Yang Kun’s academic shifts: from the French Annales School to Marxist ethnology

Abstract

Abstract As one of the first generation of Chinese Ethnologists, Yang Kun witnessed the development of Chinese ethnology in the twentieth century. Since his return from France in 1931, he had devoted almost 70 years before his death in 1998 to the teaching and research of Chinese Ethnology. The inheritor of the ethnology of the French Annales School in China, he was committed to promoting the School in China and applying its methodologies in the Chinese context. But after the 1950s, he shifted his academic focus to Marxist ethnology and became one of the founders of Chinese Marxist ethnology. The academic legacy left by Yang Kun has since emerged as a crucial academic foundation for Chinese Ethnology.

Keywords

• Yang Kun
• History of Chinese Ethnology
• French Annales School
• Marxist ethnology