ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that space-based sociological work has been among the mainstream of Fei Hsiao-Tung’s academic practices. It analyses some of the reasons behind such an obvious decline: its methodological source, the underlying sociology of knowledge causes and the paradigm-shift roots. The chapter provides the content of paradigmatic replacement of the Chicago School by structural functionalism in American sociology back in 1960s, and also shows that this challenge has been the single main reason that could explain the decline of space-based sociology worldwide ever since. However, by convincing the audience of the continuing relevance of the Chicago School for Chinese social sciences, it explores the internal driving forces and external conditions of reviving space-based sociology within contemporary Chinese academia and takes this resurgence as a sign of inheriting Fei's academic heritage. The first strategy advocates pure qualitative space-based case study in sociology, as exemplified by Professor Fei's Peasant Life in China and Harvey Zorbaugh's The Gold Coast and the Slum.
