《身处欧美的波兰农民》:一项市民融合及国族建设的研究

The Polish Peasant as a Study of Civil Incorporation and Nation-Building

威廉姆·托马斯和弗洛里安·兹纳涅茨基合著的多卷本《身处欧美的波兰农民》,自1918到1921年陆续出版后,成为早期美国社会学的奠基之作。它最重要的贡献之一,是以影响深远的社会解体范式区分原初群体的组织、社会解体和社会重组。本文认为,这一范式得以产生的重要历史背景,是一战之后在波兰和美国展开的国族建设和犹太人的市民融合。本文通过三重比较以支持这一主旨。首先是《身处欧美的波兰农民》与《旧世界特质的移植》之间的比较。后者出版于1921年,虽然当时署名为美国社会学家罗伯特·帕克和赫伯特·米勒,但主要由托马斯撰写。在这一文本间比较的基础上,本文进一步对在波兰和美国两国发生的社会重组展开比较。最后,文章聚焦于托马斯和兹纳涅茨基对分处这两个国家的波兰人和犹太人之间所做的比较,以及这些比较在社会解体范式生成中的作用。本文最后的落点是从《身处欧美的波兰农民》中出发,反思为何对外来群体的市民融合有时会失败,以及如何才有可能成功。

The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, a multivolume masterpiece by William Thomas and Florian Znaniecki published between 1918 and 1921, came to define early American sociology. One of its most important contributions was the influential social disorganization paradigm, which distinguished primary-group organization, social disorganization, and social reorganization. This paper contends that nation-building and the civil incorporation of Jews in postwar Poland and the United States were important background conditions for the creation of this social disorganization paradigm. This thesis is supported with a threefold comparison. The Polish Peasant in Europe and America is contrasted to Old World Traits Transplanted, a book published in 1921 and largely written by Thomas, though credited to the American sociologists Robert Park and Herbert Miller. This textual comparison makes possible a further comparison of social reorganization in Polish territory and the United States. Lastly, the essay highlights the contrasts that Thomas and Znaniecki drew between Poles and Jews within each of these national contexts, and the role these contrasts played in the development of the social disorganization paradigm. The paper concludes with some reflections drawn from The Polish Peasant in Europe and America about why the civil incorporation of outgroups sometimes fails, and how it might succeed.