Local Clan Communities in Rural China

Revolution and Urbanisation since the Late Qing Dynasty

Zongli Tang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367771089
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000401110
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Antropología cultural y social

Using data collected in fieldwork and surveys, this book examines China's clan system and local clan communities in rural Anhui, covering events in two periods: the imperial pattern as seen in the first half of the twentieth century and changes since 1949. Revealed by this research, during the late Qing and the Republic Era, a local clan in the investigated areas was run as a highly autonomous community with a strong religious focus, which challenges the corporate model raised by Maurice Freedman. Through examining single-surname villages, citang constructions, and updating of genealogies, local clans in Huadong, Huizhou and the lower Yangtze River plains in particular, developed earlier than those in the Pearl River Delta Region. Taking a cross-disciplinary viewpoint, this book analyses changes in local clan communities and clan culture as brought by the Chinese Revolution, Mao's political campaigns, and Deng's reforms. Starting with the late 1990s, a large migration from villages to cities has rapidly altered rural China. This geographic mobility would undermine the common residence that serves as part of a clan's foundation. Under such situation, what transformations have taken place or will affect China's clan system? Will the system continue to revitalise or die out? Local Clan Communities in Rural China reports these events/transformations and attempts to answer these questions. Placing a special emphasis on issues that have been overlooked by prior studies, this book brings to light many new facts and interpretations and provides a valuable reference to scholars in fields of sociology, anthropology, history, economics, cultural studies, urban studies, and population studies.

Part I
Introduction

1 Introduction

As early as my undergraduate studies, I became fascinated by the clan system of China. Being the first batch of students admitted to the university after Deng’s reforms, we were very concerned about whether there was a ground for capitalist development in modern China. I believed that the best way was to find answers from rural local clans, the elementary cells for Chinese traditional society and the initial driving force behind Chinese traditional culture. Today, there is no longer a problem for capitalist development in China. However, China’s clan system and changes in this system are still worth exploring and studying, as it will extend our current knowledge in this field, help us understand the past, present, and future of Chinese culture and society, and comprehend the distinctions between China and the West with regard to the processes of modernization.

1.1 Research objectives and literature review

The term “clan” in this book is referred to as zongzu. Zong means the common ancestors respected by their descendants, and zu means a group of people who live together.¹ According to the Erya, the first surviving Chinese dictionary, zongzu was defined as a group of families based on patrilineal descent.² Therefore, for the ancient Chinese, zongzu was a group of people or a group of families based on patrilineal descent, and they were living in a village or a number of nearby villages. A local zongzu was the basic unit in traditional China, so Chinese traditional society can be called a zongzu society. Accordingly, the Chinese traditional culture that developed in this society can be called a zongzu culture, encompassing the ethics and morals regulating the behavior of zongzu members.

The aforementioned terms turned to be complicated after introducing Western concepts. In Western textbooks, two concepts can be interpreted as zongzu. Lineage, as first used by Alfred Radcliffe-Brown to describe a social unit, denotes a unilineal descent group based on demonstrated descent, and clan as a stipulated descent. Lineage members can trace the actual generational links between themselves and their ancestors but clan members cannot (Kottak 2010; Parkin 1997). In his first book published in 1958, Freedman did not strive to make a distinction between clan and lineage. Instead, he employed the two terms in an interchangeable way. In his second book published in 1966, Freedman began to demarcate the two terms. He said that the primary difference between clan and lineage was “common wealth.” Lineage members retain common wealth while clan members do not (Freedman 1966). Freedman’s definitions of lineage and clan generated a debate through the 1960s and 1970s. Fried (1970) argued that the only difference between clan and lineage was the use of a genealogical or descent system. His attitude actually reflects opinions expressed by most textbooks as mentioned before.

In all Chinese–English dictionaries, lineage is translated as zongxi or xuetong, denoting descent links, and clan as zongzu or jiazu, indicating an organized group of families sharing the same ancestor.³ These two terms in Chinese represent different but interrelated perspectives. Lineage focuses on blood relationships, while clan emphasizes an entity that is built upon blood relationships. Therefore, in Chinese interpretation, the term “clan” represents a social system in a broad sense, and a lineage is a component or a characteristic of the system. From this sense, the term “clan” is of more significance than “lineage” in describing China’s patriarchal system. Partly due to these reasons, in their research papers written in English, Chinese scholars, especially those during the 1930s and 1940s, adopted the term “clan” and paid more attention to socioeconomic characteristics and group patterns (Fei 1939; Lin 1947; Hsu 1948; Lang 1946).

In this book, the term “clan” represents a social system. A local clan is local community whose members share a common surname, possess clear or relatively clear descent links, live in a village or nearby villages, and own the common wealth in the classical sense. This is close to Baker’s definition that a clan is a federation of lineages with one surname or a higher-order lineage containing more members and covering larger geographic areas than does an ordinary lineage (Baker 1979). Baker’s definition of clan approximates a Type Z lineage in Freedman’s categories. According to Baker (1979) and Lamley (1990), a Type Z lineage is a common pattern found in southern China. However, it by no means indicates that there are no such clans in the north. Most clans in the south migrated from the north when it fell into wars and chaos at certain points in history. Chinese scholars generally treated clans between the Zhou and Qing Dynasties as representatives of the classical model or imperial pattern (Xu 1992; Li 2008; Chang 2007; Feng 2009).

China’s clan system has caught the attention of scholars in various disciplines. Their studies can be classified into three chronological stages. The first stage, ranging from the 1930s to the 1940s, was characterized by the work of Wu Wenzao and Fei Xiaotong. They, and many others, mainly engaged in the late imperial clan pattern that governed the Qing Dynasty. The second stage was between the 1950s and the 1970s. The leading figure in this stage was Maurice Freedman. In addition to the achievements mentioned previously, he raised the “corporate model,” which saw a clan or lineage as a unit with an economic focus (Freedman 1966, 1970). Because of his influence, Western and Chinese scholars (in Taiwan) made great efforts to explore the late imperial model, seeking for evidence of the corporate model through fieldwork in Taiwan (as the alternative of Fujian) and the New Territories in Hong Kong (as the alternative of Guangdong) (Baker 1966; Skinner 1963–65; Feuchwang 1992; Watson 1982).

The third and current stage was activated in the early 1980s, when Deng Xiaoping opened the door to the outside world, and Western and overseas Chinese scholars resumed their fieldwork in mainland China. Freedman’s work was so influential that both Western and Chinese scholars continued to concentrate their work on Fujian and Guangdong, although a few shifted to Northern and Eastern China (Chan et al. 1992; Dean 1993; Lamley 1990; Siu 1989; Zheng 2001; Szonyi 2002; Cohen 2005; Faure 2007; Brandtstdter and Goncaloo 2009; McDermott 2014). Afterwards, researchers began to move away from the classical model and turned to exploring specific issues including family, marriage, the status of women, gender relations, filial piety, reproductive norms, temple fairs, cultural role in modernization, and private life that are embedded in accounts of the clan system (Whyte 1995; Judd 1994; Zhang 2008; Rosenle 2006; Yan 2003; Wu 2003; Friedman et al. 2008; Yuen et al. 2004; Shi 2009; Cong and Silverstein 2008; Ikels 2004; Cooper 2013; Greif and Tabellini 2017). In China, clan studies, terminated in Mao’s time, have flourished since the 1980s. At first, this subject was mainly studied by historians. They placed emphasis on archival research and the classical model that existed between the Zhou Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty. Starting with the 1990s, Chinese scholars began to explore interactions between economic development and traditional values (Qian 1999; Wang 1991; Chang 2007; Xu 1992; Li 2008).

Research work in this field has become scarce in recent years. Concerns about prior studies also arise. First, being a complex system, clans in China exhibit strong regional features. Both Western and Chinese scholars focused their studies on Huanan (as represented by Fujian and Guangdong), and less attention was paid to other regions. Second, clans in Mao’s era were ignored. Scholars stopped at the classical model and overlooked changes caused by a series of political campaigns under Mao’s leadership. There was a lack of systematic study on clans at that time, though some engaged in certain specific issues. Third, researchers treated clan as a whole and did not make differentiations among clan society, clan culture, and clan organizations. I have not seen in-depth and meticulous studies on each part. Additionally, as many of the researchers were involved in studying the positive or negative roles played by traditional values in economic development, the impact on clan culture and rural clan communities brought by modernization and urbanization was neglected.

This research intends to fill the above knowledge gaps and lay great emphasis on changes in rural clans, which have taken place since 1949, in comparison with the late imperial model. Villagers in the investigated areas can only trace their clans back to the late Qing and the Republic Era. Therefore, this study ranges from the beginning of the twentieth century to this century.

Starting with the late 1990s, a huge migration from villages to cities and towns has rapidly altered rural China. Now more than 286 million peasants are living and working in urban regions.⁴ This number is still growing day by day. The largest movement or urbanization in human history may lead to an end of the clan system, as some believe that this geographic mobility would undermine the common residence—the foundation of a clan—if a clan is considered a local community (Kottak 2010; Braudel 1992). Under this situation, what changes have already taken place or will come to China’s clan system? Will the system continue to revitalize or die out? This study intends to report these events and provide some answers to these questions.

Studies conducted in the New Territories noticed changes as villages were merged into a metropolitan area. Geographic extension of a city is known as external urbanization. A more important part of urbanization or internal urbanization is featured by demographic extension in which more and more migrants settle down in cities. This study will emphasize the impact on rural clans caused by internal urbanization when a large number of peasant workers moved into cities.

1.2 Research methods and data

Ethnographic techniques are used in fieldwork by which researchers are able to explore in-depth historical variations and things inherent in a small region through observation. Traditional “fieldwork” often focuses on a particular village or a small community. It is unlikely to obtain data in a large area. To acquire a greater geographical span for horizontal comparisons, I extended fieldwork to five counties in Anhui, including three residential communities in Wangjiang, Yuexi, and a suburb area of Anqing;⁵ one administrative village in Fanchang; one administrative village in Jingxian; and four administrative villages in Shexian. An administrative village generally consists of a few natural villages (zirancun) or hamlets. This investigation involves ten daxing (or big surname) clans and five xiaoxin (or small surname) clans. I, with my assistants, visited these villages and clans in 2009, 2014, and 2018, respectively, and worked there for more than 12 months.

The five counties can be classified into three types geographically: 1) the plains region along the Yangtze River, including Wangjiang, the suburb area of Anqing, Yuexi, and Fanchang; 2) the hilly region represented by Jingxian; and 3) the mountain region represented by Shexian. The three types of regions may represent various developmental levels of local clans and clan culture in history. Anhui is a province located across the basins of the Yangtze River and the Huai River. The name “Anhui” derives from the names of two regions – Anqing and Huizhou. This becomes a factor when we choose the target areas for investigation. In the villages we visited, peasants who were living and working in cities and towns made up about 65% of the total local labor forces. As such, Anhui is an ideal window on the process of the transition of clans to modern times.

My research strategy in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Brief description of contents of chapters
• Preface
• Part I Introduction
• Part II Traditional local clan communities and culture—From the Qing Dynasty to the Republic Era
• Part III From the land reform to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution—Disappearance of local clan communities
• Part IV Modernization, urbanization, and local clan communities
• Index