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

by Blum, Susan D.

• ISBN13: 9780742500921
• ISBN10: 0742500926
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-12-13
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

Exploring popular notions of ethnic identity in China, Portraits of OPrimitivesO provides the first comprehensive analysis of Han perspectives on minorities. Employing OportraitsO of those ethnic groups perceived as most visibly different, Susan Blum illustrates how the majority Han view other ethnic groups. She traces political, scholarly, and popular concerns with classifying the Han at the pinnacle of modernization and civilization and other ethnic groups as Oprimitive.O The book places questions of identity, alterity, and self in the context of a complex nation-state where ethnicity is a highly politicized topic shaped in part by the official language of national harmony and unity and twentieth-century nation-building. Providing a broad cultural and political context for her nuanced discussion of identity, Susan BlumOs book will be an invaluable guide for those working in China studies, anthropology, and ethnic studies

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