A New Round of Industrialization, Marketization and Urbanization on the Perspective of Enterprise Anthropology

Abstract

An American anthropologist suggested that urbanization and industrialization are not the research fields of anthropology. However, Fei Xiaotong, a well-known Chinese anthropologist explored China’s rural industrialization and marketization around 75 years ago. He also studied China’s urbanization more than 30 years ago. That was the true representation of China’s academic tradition of research on industrialization, marketization and urbanization. Currently, a new round of industrialization, marketization and urbanization give renewed impetus to a series of huge economic and social transformations in China’s underdeveloped central and western regions: from the planned economy to the market economy, from agriculture and animal husbandry to industry and commerce, from a rural society to an urban society, among others. These are all significant and practical issues ahead for Chinese anthropology and ethnology, which is focus of this paper.