Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern ChinaChina is a vast nation comprised of hundreds of distinct ethnic communities, each with its own language, history, and culture. Today the government of China recognizes just 56 ethnic nationalities, or minzu, as groups entitled to representation. This controversial new book recounts the history of the most sweeping attempt to sort and categorize the nation's enormous population: the 1954 Ethnic Classification project (minzu shibie). Thomas S. Mullaney draws on recently declassified material and extensive oral histories to describe how the communist government, in power less than a decade, launched this process in ethnically diverse Yunnan. Mullaney shows how the government drew on Republican-era scholarship for conceptual and methodological inspiration as it developed a strategy for identifying minzu and how non-Party-member Chinese ethnologists produced a "scientific" survey that would become the basis for a policy on nationalities. |
Contents
| 1 | |
1 Identity Crisis in Postimperial China | 18 |
2 Ethnicity as Language | 42 |
3 Plausible Communities | 69 |
4 The Consent of the categorized | 92 |
5 Counting to fiftysix | 120 |
Ethnotaxonomy of Yunnan 1951 According to the Yunnan Nationalities Affairs Commission | 137 |
Ethnotaxonomy of Yunnan 1953 According to the Yunnan Nationalities Affairs Commission | 139 |
Other editions - View all
Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China Thomas Mullaney Limited preview - 2011 |
Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China Thomas Mullaney Limited preview - 2011 |
Common terms and phrases
Achang autonym Beijing Buyi cailiao categorization census China Chinese ethnologists Classification Research Team Classification team Communist cultural diaocha Ethnic Classification Project Ethnic Classification Research ethnic groups ethnologists ethnology ethnonyms ethnopolitical ethnotaxonomic Fei Xiaotong fenbu fifty-six fifty-six-minzu model File 78 Fu Maoji Gejiu Guizhou Hani History Ibid identity Index Interview Jingpo Kunming language Liangshan Lin Yaohua linguistic lishi Lisu Luo Changpei Luoluo Manchu Menghua Miao Minjia Minzu chubanshe minzu shibie yanjiuzu minzu wenti minzuxue names Nationalities Affairs Commission Naxi non-Han Nong official political population Province Ethnic Classification Province Nationalities Affairs Qing qingkuang Quanzong question renmin Republican scholars shaoshu minzu sheng minzu shibie shibie yanjiuzu Yunnan Shuitian Southwest China taxonomic team's Tibetan tion Tujia Tulao University Press Wang Xiaoyi Wenshan Woni Xifan Xunwu yanjiu yanjiuzu Yunnan Province Yingjiang YNPA Yongsheng County Yunnan Province Ethnic Yunnan sheng minzu yuyan Zhili Zhongguo Zhonghua minzu zhongyang Zhuang Ziyi