Structural processes in local societies and cultures: A dialogue between historiography and anthropology in Pearl River Delta studies

Abstract

As a major area of dialogue between socio-economic history research and anthropology, land settlement, lineage development, worship of gods, the evolution of household registration system, and ethnic group issues all showed the dynamic process of the regional socio-cultural structure. The study of history was not only an account of people's agency in the social construction of territories, but also an examination of how historical narratives themselves were structured in the social construction of territories, and how this structure drove and constrained people's actions.