https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._William_Skinner George William Skinner (simplified Chinese: 施坚雅; traditional Chinese: 施堅雅; February 14, 1925 – October 26, 2008) was an American anthropologist and scholar of China.[1][2][3] Skinner was a proponent of the spatial approach to Chinese history, as explained in his Presidential Address to the Association for Asian Studies in 1984.[4] He often referred to his approach as "regional analysis," and taught the use of maps as a key class of data in ethnography. Contents 1 Early life 2 Academic career 3 Research 4 Publications 5 Notes 6 Sources Early life Skinner was born on February 14, 1925, in Oakland, California. His father, John James Skinner was a pharmacologist and his mother, Eunice Engle Skinner, taught music and became the director of music education for the Berkeley school system. Skinner spent two years at Deep Springs College, a small college founded to educate small cohorts of young men into the life of the mind in a self-sufficient, disciplined manner. After Deep Springs, he joined the Navy V-12 Program in 1943, then attended the U.S. Navy Oriental Language School for 18 months at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he studied Chinese. In 1946, Skinner headed for Cornell University to complete his B.A. degree. He graduated in the following year with his B.A. (with distinction) in Far Eastern Studies, and remained there for his Ph.D. in anthropology (1954) under the supervision of Lauriston Sharp. Academic career Skinner’s first job was as instructor in sociology at Cornell in 1949. Late in that year he flew to Chengdu, in China's Sichuan province, to conduct doctoral dissertation research on the structure of markets in the Chengdu Plain. Skinner's research was cut short by the arrival of the People's Liberation Army, which confiscated his notes, but the experience became the basis of his later work on spatial modelling. A copy of his field notes on village life in and around Gaodianzi and pre-revolution Chengdu were later discovered and published in 2017 as Rural China on the Eve of Revolution: Sichuan Fieldnotes, 1949–1950. Skinner proceeded to Bangkok, Thailand, where he researched a substitute doctoral topic, the social structure of the Chinese community in Thailand. This research was published in his first two books, Chinese Society in Thailand (1957) and Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand (1958) [5] Between 1951 and 1955, he was field director of the Cornell Southeast Asia Program, then a research associate at Cornell. He became assistant professor of anthropology at Columbia University in 1958. Two years later, Skinner was hired back at Cornell as associate professor and then promoted to full professor in 1962 — an unusually fast track to that status. In 1965, he left for Stanford University, moving again in 1990 to the University of California, Davis, which had hired his wife, China historian Susan L. Mann. Skinner retired from teaching in 2005 but maintained an active research program until his death three years later.[6] Research Perhaps his best-known influence on Chinese Studies was his delineation of the Physiographic macroregions of China.[7][8] In later years he was instrumental in the establishment of the China Historical Geographic Information Systems project at Harvard and Fudan Universities.[9] His papers and maps are archived in the library collections of Harvard,[10] Cornell,[11] the University of Washington,[12] and Fudan University. Publications Books and monographs Report on the Chinese in Southeast Asia. Ithaca: Cornell University, Southeast Asia Program, 1951. 91 pp. (Data papers 1). (General editor) The Social Sciences and Thailand. Bangkok: Cornell Research Center, 1956. 185 + 125 pp. (in Thai and English). Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1957. xvii + 459 pp. (Japanese edition: Bangkok: Japanese Chamber of Commerce, 1973, 365 pp.). Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1958. xvii +363 pp. (Monographs of the Association for Asian Studies, III). (Japanese edition: Tokyo: Ajia Keizai Kenkyujo, 1961. 417 pp.). (Reprinted 1979 by Universities Microfilm International). (Editor) Local, Ethnic, and National Loyalties in Village Indonesia: A Symposium. New Haven: Yale University, Southeast Asia Studies, 1959. 68 pp. (Editor) Modern Chinese Society: An Analytical Bibliography, Vol. 1, Publications in Western Languages, 1644–1972. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973. 1xxviii + 802 pp. (Editor, with Winston Hsieh) Modern Chinese Society: An Analytical Bibliography, Vol. 2, Publications in Chinese, 1644–1969. Stanford University Press, 1973. lxxci + 802 pp. (Editor, with Shigeaki Tomita) Modern Chinese Society: An Analytical Bibliography, Vol. 3, Publications in Japanese, 1644–1971. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1973. 1xix + 531 pp. (Editor, with Mark Elvin) The Chinese City Between Two Worlds. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974. xiii + 458 pp. (Editor, with A. Thomas Kirsch) Change and Persistence in Thai Society: Essays in Honor of Lauriston Sharp. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975. 386 pp. (Editor) The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977. xvii + 820 pp. (Editor) The Study of Chinese Society: Essays by Maurice Freedman. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979. xxiv + 491 pp. Rural China on the Eve of Revolution. University of Washington Press, 2017. 280 pp. Articles and book chapters Aftermath of Communist liberation in the Chengtu Plain. Pacific Affairs 24, 1 (Mar. 1951): 61–76. The new sociology of China. Far Eastern Quarterly 14, 4 (Aug. 1951): 365–371. Peasant organization in rural China. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 277 (Sept. 1951): 89–100. A study in miniature of Chinese population. Population Studies 5, 2 (Nov. 1951): 91–103. (Reprinted in Social Demography, edited by Thomas R. Ford and Gordon F. De Jong. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1970, 642–656.) Cultural values, social structure and population growth. Population Bulletin of the United Nations 5 (July 1956): 5–12. The unity of the social sciences. In The Social Sciences and Thailand. Bangkok: Cornell Research Center, 1956, 3–6. (In Thai and English). Chinese assimilation and Thai politics. Journal of Asian Studies 16, 2 (Feb. 1957): 237–250. (Reprinted in Southeast Asia: The Politics of National Integration, edited by John T. McAlister, Jr. New York: Random House, 1973, 383–398.) The Chinese of Java. In Colloquium on Overseas Chinese, edited by Morton H. Fried. New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1958, 1–10. Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 321 (Jan. 1959): 136–147. The nature of loyalties in rural Indonesia. In Local, Ethnic and National Loyalties in Village Indonesia: A Symposium. New Haven: Yale University, Southeast Asia Studies, 1959, 1–11. (Reprinted in Social Change: The Colonial Situation, edited by Immanuel M. Wallerstein. New York: Wiley, 1966, 265–277.) Change and persistence in Chinese culture overseas: A comparison of Thailand and Java. Journal of the South Seas Society 16 (1960): 86100. (Reprinted in Readings in South-east Asian Anthropology, edited by Donald J. Tugby. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1967. Reprinted in Southeast Asia: The Politics of National Integration, edited by John T. McAlister, Jr. New York: Random House, 1973, 399–415.) Java's Chinese minority: Continuity and change. Journal of Asian Studies 20, 3 (May 1961): 353–362. The Chinese minority. In Indonesia, edited by Ruth T. McVey. New Haven: HRAF Press, 1963, 97–117. (Indonesian translation: Golongan minoritas Tionghoa. In Golongan Etnis Tionghoa di Indonesia, edited by Mely G. Tan. Jakarta: Penderbit PT Gramedia, 1979, 1–29.) What the study of China can do for social science. Journal of Asian Studies 23, 4 (Aug. 1964): 517–522. [Chinese translation in Ta-hsüeh sheng-huo (Hong Kong) 6 (1966): 8–13.] The Thailand Chinese: Assimilation in a changing society. Asia 2 (Autumn 1964): 80–92. Marketing and social structure in rural China, Parts I, II, and III. Journal of Asian Studies 24, 1 (Nov. 1964): 3–44; 24, 2 (Feb. 1965): 195–228; 24, 3 (May 1965): 363–399. (Part I reprinted in Peasant Society: A Reader, edited by Jack M. Potter et al. Boston: Little, Brown, 1967, 63–93; and in Man, Space and Environment: Concepts in Contemporary Human Geography, edited by Paul Ward English and Robert C. Mayfield. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972, 561–601. Parts I, II, and III separately reprinted in Bobbs Merrill reprint series. Reissued 1974, 1977, 1981, 1988, 1994, and 2000 as a pamphlet by the Association for Asian Studies. Japanese edition: Kyoto: Horitse Bunka Sha, 1979. 222 p.) Communication (on marketing systems in Communist China). Journal of Asian Studies 25, 2 (Feb. 1966): 319–324. Overseas Chinese leadership: Paradigm for a paradox. In Leadership and Authority, edited by Gehan Wijeyewardene. Singapore: University of Malaya Press, 1968, 191–207. (with Edwin A. Winckler) Compliance succession in rural Communist China: A cyclical theory. In A Sociological Reader on Complex Organization, 2nd ed., edited by Amitai Etzioni. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1969, 410–438. Chinese peasants and the closed community: An open and shut case. Comparative Studies in Society and History 13, 3 (July, 1971): 270–281. (with Arthur P. Wolf) Maurice Freedman (1920–75) [obituary]. China Quarterly 63 (Sept. 1975): i–iii Maurice Freedman, 1920–1975, and Bibliography of Maurice Freedman. American Anthropologist 78, 4 (Dec. 1976): 871–885. Mobility strategies in late imperial China: A regional-systems analysis. In Regional Analysis, Vol. 1. Economic Systems, edited by Carol A. Smith. New York: Academic Press, 1976, 327–364. Urban development in imperial China [Part One introduction]. In The City in Late Imperial China, edited by G. William Skinner. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977, 3–31. Urban and rural in Chinese society [Part Two introduction]. In The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977, 253–273. Urban social structure in Ch'ing China [Part Three introduction]. In The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977, 521–553. Regional urbanization in nineteenth-century China. In The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1977, 211–249. Cities and the hierarchy of local systems. In The City in Late Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 275–364. (Reprinted in Studies in Chinese Society, edited by Arthur P. Wolf. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1978, 1–77.) Vegetable supply and marketing in Chinese cities. China Quarterly 76 (Dec. 1978): 733–793. Introduction. In The Study of Chinese Society: Essays by Maurice Freedman. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1979, xi–xxiv. Vegetable supply and marketing in Chinese cities. In Vegetable Farming Systems in China, edited by Donald L. Plucknett and Halsey L. Beemer, Jr. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1981, 215–280. Chinese history and the social sciences. In Chinese Social and Economic History from the Song to 1900, edited by Albert Feuerwerker. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 1982, 11–6. Asian studies and the disciplines. Asian Studies Newsletter 19, 4 (Apr. 1984). Rural marketing in China: Revival and reappraisal. In Markets and Marketing: Proceedings of the 1984 Meeting of the Society for Economic Anthropology, edited by Stuart Plattner. Lanham, Md: University Press of America, 1985, 7–47. Presidential address: The structure of Chinese history. Journal of Asian Studies 44, 2 (Feb. 1985): 271–292. Rural marketing in China: Repression and revival. China Quarterly 102 (Sept. 1985): 393–413. Sichuan's population in the nineteenth century: Lessons from disaggregated data. Late Imperial China 8, 1 (June 1987): 1–79. Conjugal power in Tokugawa Japanese families: A matter of life or death. In Sex and Gender Hierarchies, edited by Barbara D. Miller. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993, 236–270. Differential development in Lingnan. In The Economic Transformation of South China: Reform and Development in the Post-Mao Era, edited by Thomas P. Lyons and Victor Nee. Ithaca: Cornell East Asia Program, 1994, 17–54. Creolized Chinese societies in Southeast Asia. In Sojourners and Settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese, edited by Anthony Reid. Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1996, 50–93. Family systems and demographic processes. In Anthropological Demography: Toward a New Synthesis, edited by David I. Kertzer and Thomas E. Fricke. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997, 53–114. Introduction (and maps). In Migration and Ethnicity in Chinese History: Hakkas, Pengmin, and their Neighbors, by Sow-Theng Leong. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997, 1–18. Chinese cities, then and now: The difference a century makes. In Cosmopolitan Capitalists: Hong Kong and the Chinese Diaspora at the End of the Twentieth Century. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999, 56–79. (with Mark Henderson and Yuan Jianhua) China’s fertility transition through regional space: Using GIS and census data for a spatial analysis of historical demography. Social Science History 24, 3 (Fall 2000): 613–643. Notes E.A. Hammel (2009) "George William Skinner, a biographical memoir." National Academy of Sciences. [1] Archived 2011-06-07 at the Wayback Machine Verdery, Katherine; Smith, Carol A. (September 2009). "George William Skinner (1925–2008)". American Anthropologist. 111 (3): 398–401. doi:10.1111/j.1548-1433.2009.01148_1.x. Yu, Shuenn-Der Yu (2010). "In Memory of G. William Skinner: His Contributions to Anthropology". Taiwan Journal of Anthropology. 8 (1): 3–14. Archived from the original on 2017-02-18. Retrieved 2016-08-09. Skinner, G. William (February 1985). "Presidential Address: The Structure of Chinese History". The Journal of Asian Studies. 44 (2): 271–292. doi:10.2307/2055923. JSTOR 2055923. Harrell (2009), p. 454. Verdery & Smith (2009). G.W. Skinner (ed.) (1977) "The City in Late Imperial China." Stanford University Press. G.W. Skinner (1964–65). "Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China." Association for Asian Studies. [2] Archived 2011-07-25 at the Wayback Machine "CHGIS Project". Archived from the original on 2008-09-29. Retrieved 2008-10-26. "Skinner Regional Systems Analysis Dataverse". Archived from the original on 2020-05-08. Retrieved 2020-06-01. "Guide to the G. William Skinner Papers". Archived from the original on 2011-04-23. Retrieved 2011-03-22. "G. William Skinner Map Collection". Archived from the original on 2011-04-06. Retrieved 2011-03-22. ==== https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00094633.2018.1568084 G. William Skinner (1925–2008) and new studies of Chinese regional history: Introduction Deying Li & Q. Edward Wang Pages 301-304 | Published online: 17 May 2019 In September 1949, in the heat of an ongoing civil war in China, G. William Skinner, then a young, aspiring student of anthropology from Cornell University, visited West China Union University in Chengdu. With the help of the University, which was founded in 1910 by a group of Christian missionaries from North America, Skinner went to Gaodianzi, a small town near the city Chengdu, to conduct his fieldwork. However, this proved to be an imprudent decision, for in less than three months, Skinner had to end his foray in Gaodianzi and returned to Chengdu. And, worse still, as the Communists took over the country, he was put in house arrest and not permitted to leave for the United States until August 1950. But, as his later career shows, Skinner (who is known in Chinese as 施堅雅 or Shi Jianya) did not forget China, nor has China, as this issue demonstrates, forgotten him and his work. As China became inaccessible for any researchers from the West under Communist rule, Skinner went to Thailand to continue his fieldwork on overseas Chinese communities in the 1950s. After completing his PhD and securing a teaching job, he gradually returned to studying China, publishing several important works that helped raise his profile as a seminal figure in the field. During the 1960s, Skinner’s “Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China” appeared in the Journal of Asian Studies in three installments, which greatly influenced a generation of China scholars in the United States and beyond. In the 1970s he edited, among others, The Chinese City between Two Worlds and The City in Late Imperial China, in which he put forth his well-known delineation of the “physiographic macroregions” in China. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, Skinner considered demography, geography, economy, and history while mapping out those diverse macroregions, with which he hoped to achieve a better understanding of the social and historical changes in late imperial and modern China. If Skinner’s conception of the “physiographic macroregions” was his most noted contribution to the field of China studies, his study of rural China, which was loosely based on his unfortunately abbreviated fieldwork in Gaodianzi, seems to have a particular, as well as persistent, appeal to the scholars in China, especially those in Sichuan. In post-Mao years when academic life resumed its vitality in China, many Chinese scholars have become incredibly eager to absorb and appropriate ideas and methods of China scholars in the West, in hopes of improving their own research of Chinese society and history. Skinner’s idea about the existence of what he called “standard marketing community,” which was his focal point in the aforementioned articles in the Journal of Asian Studies, is among them. For instance, in 1993 when Wang Di wrote his first book, entitled Breaking Up a Closed World: The Social Transformation of the Upper Yangzi Region, 1644–1911 (跨出封閉的世界：長江上游區域社會研究Kuachu fengbi de shijie: Changjiang shangyou quyu shehui yanjiu),1 he applied Skinner’s theory in analyzing the trading network and urban-rural relations in Sichuan. Wang was then a junior faculty member at the History Department of Sichuan University. After later earning his PhD at the Johns Hopkins University, he taught at Texas A&M University before taking a chaired professorship at the University of Macao. In 1998, Shi Jianyun, Xu Xiuli, and their colleagues at the Institute of Modern History at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences put together a collection of Skinner’s essays, entitled Market and Social Structure in Rural China (中國農村的市場與社會結構Zhongguo nongcun de shichang he shehui jiegou), which stimulated a good deal of more interest among Chinese scholars in learning about Skinner’s conceptualization of the social and economic life in rural areas.2 From the early 20th century, anthropologists, Chinese and foreign, had done important works in examining rural communities in China. But most of them tended to focus on the village as a basic unit for observation. In contrast to those previous works, Skinner believed that “Insofar as the Chinese peasant can be said to live in a self-contained world, that world is not the village but the standard marketing community. The effective social field of the peasant, I will argue, is delimited not by the narrow horizons of his village but rather by the boundaries of his standard marketing area.” By “standard marketing community,” Skinner meant an essential market where the peasant (who was usually a male) engaged “normal trade needs” with others to support the daily living of his household.3 Of course, there were also other markets that existed for the peasant to trade more goods, in a less regular base, if he and his family produced more. In his research, Skinner provided cases, including the one that he found in Gaodianzi, to describe the “social field” of the Chinese peasant by describing the hierarchy of different levels of markets in agrarian China during the Qing and Republican periods. Skinner’s study of the “standard marketing community” was related to his later study of Chinese cities in late imperial period, in that he hoped, as we surmise, to prove that like Western Europe, imperial China had the potential to develop its towns and cities from the high level of commercial activities the Ming and Qing dynasties witnessed. Without doubt, in unfolding his early career, Skinner formed a special tie with Sichuan, where he visited as a young man. In 2017, this tie seems to have become further pronounced by the publication of his Rural China on the Eve of Revolution: Sichuan Fieldnotes, 1949–1950,4 put together after his death by Stevan Harrell and William Lavely, both had worked with Skinner in completing their graduate degrees. The book is based on Skinner’s notes he took while doing his fieldwork in Gaodianzi, though throughout his life, he always maintained that these had been confiscated by Chinese Communist forces. While this remains a mystery, that his notes about Sichuan was recovered proves to be exciting news to scholars of China in both the United States and China. In particular, faculty and students who have studied Sichuan, especially those working at Sichuan University in Chengdu, are extremely delighted. While working on translating the book into Chinese, they have also conducted more research that either explicates and expands on Skinner’s work or modifies and critiques his ideas and approach. We edit this issue to present some samples of their work here, following a chronological order. Our first article is written by Guo Guanghui, a PhD candidate at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou who received his undergraduate education in Sichuan. Following Skinner’s example, Guo works on examining the social organizations and structures in the Chengdu Plain, focusing on the role “market towns” (場鎮 changzhen) played in the lives of Chinese peasants. Through his anthropological work in Zhenzichang, another local town in Sichuan, he posits that while Skinner’s “standard market” idea remains inspiring, the “market towns” seemed to be the real center of social life in the region, for it combined influences from the government, which had established them in the first place, and various social and religious institutions, such as guild halls, Buddhist temples, Daoist and ancestral shrines, academies, and charity schools. Thanks to this integrated approach, Guo argues that Skinner’ theory of “standard marketing community” needs some modification, for the seasonal market assumed a much lesser role than the “market towns” in the peasants’ life. Our second article is written by Yuan Shang from Sichuan University, where he is a PhD candidate in history. Inspired by Skinner’s analysis of the hierarchical structure of markets in rural Sichuan, Yuan focuses on discovering what he believes the lower, or the bottom, level of trade activities in rural China. Yuan agrees with Skinner’s observation that the village was not always the useful unit in studying rural China, for in parts of Sichuan, there was a dispersed pattern of settlement where the households lived separately by a relatively great distances. He expands on the observation by conducting a detailed research on how the yao dian (幺店), general store or country store, played its role in connecting those dispersed households and forming the “incipient marketing community” (Skinner). On a more macro level, his research also helps illustrate the unique characteristics of Sichuan, expounding Skinner’s theory of the “physiographic macroregions” in China. An associate professor at Sichuan University, Zhou Lin contributes the third article to this issue. Drawing on Skinner’s articles on “Marketing and Social Structures in Rural China” and his City in Late Imperial China, it offers a more careful examination of the hierarchical levels of markets in Chongqing before 1890, or before the city and region were opened up according to the treaties signed between the Qing dynasty and foreign powers. Zhou describes the trading activities (e.g., salt, hardware, fan) of the markets at each level and states that these activities were stable and standardized, playing an important part in the region’s economy. Yet overall, she concludes, there was a lack of integration of the hierarchy of markets. As such, the city and region failed to develop “close links with specialized, large-scale commodity production.” The fourth article is authored by Wang Guo who, after obtaining his PhD from Peking University, is at present an assistant professor of history at Sichuan University. Like Zhou Lin, Wang researches the economic transformation of the Chongqing region in Sichuan from the late Qing onward. His case study was the construction of the Jiangbei-Hechuan Railroad in the early 20th century, with an aim to transcend Skinner’s theory in both scope and time. From the outset, Wang points out that while highly influential, Skinner’s study of the Chengdu Plain also contains certain limitation, for it “gives insufficient attention to non-plain regions, non-agrarian societies, non-numerical distances, and other factors.” By comparison, Wang attempts to examine the interplay between the elements of traditional and modern economy. In particular, his research modifies Skinner’s theory in two ways. One is that in Sichuan’s mountainous areas, standard markets was not formed in a regular hexagonal shape, but rather extended along the river and the railway, presenting a linear form. The other is that while a modern phenomenon, the Railroad did not interrupt the traditional economy in the region but integrated with it. Last, but not least, Li Deying, professor of history at Sichuan University, returns our attention to the Chengdu Plain, albeit in a different time period than that of the articles by Guo Guanghui and Yuan Shang. Using archival sources and survey data, her article presents a vivid picture of the peasant life in the Republican period. It covers almost all aspects of the life of the rural community, ranging from their farming to many types of sidelines with which they engaged to subsidize their living. Yet, her focus is on how important the market was in this agrarian community, for almost all the sidelines were invariably related to the various levels of markets that existed in the region. While not without shortcomings, Li believes, the general thesis propounded by Skinner over a half century ago remains valuable to understand the region’s social and economic life in the period. “Regardless of whether one ascribes,” she concludes, “to the standard marketing community theory or the cultural nexus theory and regardless of how these theories interpret rural society and peasant behavior, it is undeniable that marketing was the primary social function of the rural market town, and other interpretations merely enrich and supplement marketing theory. In this sense, Skinner’s theory of the rural standard marketing community still has academic value and practical significance.” To a great extent, this conclusion also adumbrates our effort in editing this issue to revisit Skinner’s work and reassess its impact.