Principles in Xiangji Operation: Chinese Economic Ethnology

This book is one of the most important works about earlier systematical theoretical analysis on economic anthropology theories in China. It is a milestone in growth process of Chinese economic anthropology.

It focuses on cross-culture background, histories and spatial differences in different ethnic groups’ economic activities. In this book, the author uses the Chinese character of xiang to refer to the social and natural entity regulated by the system composed of non-economic restraints that impact economic activities across different ethnic regions. It attempt to reveal the essence of cross-xiang economic activities, factors that cause cross-xiang economic activities to succeed or fail, as well as the solutions to the problems encountered in cross-xiang economic activities.

Whoever led the development faced the same question, i.e., the development activities were carried out in a quite different natural environment by applying the Han culture in different cultural settings. These facts have prompted special theoretical problems that are related to differences in both the natural environment and culture. Such problems cannot be solved exclusively by either economic or cultural anthropological measures, but rather by economic anthropology- an interdisciplinary subject between cultural anthropology and economics.