Transforming intellectual traditions in modern and global times : the experiences of Chinese scholars in the humanities and social sciences

Abstract

Asymmetrical knowledge globalisation has brought constant tensions to the humanities and social sciences (HSS) that are fundamentally rooted in local and national social contexts and cultural traditions. Realising the problematic Euro-American hegemony, calls from HSS scholars are increasing for bringing diverse non-Western traditions into global discussions to promote world intellectual pluriversality. While many researchers in different non-Western societies have introduced their traditions in English through a historical lens, empirical research on how these traditions actually function in their scholarly production and intellectual lives is much lacking. In the case of China, transforming traditions has been inextricably entangled with the modernisation of higher education. It continues to be a century-long arduous task for generations of Chinese intellectuals. Such a task becomes even more pressing and complex in this new global era. Yet, few empirically-based studies explain how current Chinese HSS scholars deal with intellectual traditions in practice.

This thesis explores the important issue of ‘intellectual traditions’ by extensively reviewing literature and unpacking the experiences of Mainland Chinese HSS scholars. It conducts semi-structured interviews with 20 participants and analyses the published scholarly works of them and another eight complementary participants. All the participants are established scholars from research-intensive universities, and thematic analysis is employed to generate themes from their thinking and living. The findings mainly consist of the following two parts.

Through a literature review, the theoretical part defines ‘(Chinese) intellectual tradition’ as stable and adaptable patterns guiding (Chinese) intellectuals’ actions. This theoretically explains why the thesis can take HSS scholars’ real experiences as the entry point for exploring intellectual traditions. By so doing, it constructs an analytical framework through synthesising Michael Polanyi’s ‘explicit/tacit knowledge’, traditional Chinese resources, and the participants’ basic interpretations of Chinese traditions. It argues that Chinese intellectual traditions can guide Chinese HSS scholars in both explicit and tacit manners, and during this process, they are also transformed by scholars.

The empirical part expounds on how the participants have transformed Chinese intellectual traditions in their academic research and intellectual lives. First, the participants transform Chinese intellectual traditions into some approaches, methodologies/paradigms, and theories through their scholarly production, while facing many difficulties domestically and globally. These intellectual traditions gain explicit forms acknowledged by the formal Western-patterned higher education and knowledge systems. Second, the participants transform Chinese intellectual traditions as scholarly self-requirement, moral self-improvement, and aesthetic enjoyment, which tacitly influence their daily intellectual lives and further underpin their scholarly production. However, hardly recognised by current systems, these intellectual traditions are in the crisis of becoming a ‘wandering soul’. Third, take on traditions from their families and previous generations of intellectuals, the participants develop their own ideas and paths and prepare their students with full awareness and knowledge, rich life experiences, and global perspectives for transforming intellectual traditions in the future.

Taking Chinese intellectual traditions as a case, this thesis reveals the epistemic complexities of asymmetrical globalisation and intellectual pluriversality. With clear generational stability and adaptability of Chinese intellectual traditions as demonstrated especially by its empirical data, this research demonstrates the theoretical and empirical potential to examine and present more non-Western traditions embodied in individual experiences. This study therefore sheds new light on the current conditions of non-Western traditions.