20 September 2025, Volume 13 Issue 5

    

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  The Structure of the Chinese Market of the Arts:A Sociological Analysis

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(5): 5-32.

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  This article outlines the structure of the Chinese market of the arts,which is composed of“global-China,”“official-occupational,”and“institutional-folk”subsystems. First, the“global-China”subsystem shows the circulation of artworks and artists between the Chinese and global art markets. The cultural intermediaries and the meaning of“Chineseness”are key issues in these processes.Second, the“official-occupational”subsystem highlights the relative independence and coexistence of the government-led and occupational market-led art institutions.They collectively constitute the institutionalised art world in China. Third, folk artists, craftsmen, and self-taught artists maintain small-scale folk art communities. They are relatively independent of the institutionalised art worlds and develop various conventions of their own, which forms the“institutional-folk”subsystem. The article concludes by elaborating on this model’s empirical and theoretical applicability and inclusivity, summarising the historical transformation of the sub⁃systems, and discussing the prospect of the research on the Chinese market of the arts through a reflection on the meaning consciousness in the sociology of the arts.
  
  
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  The Mutual Construction of Concepts and Relationships:A Study on the Career Development of Chinese Musicians in Germany

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(5): 33-54.

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  Taking Chinese musicians in Germany as a case study, this paper proposes a theoretical model of the“mutual construction of conceptual structures and social relationships.”Due to their distinctive cultural characteristics, musicians inclined to adopt a Chinese style in their music production are more likely to build relationships with commercial and governmental institutions. Simultaneously, they internalize the concept of“popularized classical music”and become“crossover populist”musicians. Conversely, musicians who avoid Chinese stylistic elements are more likely to gain support from professional elites in academic settings, owing to their abstract and avant-garde styles. These musicians internalize the concept of “elitist classical music”and become“avant-garde elitist”musicians. This paper offers an analytical framework for understanding the mutual shaping processes between social relationships and conceptual structures, while also enriching the field of the sociology of art through a unique empirical case.
  
  
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  Classics, Life, and Fiction:Gluckman and van Gennep on“Les Rites de passage”

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(5): 55-74.

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   British anthropologist Max Gluckman’s 1962 reinterpretation of Arnold van Gennep’s concept of“rites of passage”marked a significant turning point in the history of modern anthropology. Through a comparative analysis of their texts, combined with an examination of their life trajectories, research methods, and socio-historical contexts, this article explores Gluckman’s critical reconstruction of van Gennep’s theory, especially focusing on their fundamental divergence on rites and social research. This article also addresses their use of fiction and imagination in their creative work, revealing their personal projections and reflections upon the academic system and the knowledge production. Moreover, this article aims to provide a path for rethinking disciplinary classics and the intellectual history behind them, emphasizing the importance of the recreation and reinterpretation of classical texts in contemporary academic traditions.
  
  
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  Magic, Rationality, and the Evolution of Anthropological Thought: A Reappraisal of Evans⁃Pritchard’s Azande Research

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(5): 75-97.

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  Evans⁃Pritchard’s Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande is a foundational text in anthropology and a landmark in the study of“how natives think”. By exploring Azande beliefs in witchcraft and magic, the work illuminates their causal reasoning in the face of misfortune. This article examines the significance and evolving value of Azande studies within shifting theoretical frameworks. Originally situated within the paradigms of functionalism and the Annales School,Evans⁃Pritchard’s ethnography has since been revisited through the lenses of the linguistic turn, the historical turn, reflexive approaches to ethnographic writing, the ethical turn, and the ontological turn. This paper argues for renewed attention to how Azande studies have been embraced, adapted, and recontextualized by successive theoretical currents in anthropology.The connection between magic and causality reveals the important laws governing the operation of non-western rationality and human thinking. People usually explain the changes in the world around them from the language, logic, and morality, they are most accustomed to, and this is a relatively underestimated aspect for Chinese Anthropology
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  Form and Creativity :Aesthetic Pursuits and Culture Theory of Edward Sapir

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(5): 98-120.

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  The American linguist and anthropologist Edward Sapir, active in the early 20th century, had developed the culture theory of the Boasian school partly through his aesthetic pursuits, in which“form”and“creativity”serve as keywords.Sapir’s culture theory should be understood in the context of his aesthetic pursuits and artistic practices. Moreover, the theories on the individual-culture dynamic of Sapir and Benedict should be compared in a nuanced manner, in relation to how they discuss form and creativity. Although cultural relativism promoted by the Boasian school has become common sense among anthropologists, notions of culture held by Sapir and Benedict, in some ways, contest the notion of cultural relativism held by Boas. Illuminating the theoretical legacy of the Boasian school contributes to shedding light on how American anthropology in the early 20th century embraced science and art for approaching the holism of human beings, which benefits the development of Chinese anthropology today.
  
  
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  What Is Synchronicity?On the Assumptions of the Sociology of Time

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(5): 121-144.

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  The social nature of time is a central theme in the sociology of time. Existing studies usually assume the synchronization and sharing of time standards,and rarely discuss the conditions and forms of synchronization. With synchronization referring to the nature of the sharing of time standards among different subjects, we can examine its multiple paths, levels,characteristics, scopes, and stability. In contrast to the un-synchronicity assumption of solipsists and the universal synchronization assumption of transcendentalist, sociological views on synchronization are constructive in nature. With respect to paths and methods of construction,synchronization can be categorized into three approaches: intersubjectivity, social convention, and ecology-event, which leads to three core issues. First, synchronization involves three levels: form synchronization, content synchronization, and encounter synchronization; second, it involves the scopes of individual, group, nation, and even the world; and third, different types of synchronization display differences in stability and their reproduction processes. Reflecting on synchronicity not only helps clarify core concepts in the sociology of time but also lays the groundwork for rethinking human existence and the rhythms of social time in the era of digital intelligence.
  
  
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  The Binary Paradox of Knowledge and Abstract Systems: A Reconsideration Based on Giddens’Structuration Theory

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(5): 145-161.

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  This paper explores the binary paradox between“knowledge”and“abstract systems”under the conditions of modernity, based on Giddens’structuration theory.On one hand, as the core component of practice, knowledge enhances individual agency; on the other hand, through the process of disembedding in“abstract systems”, knowledge strengthens the stability of social structures. However, the unequal distribution of knowledge and its dependence on expert systems restrict individuals’ reflective capacity to reconstruct social structures, forming a cognitively inaccessible domain of knowledge. In the era of artificial intelligence, special attention must be paid to the profound impact of knowledge and power relationships on social stability and change, so as to deepen the understanding of modern social structures and technological risks.
  
  
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  Breakdown and Separation: A Comparative Analysis of the Impact of Family Structure on Rural Children’s Academic Achievement

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(5): 162-185.

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  Existing research on the impact of family structure on rural children’s educational development has primarily suffered from several limitations: an over⁃simplified treatment of parental absence, inadequate comparative analysis of the compensatory effects of grandparent co-residence, and insufficient attention to the transmission mechanisms involving offspring’s non-cognitive abilities. This study focuses on analyzing and comparing the effects and mechanisms through which family structure breakdown (due to parental divorce or death) and family structure separation (due to parental migration) influence the academic achievement of rural children. Based on data from the China Education Panel Survey, the findings reveal that both family structure breakdown and separation significantly negatively affect the academic achievement of rural children, with the negative effect of family structure breakdown being more pronounced. Co-residence with grandparents can buffer the adverse impact of family structure disruption on rural children’s academic achievement but offers limited compensatory effects for separated families. Non-cognitive abilities serve as an intermediary mechanism through which both family structure breakdown and separation affect academic achievement, though the specific pathways differ: family structure breakdown primarily influences academic achievement through emotional stability, whereas family structure separation mainly affects academic achievement through conscientiousness.
  
  
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  Marital Power, Household Labor, and Consumption：An Empirical Analysis Based on CFPS2022

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(5): 186-209.

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  This study examines the impact of marital power dynamics on household consumption using data from the China Family Panel Studies 2022. The results show that households in which women make spending decisions have significantly higher overall consumption levels than those where men make the decisions.In terms of spending categories, female decision-making notably increases basic survival-related expenditures such as food, clothing, and healthcare, while gender differences are not significant for developmental or major expenditures. The results suggest that women’s power in the household mainly influences everyday consumption. Further mechanism analysis reveals that household consumption increases even more when women make spending decisions and the gap in housework time between spouses is small. The findings highlight the role of marital power dynamics in shaping consumption and suggest that promoting gender equality and balanced domestic responsibilities can help stimulate household spending.
  

  
  

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  After Embeddedness: Three New Directions in the 21st Century Economic Sociology

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(5): 210-234.

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  Embeddedness has long been regarded as the dominant research paradigm in economic sociology (as well as anthropology) and a core contribution of the field to economic studies. Despite its profound influence, the embeddedness paradigm has faced widespread criticism for its inability to further break through the explanatory framework of Western economics, leading to an ongoing crisis of disciplinary legitimacy for economic sociology. This paper examines three new research directions: relational work, performativity, and economization, emerging in economic sociology since the 21st century as the embeddedness paradigm encountered challenges. It analyzes how these approaches broaden the theoretical horizons of the embeddedness paradigm and explores their implications and significance for research in the Chinese context.
  
  
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  The Dynamics of“Tradition”: A Study of the Functionality and Historicity of Social Change

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(5): 235-256.

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  Based on Fei Xiaotong’s early works and recently discovered archives from his student days, this article explores how Fei Xiaotong responded to the limitations of the functionalist paradigm in explaining social and cultural changes, and gradually formed a dualistic analytical perspective of“the tradition that functions”and“the external forces that trigger changes”. Starting from the relationship between tradition and external forces, based on the concept of“living history”, he transformed Malinowski’s“three-column approach”employed in African studies into a“four-column approach”that is more suitable for researching the changes in Chinese society. He applied the new approach to the analysis of the silk industry in Peasant Life in China and the Cocoon. This is Fei Xiaotong’s important exploration and theoretical consciousness of the modernization plan for Chinese society in his early years.