What If Social Science Methods Had No Homeland?

Abstract

This article studies the methods used by Chinese and foreign social science researchers in their analysis of the contents of the state and Party administration archives of the People's Republic of China. Through the study of this particular subject, I demonstrate that the "tactics" used in the study of contemporary Chinese society may also be found in the study of totalitarian societies and to a lesser extent, in the study of modern bureaucracies. This detour via the method leads us to reconsider the question of the need for a "Sinicisation of the social sciences." More specifically, I call into question the idea that the heuristic nature of a method is necessarily adversely affected once past the frontier.