Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China

Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China

Author: Stevan Harrell

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2012-11-20

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0295804076

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Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted in the 1980s and 1990s in southern Sichuan, this pathbreaking study examines the nature of ethnic consciousness and ethnic relations among local communities, focusing on the Nuosu (classified as Yi by the Chinese government), Prmi, Naze, and Han. It argues that even within the same regional social system, ethnic identity is formulated, perceived, and promoted differently by different communities at different times. Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China exemplifies a model in which ethnic consciousness and ethnic relations consist of drawing boundaries between one�s own group and others, crossing those boundaries, and promoting internal unity within a group. Leaders and members of ethnic groups use commonalties and differences in history, culture, and kinship to promote internal unity and to strengthen or cross external boundaries. Superimposed on the structure of competing and cooperating local groups is a state system of ethnic classification and administration; members and leaders of local groups incorporate this system into their own ethnic consciousness, co-opting or resisting it situationally. The heart of the book consists of detailed case studies of three Nuosu village communities, along with studies of Prmi and Naze communities, smaller groups such as the Yala and Nasu, and Han Chinese who live in minority areas. These are followed by a synthesis that compares different configurations of ethnic identity in different communities and discusses the implications of these examples for our understanding of ethnicity and for the near future of China. This lively description and analysis of the region�s complex ethnic identities and relationships constitutes an original and important contribution to the study of ethnic identity. Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China will be of interest to social scientists concerned with issues of ethnicity and state-building.


Lessons in Being Chinese

Lessons in Being Chinese

Author: Mette Halskov Hansen

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0295978090

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This comparative study of the Naxi and Tai minority groups in Southwestern China examines the implementation and reception of state minority education policy. Hansen (Center for Development and the Environment, U. of Oslo) argues that state policy is not uniformly successful among all minorities, no


Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers

Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers

Author: Stevan Harrell

Publisher: Studies on Ethnic Groups in Ch

Published: 2015-09-14

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780295998923

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Open-access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295804088 China's exploitation by Western imperialism is well known, but the imperialist treatment within China of ethnic minorities has been little explored. Around the geographic periphery of China, as well as some of the less accessible parts of the interior, and even in its cities, live a variety of peoples of different origins, languages, ecological adaptations, and cultures. These people have interacted for centuries with the Han Chinese majority, with other minority ethnic groups (minzu), and with non-Chinese, but identification of distinct groups and analysis of their history and relationship to others still are problematic. Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers provides rich material for the comparative study of colonialism and imperialism and for the study of Chinese nation-building. It represents some of the first scholarship on ethnic minorities in China based on direct research since before World War II. This, combined with increasing awareness in the West of the importance of ethnic relations, makes it an especially timely book. It will be of interest to anthopologists, historians, and political scientists, as well as to sinologists.


Communist Multiculturalism

Communist Multiculturalism

Author: Susan K. McCarthy

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 0295989092

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Culture, the nation, and Chinese minority identity -- The Dai, Bai, and Hui in historical perspective -- Dharma and development among the Xishuangbanna Dai -- The Bai and the tradition of modernity -- Authenticity, identity, and tradition among the Hui.


Coming to Terms with the Nation

Coming to Terms with the Nation

Author: Thomas Mullaney

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0520262786

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Studies China's "Ethnic classification project" (minzu shibie) of 1954, conducted in Yunnan province.


Corporate Conquests

Corporate Conquests

Author: Charles Patterson Giersch

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781503611641

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The Muleteers -- Families -- The revolutionaries -- The excluded -- Mining -- The technocrat -- Corporations, the state, and ethnic difference.


Song and Silence

Song and Silence

Author: Sara Leila Margaret Davis

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 0231135270

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In the Sipsongpanna region of China, tourists watch festive displays of Tai Lüe folk song and dance. The Tai Lües are viewed by the Chinese government as a 'model minority'. Sara Davis describes how Tai Lües are reviving and reinventing their culture in ways that contest the official state version.


Perspectives on the Yi of Southwest China

Perspectives on the Yi of Southwest China

Author: Stevan Harrell

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2001-03

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 9780520219892

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This is a varied and wide-ranging collection of essays by Yi and foreign scholars on the history, traditional society, and modern social changes among the 7 million Yi people of Southwest China.


Governing China’s Multiethnic Frontiers

Governing China’s Multiethnic Frontiers

Author: Morris Rossabi

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0295983906

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Leading scholars examine the Chinese government’s administration of its ethnic minority regions, particularly border areas where ethnicity is at times a volatile issue and where separatist movements are feared. Chapters focus on the Muslim Hui, multiethnic southwest China, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, and Tibet. Together these studies provide an overview of government relations with key minority populations, against which one can view evolving dialogues and disputes. Contributors are Gardner Bovington, David Bachman, Uradyn E. Bulag, Melvyn C. Goldstein, Mette Halskov Hansen, Matthew T. Kapstein, and Jonathan Lipman.


Pure and True

Pure and True

Author: David R. Stroup

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2022-02-23

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 0295749849

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The Chinese Communist Party points to the Hui—China’s largest Muslim ethnic group—as a model ethnic minority and touts its harmonious relations with the group as an example of the party’s great success in ethnic politics. The Hui number over ten million, but they lack a common homeland or a distinct language, and have long been partitioned by sect, class, region, and language. Despite these divisions, they still express a common ethnic identity. Why doesn’t conflict plague relationships between the Hui and the state? And how do they navigate their ethnicity in a political climate that is increasingly hostile to Muslims? Pure and True draws on interviews with ordinary urban Hui—cooks, entrepreneurs, imams, students, and retirees—to explore the conduct of ethnic politics within Hui communities in the cities of Jinan, Beijing, Xining, and Yinchuan and between Hui and the Chinese party-state. By examining the ways in which Hui maintain ethnic identity through daily practices, it illuminates China’s management of relations with its religious and ethnic minority communities. It finds that amid state-sponsored urbanization projects and in-country migration, the boundaries of Hui identity are contested primarily among groups of Hui rather than between Hui and the state. As a result, understandings of which daily habits should be considered “proper” or “correct” forms of Hui identity diverge along professional, class, regional, sectarian, and other lines. By channeling contentious politics toward internal boundaries, the state is able to manage ethnic politics and exert control.