Elisabeth J. Croll

Short-Term Field Investigation in China: a Personal View

been carried out in China either by Chinese or foreign social scientists. While Chinese sociologists have been undertaking some quite large-scale surveys and a very few foreign scholars have been successful in obtaining visas for longer-term field work (1), most foreign anthropologists and sociologists wanting to do field work in China have had to be content with limited forms of access, frequently confined to three to four weeks. For some time to come, therefore, the two sets of questions likely to face social scientists of China are how to make the best use of such a short period of time in the field, and how to weigh up the various constraints and decide which are acceptable and which may seriously impair the value of the research itself.

Reform, local political institutions and the village economy in China

Recent reforms in China have far‐reaching implications for the form and content of village political and economic institutions and their relations with peasant households, family and kin groups. This article examines the recent separation of economic and political authority at the local level and the substitution of new township and village institutions for the commune, production brigade and production teams. With the development of the commodity economy and new economic associations, the government predicts a diminution in the production responsibility and autonomy of the newly emergent peasant household. However, a preliminary examination of the politics of the local economy suggest that peasant households may have developed alternative strategies based on new family forms and networks that potentially challenge village‐wide political and economic structures.

The Anti-Lin Piao and Confucian Campaign: A New Stage in the Ideological Revolution of Women

to be responsible for highlighting the fundamental problem that confronted women-the removal of a whole history of cultural oppression. At the end of the first decade of the People’s Republic, an editorial in Relll11ill Rihao (People’s Daily) stated that the ’numerous facts gleaned from the Great Leap Forward have proved that only by enabling women to obtain their ideological emancipation will it be possible for them to develop their infinite source of power’ (2 Jan. 1958). It was the experience of the women’s movement that so long as the deep-rooted habits of male supremacy continued to discriminate against and show contempt for women, and while women themselves held traditional conceptions of the female role, it would not be possible for women to take advantage of the opportunities available to them in the new society. In order to further redefine the roles of women, the women’s movement embarked on a ’conscious learning process’ in the 1960’s to raise the consciousness of women to a new level of selfawareness, for ’without self-awareness’, they said, ’women will be unwilling to fly though the sky is high’ (Zlwngglf() Frrrrrr. I Nov., 1960). Despite this earlier movement for ideological emancipation, ideological constraints have continued to be identified as the primary obstacles hindering the redefinition of sexual roles in the public and domestic spheres. An editorial printed in Renmin Ribao on Women’s Day (8 March) in 1973 summed up the problem on the eve of the campaign. China was under feudal rule for 2,000 years and the exploiting classes left behind deep-rooted ideas discriminating against women and looking upon them as slaves and appendages. Today, classes and class struggle still exist in