years ago, the first into the village of Min or the wind blowing black hair, is now frost on the white head. Although the field survey is hard, but Du Jing is still happy. "It is also a supreme joy to visit ancestral shrines, read ancient tablets, and talk with locals." Du Jing used a small poem to depict the situation when he was engaged in field investigation: reading genealogies and copying monuments to search for ancient records, and the street talk was organized into lines. Where is the heart of this life? I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but I'm going to do it.

Field research is a kind of field investigation, in the actual investigation, through their own experience to describe the psychology and views of the local people, to a new perspective to observe and experience the culture and psychology of the local people. Anyone who has really engaged in fieldwork knows the importance of "consultants". Du Jing's fieldwork in Min Village not only had a rich number of "consultants", but also established deep feelings with the local villagers. The success of Du Jing's fieldwork is guaranteed.

"Most of the time I stayed at Min Qingxin's house in Min village, and sometimes I stayed at Mr. Min Lingqin's house. They warmly welcomed me to live there and treated me as their own family. Even the beloved dog in Elder Min Qingxin's home now sees me as a member of that family." Du Jing revisited Min Village after the 2010 wheat harvest, and after learning of the elder Min Qingxin's death, he went to Min Qingxin's grave to pay his respects and kowtow.

In anthropological research, excessive emotional entanglements with the people being researched can easily affect the objectivity of ethnographic writing. As a professionally trained anthropologist, Du Jing has long been aware of this problem in his own field research, and has "stepped out" from the lives of the local people in ethnographic writing, adhering to the academic stance of experimental ethnography. In his ethnography, he "steps out" from the life of local people and insists on the academic position of experimental ethnography. Du Jing told the reporter that in order to maintain objectivity, he has to reflect frequently. "When I question a certain theoretical concept based on fieldwork data, I remind myself: have I covered up some other unfavorable arguments in order to refute it, thus taking myself to another extreme? Are my interviewees representative of the community? Have I listened too much to the voices of male interviewees and ignored the feelings and understanding of women? Did the interviewees deliberately choose a narrative for a certain purpose, thus failing to tell me the truth about history?"

In addition to discussing the content of the fieldwork with many scholars, in order to keep the ethnography sufficiently authentic and objective, Du Jing also discussed the content of the book manuscript with locals in Min village. "On November 5, 2011, I discussed the contents of the book manuscript with Min Qingling, Min Fanlin, and Min Fanzhuang, all Min Village people, until late at night. I either adjusted individual places according to their comments, or disagreed with their insider's view and included their comments in the notes. I consciously did this with the aim of reflecting on the writing hegemony of the ethnographer." According to Du Jing, the results based on fieldwork have to have some postmodern experimental ethnographic flavor.

Explaining Chinese society with Chinese anthropological theories

The reporter learned that Chinese anthropological research still relies more on Western anthropological theories to explain the changing Chinese reality. British anthropologists Edmund Leach and Maurice Freedman once realized that we must have enough knowledge about China in order to know China, because we are facing a society with a long historical tradition and a high and complex civilization. Du Jing told the reporter, rooted in China's local community, using field research to collect data, and on this basis to refine the theory of anthropology belonging to the Chinese local community in order to better explain the Chinese society.

Rooted in the investigation and research of traditional Chinese villages such as Min Village, Du Jing combined modern ethnographic writing with social history research, not only systematically combed the traditional customs and theories of the nine-tribe system, but also placed the nine-tribe kinship system in the regional society for investigation, and put forward a highly explanatory fountain society or nine-tribe chain society interpretation model. Looking back on his own fieldwork history, Du Jing admits that he started from taking the "international standardization path" to turning to "base on local experience and promote local wisdom", and finally landed on the combination of Chinese and foreign theories, and finally searched for a local concept and theoretical architecture

These are the first time that the Chinese government has taken a step back in time.

Anthropologists believe that in terms of rural organization, this new model of nine-ethnic chain social explanation will, together with a series of traditional theories such as the market hierarchy theory, the ritual circle theory, the faith circle theory, and the water conservancy organization, allow us to better understand the daily life of a rural society and the intrinsic cultural connotations and meanings. Zhuang Kongshao, a professor of anthropology at Renmin University of China, commented on the results of Du Jing's fieldwork: As a kind of institutional research, it is obvious that Du Jing's examination of the category of "five services and one nine clans" focuses on the kinship system and the social organization, and the variability of the category of "five services" in the so-called clan societies, whether in the non-clan societies or in the so-called clan societies, is intriguing, and it may become a new theoretical point of observation of the composition of the social organizations at the grassroots level.

In the opinion of Yin Kai, a doctoral student at the Central University for Nationalities, Du Jing's insistence on going deep into the villages to conduct field research will inspire young scholars to do practical research, abandon the "structuralist model" and dogmatic mode of academic research, and instead challenge and innovate the original anthropological theories by starting from the actual field materials. The first step is to make the study of anthropology more innovative.