From the Village to the City: The Rise of Urban Folklore Studies in China
Abstract
The rise of Chinese folklore study was an academic response to the Modern Chinese Enlightenment Movement. The shift in perspective of Chinese folklore studies from the rural field to urban society is the symbol self-reflective turns and innovations. The shift from rural to urban folklore requires an adjustment of research perspectives and methods, not only to adapt to the urbanized social environment, but also to cope with the more complex modern society. Cities are fast-paced, mobile societies, where people’s general and instinctive rejection of strangers and the highly compressed and fragmented nature of their leisure time make fieldwork more difficult. Human behavior is not homogeneous, but diverse, the study of urban folklore can draw on personal life history methods to take a “microscopic” look at urban society. The rise of Chinese urban folklore is a new area of Chinese folklore studies, and its research theory, methodology and subjects still need to be further explored and supplemented by scholars.
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