Portraits of 'Primitives' Ordering Human Kinds in the Chinese Nation

by Blum, Susan D.

• ISBN13: 9780742500914
• ISBN10: 0742500918
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-12-13
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

Ethnicity is a highly politicized issue in contemporary China. Twentieth-century nation-building has been intimately involved with classification of China's fifty-five ethnic minorities and with fostering harmony and unity among nationalities. Officially sanctioned social science classifies the majority group, the so-called Han, at the pinnacle of modernization and civilization and most other groups as "primitive". In Portraits of "Primitives", Susan D. Blum explores how Han in the city of Kunming, in southwest China, regard ethnic minorities and, by extension, themselves. She sketches "portraits", or cognitive prototypes, of ethnic groups in a variety of contexts, explaining the perceived visibility of each group (which almost never correlates with size of population).

Author Biography

Susan D. Blum is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Notre Dame.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	xi
List of Tables	xiii
Preface	xv
Acknowledgments	xvii
Part I: Ethnicity in Context
Introduction Against Authenticity: Self, Identity, and Nation-Building	3	(14)
Fieldwork in Kunming: Cognitive and Linguistic Anthropological Approaches	17	(32)
Desire for Difference: Cognitive Prototypes of Ethnic Identity	49	(18)
China's Minorities through Han Eyes: A Preliminary Sketch	67	(36)
Part II: Prototypes of Otherness
The Fetishized Ethnic Other: The Dai	103	(18)
Resistant, Disliked Ethnic Others: Wa, Zang, and Hui	121	(22)
Colorful, Harmless Ethnic Others: Naxi and Yi	143	(22)
Almost Us: The Bai Next Door	165	(10)
Conclusion Typification and Identity in a Complex Nation-State	175	(8)
Notes	183	(12)
Glossary	195	(10)
Bibliography	205	(22)
Index	227	(8)
About the Author	235