Functional Analysis of Today’s Cong
Pu Wen-hu, (Yunnan University; Kunming; 650091)
Cong is a distinctive way of social relation in Naxi society. It is a special and informal social organization and has a long history. As a form People’s Republic of China, it provided a mean of helping each other, emotional-supporting, maintaining social relations in Naxi society. After the implement of openning and reform policy in China, there has been a vigorous rejuvenation of Cong culture in LiJiang urban and rural communities. In modern society in which economy, politics and culture have been undergoing rapid changes, why has Cong culture revitalized and become an indispensable part of Naxi traditional culture. Then, what invokes the vitality of Cong culture? Or what cultural and social need has cong activity gratified? Furthermore, what is the significant role has Cong culture played when Naxi ethnic group and its communities are in a modernization process. As both a practitioner and observer with practical sense and game consciousness called by Bourdieu, the author of the paper that tries to think and explain the practical logic of the social activity by overcoming the shortcoming or weakness of subjective social phenomenology and objective social physics. On the basis of synthesizing practical sense of practiced agents and objectively analyzing practical logic, this paper will try to analyze and illustrate Cong’s social function and cultural significance. Placing the Naxi local knowledge under the condition of modernity, modernization and globalization, this paper will use sociological theories and concepts such as structural functionalism, social exchange theory, symbolic interactionism, social capital, symbolic capital and social structure to discuss and analyze the functions that Cong has made in social integration, informal social welfare and social identity. So far, there has no any special research and analysis in this field, this kind of descriptive research in the paper will produce some significances.
