民族志:一种广义人文关系学的界定

Ethnography: A Re-Definition from the Perspective of the Extended Human Relations

"民族志"之名,来自古希腊文的"民族+志",指"记录的民族学",而"民族学"则常被理解为"举各民族物质上行为上各种形态而比较他们的异同"(蔡元培)。"民族+志"这一组合是近代的发明,与欧洲国族观念有着既相合又相离的两可关系。就多数经典民族志呈现的面貌看,尽管有将民族志视作"民族研究"的基本方法者,但民族志研究单元一般超脱于"民族",其描绘的物质、社会和精神世界,是"ethnos(民族)"的真正含义,指与近代西方"个人"不同的其他"人的观念"。在民族志中,"人"是内在差异化、人格外在化、非个人的多元复合场所,其属性不可单独以"世间性"来理解。在此意义上的"人",是含有人、神、物诸存在者之间的关系的存在者。"人"的这些内容,曾被界定为"文化"的诸"因子"或"方面",而近一个世纪的民族志研究表明,"文化"最好被理解为人文关系的总体状态。人文关系,是"己"与广义的"它"之间的关系,是"世内存在者"与"世界"的关系。所有这些关系分布在大小不一的社会共同体中,即使我们观察的是一个范围狭小的村庄,这些关系依然可以得到清楚的表现。对民族志书写者而言,所有地方,都是"世界性的",在人文关系的"世界"中,"己"与"它"的关联性被分解为几类关系及其认知,但其本来面目是浑然一体的。它"因地制宜",形成人中心、神中心、物中心的形貌,相互之间存在差异,但在等级与互惠的复合性意义上,却普遍一致,从而使场景远离"我者"的民族志,总是关乎于"己"——作为众多"世界"中的一个,这包括"民族",但不等于它。

Ethnography, a methodology invented in modern West, has been closely associated with the idea of the nation. In Chinese translation, it has thus become ＂descriptive accounts of nationalities＂. However, ＂ethnos＂, which is what ethnography accounts for, apart from meaning ＂national＂, has implied non-Western or non-modern ways of being human. Such ways have been undertood in terms of alternative persons, foreign to modern Western ＂individuals＂. Such persons are those who are composed of the relations between humans, things, and divinities. From a Chinese perspective, these relations can be defined as those between ＂ji＂ （social ego） and ＂ta＂ （others） in the broad sense of the term. Societies or cultures are different because they have different modalities of the relations： some are ＂anthropo-centric＂, oriented toward human-to-human relations, some are＂material-centric＂, oriented toward human-to-thing relations, some are＂divinity-centric＂, oriented toward human-to-god relations. If ethnology refers to comparative sociology, then, it can be said to be comparative sociology of these different modalities.