【作者简介】王燕彬，南开大学社会学院；孙静，泉州文化遗产研究院

【文章来源】《社会学评论》2025年第5期

【内容提要】本文基于费孝通早年的作品和新近发现的他求学时期的档案，探讨了他如何回应功能主义范式在解释社会文化变迁时的局限，形成“发挥功能的传统”与“引发变迁的外部势力”二元分析视角。他从传统与外部势力的关系出发，以“活历史”概念为基础，将马林诺夫斯基在研究非洲文化变迁时探讨的“三栏法”改造为研究乡土社会变迁的“四项法”，并将其应用于《江村经济》和《茧》的江村蚕丝业分析。这体现了费孝通早年关于中国社会现代化方案的重要探索和理论自觉。

【关键词】三栏法 / 社会变迁 / 江村研究

【全文链接】http://src.ruc.edu.cn/CN/Y2025/V13/I5/235

The Dynamics of“Tradition”: A Study of the Functionality and Historicity of Social Change

Abstract: Based on Fei Xiaotong’s early works and recently discovered archives from his student days, this article explores how Fei Xiaotong responded to the limitations of the functionalist paradigm in explaining social and cultural changes, and gradually formed a dualistic analytical perspective of“the tradition that functions”and“the external forces that trigger changes”. Starting from the relationship between tradition and external forces, based on the concept of“living history”, he transformed Malinowski’s“three-column approach”employed in African studies into a“four-column approach”that is more suitable for researching the changes in Chinese society. He applied the new approach to the analysis of the silk industry in Peasant Life in China and the Cocoon. This is Fei Xiaotong’s important exploration and theoretical consciousness of the modernization plan for Chinese society in his early years.