This book considers the nature and possibilities of conceptual change and transformation under conditions of globalization, especially with regard to Chinese social and cultural concepts. It argues that the influence of globalization promotes the spread of West European and American social science concepts and methods at the expense of local concepts and approaches, and at the same time (paradoxically) provides opportunities for the incorporation of local concepts, including Chinese concepts, into Western or mainstream social science.
Introduction 1. Globalization and Asymmetric Knowledge Flows 2. A Case Study of Globalized Knowledge: Guanxi in Social Science and Management Theory 3. Western Thought in China: An Historical Case of Knowledge Flow 4. China’s Intellectual Heritage: Paradigms as Frameworks 5. Face: A Chinese Concept in a Global Sociology 6. Relations of Emotion and Reason: The Challenge of the Concept of Xin (Heart/Mind) 7. Paradoxical Integration, Contradiction and the Logic of Social Analysis. Conclusion
Biography
Xiaoying Qi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Hong Kong Baptist University.
"This is an astonishing, and timely book...it works at a level of ambition and capacity that is breathtaking." - Peter Beilharz, Journal of Sociology, 2016, Vol. 52 (1) 134–135.
"Xiaoying Qi provides us with an exemplary study of the way the wealth of Chinese intellectual traditions can be brought into critical engagement with Western paradigms to develop common conceptual resources … In a short review one can only begin to suggest the depth of scholarship and richness of argument and insight that this book contains … There is more than ample proof here that the author will be in the forefront of those who take this programme forward". Professor Martin Albrow [2015] Journal of China in Comparative Perspective, 1(1): 146-149).
