Review And Reflection On The Study Of Overseas Chinese Clans

The study of the Han clan is the subject of ethnology,anthropology,sociology,history and so on.Among the numerous overseas studies on the clans of the Han people,the research achievements of Friedman,Prasenjit Duara and Sekawa Masahisa are of landmark significance.Inheriting and criticizing their research theories and methods is the only way to study the clans of the Han people.Sorting out the background,important theories and viewpoints of the three scholars on the study of Han people’s clans is conducive to forming an overall understanding of overseas research on Han people’s clans,discovering the existing characteristics and shortcomings in their research,and promoting the development of Chinese research on Han people’s clans.From their research,we can get the commonness of overseas clan research and the enlightenment of Chinese native Han clan research.On this basis,it points out the future research fields of the Han clan.Friedman,Prasenjit Duara and Sekawa Masakhisa initially studied Chinese society based on literature and took rural clans as the starting point.Their research was not only based on the needs of colonial rule at that time,but also on the curiosity of Han clan,which was different from Western social organizations.On the basis of the "heir system theory",Friedman tried his best to make a rough estimate of Chinese clans by using the secondary materials he found,and then verified them in various ways,thus forming the overall cognition of the clans in South China.He pointed out that clan organization is a traditional power organization in China,common property and other economic factors are important factors for clan existence and social differentiation,and the heterogeneity within the clan is proportional to the size.Under the influence of John Fairbank and Philip Alden Kuhn,Prasenjit Duara started his research on China.He analyzed the role of clans in the local social development and the national grass-roots governance in North China,and came to a conclusion similar to Friedman’s,that is,clans are the traditional power agents of Chinese rural society and play an important intermediary role in connecting the state and the grass-roots society.Sekawa Masakhsu conducted in-depth research on the clan by combing the family tree,and concluded that material conditions such as the family tree,ancestral hall and clan field were the important basis for the existence of the clan,and the clan was an important basis for the formation of local society.Friedman,Prasenjit Duara and Sekawa Masakhisa’s research on the clans of the Han people promoted the upsurge of overseas research on China at that time,made overseas curious about the "alien culture" of China,accelerated the progress of overseas Sinology research,and provided research theoretical paradigm and research perspective for the research on the clans of the Han people.Through their research,we can find that they are under the influence of western mainstream theories,using the method of literature research and social differentiation perspective to investigate the Han clan.In modern society,the clan shows a state of gradual decline,so it is the trend of clan research to combine the clan with rural governance,cultural identity and rural construction and other local hot topics.At the same time,by referring to the comparative research method of Friedman et al.,it is also the future research direction to compare the Chinese clan with the kinship system of foreign countries.