40
zation
MARJORIE TOPLEY
sometimes helped to integrate groups of neighbouring communities who would be encouraged to form associations to resist their disruptive activities.
Religion, then, was often a means of fortifying existing groups of people with common interests or roles in the community. It also sometimes brought organized groups into being among those already having common interests but no other form of organization. In certain circumstances it gave rise to organizations contributing to the integration of whole communities: when all individual members of a community had a status or interest in common. Ancestor worship did so when all villagers were kinsmen; temple organization might do so when it could appeal to all members of the community as residents, for whom a particular god had significance. In both cases wealth and education were needed to bring such organization to its highest development and were themselves factors limiting control. In certain circumstances secret organizations might provide some form of village cohesion: either through a common interest in resisting them, or, when economic and social conditions reduced the differences among members of a community, through common membership of such bodies. This kind of integration would probably last only as long as the conditions reducing differences among the community members lasted.
NOTES
1 This paper was prepared originally for a seminar on micro-social organization on China held at Cornell University in October 1962 and sponsored by the Sub-committee on Chinese Society of the Joint Committee on Contemporary China of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council. It has been slightly abridged and rearranged by me for publication here. I have been limited in my use of published material to works available to me in Hong Kong. The research notes to which I refer were collected during field studies in Singapore during the years 1951-52 and 1954-55, and during the early 1960's in Hong Kong.
2 See his Lineage Organization in Southeastern China (London, Athlone Press, 1958), and Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung (London, Athlone Press, 1966).
3 See for example Hui-chen Wang Liu. "An Analysis of Chinese Clan Rules: Confucian Theories in Action", in Confucianism in Action, ed. David S. Nivison and Arthur F. Wright (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1959) pp. 63-64.
4 See his Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1960) p. 335.
5 For example Hsiao, ibid., p. 329 and 359ff.
Page 45
Page 46
40
zation
MARJORIE TOPLEY
sometimes helped to integrate groups of neighbouring communities who would be encouraged to form associations to resist their disruptive activities.
Religion, then, was often a means of fortifying existing groups of people with common interests or roles in the community. It also sometimes brought organized groups into being among those al- ready having common interests but no other form of organization. In certain circumstances it gave rise to organizations contributing to the integration of whole communities: when all individual mem- bers of a community had a status or interest in common. Ancestor worship did so when all villagers were kinsmen; temple organiza- tion might do so when it could appeal to all members of the com- munity as residents, for whom a particular god had significance. In both cases wealth and education were needed to bring such organization to its highest development and were themselves fac- tors limiting control. In certain circumstances secret organizations might provide some form of village cohesion: either through a common interest in resisting them, or, when economic and social conditions reduced the differences among members of a commu- nity, through common membership of such bodies. This kind of integration would probably last only as long as the conditions reducing differences among the community members lasted,
NOTES
1 This paper was prepared originally for a seminar on micro-social organization on China held at Cornell University in October 1962 and sponsored by the Sub-committee on Chinese Society of the Joint Committee on Contemporary China of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council. It has been slightly abridged and rearranged by me for publication here. I have been limited in my use of published material to works available to me in Hong Kong. The research notes to which I refer were collected during field studies in Singapore during the years 1951-52 and 1954-55, and during the early 1960's in Hong Kong,
2 See his Lineage Organization in Southeastern China (London, Athlone Press, 1958), and Chinese Lineage and Society: Fukien and Kwangtung (London, Athlone Press, 1966).
3 See for example Hui-chen Wang Liu. "An Analysis of Chinese Clan Rules: Confucian Theories in Action", in Confucianism in Action, ed. David S. Nivison and Arthur F. Wright (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1959) pp. 63-64.
4 See his Rural China: Imperial Control in the Nineteenth Century (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1960) p. 335.
5 For example Hsiao, ibid., p. 329 and 359ff.
Page 45Page 46
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.