全面抗战时期，为保存文脉、坚持抗战、实现学术救国，众多学术机构和学者西迁内地并因地制宜展开研究，边疆研究再度成为显学。其中，云南省具有后方兼前线的特殊区位，为团结抗战，对云南地方历史的考察和再叙述逐渐成为西南边疆研究的重要内容，在历史观、研究对象和研究方法等方面呈现出明显的学术现代化转型特征。本文着重分析全面抗战时期迁滇学者及地方精英对云南地方民族史、边政问题沿革的学术考察及认知变迁，揭示这一时期云南地方史研究的特殊意义。
全面抗战前，国人对云南省边防事务沿革和地方民族历史缺乏深入认识。云南省地方精英在编纂地方史时重视边务，偏重研习儒家政治和清代传统学术。痛惜于边疆失地危机，他们初具领土主权意识，较早开始了从传统“天下”观向现代国家观念的转变；但他们又尚未完成民族观念的转型，仍秉持夷夏观和抚驭边民的态度。真正开始注意并着手研究云南民族历史文化的国人，是接受现代学术训练的丁文江等新知识分子。
全面抗战爆发后，众多学术机构和学者内迁云南省，他们与当地地方精英展开交流互动，既扩大了云南地方史的研究群体，也改变着当地学风。一方面，民族史成为地方史研究的重心。在具体研究内容和方法上，面对暹罗更名泰国、推行泛泰民族主义的威胁，学者们研讨了南诏与大理国的族属问题，依据学术研究成果驳斥南诏泰族建立说。此外，他们还辨析了云南省非汉民族与“汉”“华夏”的历史关系，探讨了地方多元民族历史文化及其价值，实践了实地考察与传世文献结合，史学与考古学、语言学综合的研究方法。转向民族史不仅改变了地方社会对地方史的总体认识，也影响着学者的学术方向，充实着中国现代史学的内容。另一方面，地方史研究又与边政问题相始终。以傣族聚居区为例，边政调查是学者关注当地历史的契机，李拂一、江应樑和陶云逵均不同程度地关注、参与边政，他们在研究中既共同关注土司与傣族社会结构，又在方法运用上各具特色。学者们依据研究成果对边政问题提出建言，认为现代化是边政的出路所在。学者们既重视多民族的多元文化特征，也始终强调云南在历史上归属、认同于中国整体，在战时应积极现代化、融入现代民族国家建设，体现出对现代中国的国家认同和中华民族一体性的民族认同。
全面抗战时期学者对云南地方史的研究，初步探索了巩固与建设现代统一多民族国家的中国式理论和实践方案。这一过程，既是现代学术向中国边疆地区辐射过程的展现，也是边疆地区历史文化资源参与并推动现代中国统一多民族国家认同构建的具象体现。

During the full-scale War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, in order to preserve the cultural lineage, to support the war of resistance, and to save the country in academic manners, many academic institutions and scholars relocated westward to the interior of the country and carried out researches according to the local conditions; therefore, the frontier studies became a prominent science again. The research and recounting of local history of Yunnan Province, whose special location functions as both the rear and the front line, has gradually become an important part of the southwest frontier studies in order to unite the people, displaying distinct features of academic modernization and transformation in terms of the historical outlook, research objects and research methods. This thesis focuses on the academic investigation and cognitive changes of local elites and scholars who moved to Yunnan during the full-scale War of Resistance on the history of local ethnic groups and the history of border politics in Yunnan, and reveals the special significance of the research on Yunnan’s local history within this period.
Before the War, the Chinese people lacked in-depth knowledge of the history of border affairs and local ethnic history in Yunnan Province. The local elites of Yunnan Province, in compiling local history, emphasized border affairs and favored the study of the Confucian politics and the traditional scholarship of the Qing Dynasty. Depressed by the loss of border areas, they began to have a sense of territorial sovereignty, and pioneered the replacement of the traditional “World” view with the modern concept of the state; but they had not yet completed the transformation of the concept of ethnicity, still upholding the binary opposition of barbarians and Xia as well as the condescension to residents on the border. New intellectuals who received modern academic training, such as Ding Wenjiang, turned out to be the ones who did begin to pay attention to and study the history and culture of Yunnan’s ethnic groups.
After the outbreak of the war, many academic institutions and scholars moved inward to Yunnan Province, and their interactions with local elites not only enlarged the academic community of Yunnan’s local history, but also changed the local academic style. On the one hand, ethnic history became the center of local history research. In terms of specific research content and methodology, the scholars examined the ethnicity of Nanzhao and Dali Kingdom, and refuted the claim of establishing the Nanzhao-Thai ethnicity, so as to encounter the threat of Pan-Thai nationalism caused by Siam’s renaming of Thailand. In addition, they analyzed the historical relationship between the ethnic groups in Yunnan Province and “Han” / “Huaxia”, explored the valuable history and culture of local multi-ethnic groups, and integrated fieldwork, archive, historiography, archaeology, and linguistics into the research methodology. The turn to ethnohistory not only changed the overall understanding of local history in local communities, but also influenced the academic direction of scholars and enriched the content of modern Chinese historiography. On the other hand, the study of local history had always been connected with the issue of frontier policies. Taking the Dai neighborhood as an example, the investigation of frontier policies was an opportunity for scholars to pay attention to local history. Li Fuyi, Jiang Yingliang, and Tao Yunkui all paid attention to and participated in frontier policies to different degrees: they focused on the Tusi regime and the social structure of the Dai, while varied in their academic methodology. Based on their research results, the scholars had made suggestions on the issue of border politics, believing that modernization was the way out for border politics. These scholars not only attached importance to Yunnan’s multi-ethnic and multi-cultural characteristics, but also emphasized that Yunnan belongs to and identifies with China as a whole. They argued that Yunnan should be actively modernized and integrate itself into the construction of a modern Chinese nation-state during the war, demonstrating the national identity of modern China and the unity of the Chinese nation.
The study of Yunnan’s local history during the full-scale War of Resistance explored the Chinese-style theoretical and practical program of constructing a modern unified multi-ethnic state. This process illustrates not only the radiation of modern scholarship to China’s frontier regions, but also the contribution of frontier regions’ historical and cultural resources to the identity construction of a modern unified multi-ethnic state of China.