本文旨在研究英国人类学家埃德蒙·利奇在人类学、历史学以及社会活动领域的思想、理论与实践，探讨利奇如何在其人类学思想发展过程中重新引入并接纳历史，进而反思殖民活动与人类学研究的联系，并在此基础上讨论这些思想理论如何作用于利奇在20世纪60-80年代的社会活动。本文采用思想史的研究方法，结合“思想传记”和“语境主义”、内部话语与外部话语，力求全面、精准地展现埃德蒙·利奇探索上述问题的思想过程，复原20世纪英国社会人类学思想谱系中的重要一环，重现20世纪英国社会人类学史乃至英国思想史的吉光片羽。利奇创造性地调和了功能主义与结构主义学说，开创了“新结构主义”理论体系。在这一思想过程中，利奇以叛逆的姿态改造了功能学派范式传统，凭借自己在田野调查中发现的“两种事实”——人类学家观察到的事实和当地人的历史事实——之间的矛盾，批判了均衡论的静态社会模型以及功能主义者对历史的拒绝与排斥。利奇将历时性的动态要素重新引入共时性的社会系统，进而将历史本身视作“传统社会”，意图弥合功能学派范式影响下广泛存在的民族志与历史的割裂，并倡导一种自传式的新式民族志的写作。利奇在理论上支持历史民族志工作的开展，以此引申出民族志编纂中的一个反身性问题，即人类学家对土著历史的参与和塑造，而这体现在人类学家伴随殖民扩张的进程进入“土著社会”的历史事实。在后殖民主义的诘问下，利奇认识到，殖民主义的甲壳不仅使人类学家在使用历史材料、撰写民族志和认识他者社会上存在种种偏见与误解，更使他们忽视了一个基本事实——人类学家的到来本身就改变了当地的社会和历史。因此，民族志必须被放回其历史环境重新加以考量，而人类学家自身也必须成为其本人作品的一部分。人类学家从来不是客观的旁观者，而始终是亲身参与者。知识与权力的关系贯穿于人类学理论和实践的各个层面，在他者社会和本土社会皆是如此。利奇基于其人类学研究提出了“进化人文主义”思想，又利用自己的权力与名望贯彻这一主张，从而影响了20世纪后半叶的学术与社会，以自身的思想塑造了新的“历史”。利奇始终相信人类学思想与现实实践之间存在这一种潜在的连续性，人类学家应该、也必须回应这个飞速变化的“失控世界”。
This thesis aims to investigate the ideas, theories, and practices of Edmund Leach the British anthropologist in the fields of anthropology, history, and social activities. It delves into how Leach reintroduced and embraced the historical dimension in the evolution of his anthropological thought, which led to his reflection on the connections between colonial activities and anthropological research. Building on this, it discusses how these intellectual theories influenced Leach’s social activities during the 1960s to 1980s. This thesis is a study of intellectual history, integrating “intellectual biography” with “contextualism”, as well as internal discourse with external discourse. It strives to present a comprehensive and precise depiction of Edmund Leach’s intellectual process in exploring the aforementioned issues, restoring a crucial element in the genealogy of twentieth-century British social anthropological thought, and therefore reconstructing the inklings of the history of British social anthropology, and indeed British intellectual history, during the twentieth century.Edmund Leach creatively reconciled functionalism and structuralism, pioneering the “neo-structuralism” theoretical framework. In this intellectual process, Leach, with a rebellious stance, remodeled the traditional paradigm of the functionalist school. Resorting to the contradictions he observed between “two kinds of facts”, the fact noted by anthropologists and the historical fact recognised by local people, he criticised the static social model of equilibrium theory and the functionalists’ rejection and exclusion of history. Leach reintroduced diachronic elements into synchronic social systems, thereby conceptualising history itself as “traditional society”, with the intent to bridge the widespread disconnect between ethnography and history under the functionalist paradigm, advocating for a new form of autobiographical ethnography. Theoretically supporting the development of historical ethnography, Leach extended to a reflexive issue in ethnographic compilation, namely the anthropologists’ involvement and moulding of “indigenous history”, which reflected in the historical fact of anthropologists entering “indigenous societies” alongside colonial expansion.Under the scrutiny of post-colonialism, Leach recognised that the “colonial shell” not only led anthropologists to various biases and misunderstandings in using historical materials, writing ethnographies, and understanding other societies, but also made them overlook a fundamental fact - that the very arrival of anthropologists altered the local social and history. Therefore ethnographies must be reexamined within their historical context, and anthropologists themselves must become an integral part of their own works.Anthropologists have never been mere objective observers; they are always active participants. The relationship between knowledge and power permeates all levels of anthropological theory and practice, whether in “the other” societies or in native ones. Based on his anthropological research, Leach proposed the theory of “Evolutionary Humanism”, utilising his own power and prestige to implement this idea, and thereby profoundly influenced the academia and society in the latter half of the twentieth century, shaping a new “history” with his thoughts. Leach always insisted on the idea of the underlying continuity between anthropological thought and practical activities, and he argued strongly that anthropologists should and must respond to this rapidly changing "runaway world".
