State and Ethnicity in China's Southwest

ISBN-13: 9789004167759 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008 / 346 str.

Xiaolin Guo

Opis

Twentieth century China has seen local societies undergo unprecedented transformations accompanied by a remarkable continuity in state practice. In this path-breaking study of two ethnically different communities, the matrilineal Mosuo and the patrilineal Han, in northwest Yunnan province, the author traces cultural change from a historical perspective in relation to ecology and politics. The treatment of state penetration into local society challenges the conventional binary narrative of state-society and Han-non-Han relations. With its interdisciplinary approach, this book enriches the anthropology of China by framing ethnicity issues in terms of local politics and inter-relationships between levels of government, and at the same time extends the analytical perimeter of the study of the Chinese state to the national periphery.