Author(s)

Gou Aiping

Corresponding Author

Gou Aiping

ABSTRACT

Before 1980s, there were mainly two perspectives in the discussion of the relationship between society and individuals. The first one emphasizes a structural study on entirety, and the second one focuses on the study of individual mobility. After 1980s, the emergence of practice theory broke up the opposite status of structure and mobility. Practice theory tends to take the middle route and establish balance between structure and mobility. The above theories are different because of their different research angles. All these theories are reasonable, and they have enriched and promoted the development of theoretical paradigm of anthropology.

KEYWORDS

Structure, Mobility, Debates, Binary Opposition