FILE PHOTO: Cover of Yunnan Sancun (Three Villages in Yunnan) authored by Fei Xiaotong and Zhang Zhiyi

Effective research arises from the unknowns and perplexities encountered in everyday life and productive activities. Unless these uncertainties are translated into concrete questions, research cannot proceed, still less generate cumulative knowledge. The ability to keenly identify such uncertainties in practice and proactively transform them into researchable questions constitutes what is known as problem consciousness. Both everyday practice and societal development depend on the guidance of this consciousness, and this is particularly true in social science research. In the era of artificial intelligence (AI), where vast bodies of knowledge are readily accessible, maintaining curiosity and imagination has become crucial to the advancement of human knowledge.

In past social science research, the formulation of questions was often fragmented, constrained by disciplinary divisions and professional barriers. Questions in the social sciences and those in the natural sciences rarely informed one another. Even within the broadly defined domain of the social sciences, research in one discipline seldom engaged with questions from others. As a result, in the face of complex social contexts and real-world demands, questions raised within a single discipline tended to remain fragmented. While this piecemeal approach might appear to allow problems to be addressed individually, it often deprived inquiry of coherence and analytical depth, while increasing coordination costs. Such fragmentation not only impeded the production and renewal of knowledge, but also risked distancing research from practical needs.

One defining feature of genuinely profound problem consciousness is to transcend disciplinary and professional boundaries. Problems arising from everyday life and productive activity are inherently holistic; they do not conform to disciplinary divisions. Accordingly, in formulating research questions, researchers must draw on diverse sources of knowledge to systematically clarify the origins, development, and consequences of the issues at hand. This foundational work is demanding and should not be taken lightly. Only by laying such groundwork can researchers grasp the full scope and substance of a problem. If inquiry overlooks the holistic nature of problems and remains confined to a single disciplinary perspective, understanding is likely to be partial. This not only makes it difficult to identify and articulate meaningful questions, but may also lead to simplistic, repetitive, or misguided problem formulation.

Equally important is extending questions beyond specific issues while retaining their grounding in concrete realities to convey broader concerns. In late 1938, shortly after returning to China, renowned sociologist Fei Xiaotong conducted fieldwork in Lu Village west of Kunming, Yunnan Province. He later undertook investigations in Yi Village and Yu Village with sociologist Zhang Zhiyi, culminating in the well-known ethnographic work Yunnan Sancun (Three Villages in Yunnan). Reflecting on the origins of these studies, Fei noted in the preface that, after victory in the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, China would face an even more serious question—what kind of country should be built. Strong problem consciousness and a deep concern for society thus became the starting point for his fieldwork and provided a model for “scientifically understanding Chinese society.” A meaningful research question, therefore, should not only address immediate realities but also embody foresight grounded in a thorough understanding of the laws governing long-term development and change, thereby fostering broader social concerns.

While AI has greatly enhanced the efficiency of knowledge acquisition, it also poses new challenges to the human capacity to identify and formulate questions. The accessibility and breadth of available knowledge pose a key challenge by compressing the space for curiosity and imagination, potentially leading to path dependence and what might be called “questioning fatigue.” It is precisely in this context that determining where to pose questions becomes crucial to research.

For social science research, the abundance of existing knowledge does not bring inquiry to a standstill. New modes of production and emerging patterns of social interaction continually generate new questions, while unknowns and uncertainties remain widespread. Researchers should therefore continuously identify and articulate new questions within the “interstices” of vast bodies of existing knowledge through nuanced, fine-grained “thick description,” lived experience, and imagination, engaging in broader dialogue with established knowledge while responding to evolving social needs.

Zhang Jianyuan is a professor from the Law School at Yunnan University.