The Han Studies on Ethnic Groups in China
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THE HAN Studies on Ethnic Groups in China Stevan Harrell, Editor THE HAN China’s Diverse Majority agnieszka joniak-lüthi university of washington press | seattle & london © 2015 by the University of Washington Press Printed and bound in the United States of America Composed in Minion Pro, typeface designed by Robert Slimbach 18 17 16 15 5 4 3 2 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. University of Washington Press www.washington.edu/uwpress Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Joniak-Lüthi, Agnieszka. The Han : China’s diverse majority / Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi. pages cm.—(Studies on ethnic groups in China) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-295-99467-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Chinese—Ethnic identity. 2. China—Ethnic relations. I. Title. ds730.j657 2015 305.8951— dc23 2014036408 The paper used in this publication is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48– 1984. ∞ CONTENTS Foreword by Stevan Harrell vii Acknowledgments xi Introduction 3 1 | Narrating “the Han” 19 2 | Contemporary Narratives of Han-ness 44 3 | Topographies of Identity 66 4 | Othering, Exclusion, and Discrimination 90 5 | Fragmented Identities, the Han Minzu, and Ethnicity 115 Epilogue 140 Notes 145 Glossary of Chinese Characters 161 References 167 Index 181 FOREWORD Stevan Harrell Are the Han Chinese in fact an ethnic group, the world’s largest? If so, what makes them an ethnic group, and how are they similar to or differ- ent from others, particularly China’s minority groups, who get the bulk of the attention when the question of ethnicity arises? Can we apply the same concepts and the same kinds of analysis to the 1.2 billion Han that we apply, say, to the 10 million Uyghur of Xinjiang or the 50,000 Mosuo or Na of the Sichuan-Yunnan border? How are the Han as an ethnic group different from the Chinese as a nationality? In what situations do people activate their identity as Han, and in what situations are local, national, or other identities more important? Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi’s The Han: China’s Diverse Majority addresses all these questions and more. Based on interviews in such disparate places as the great metropolises of Shanghai and Beijing, the small, Uyghur-dominated city of Aqsu in southern Xinjiang, and the remote Lugu Lake region on the Sichuan- Yunnan border, Joniak-Lüthi addresses several issues in ways that expand our understanding of what constitutes China and how the Chinese major- ity thinks of itself. First, there is the nature of the Han as an ethnic group. Although other works have addressed the problematic nature of the category Han as offi- cially constituted, none has taken such a close and detailed look at what constitutes Han-ness for individual Han people in varied locations; or vii viii | Foreword taken such an enlightening look at what individual Han people think Han people are like, or at what they think they all have in common as a group. Second, there is the relationship between being Han and being Chinese. Again, there is a lot of theorizing about how Chinese as a national category and Han as an ethnic category relate to each other, but in Joniak-Lüthi’s study we find for the first time detailed examples of what individual Han interviewees in a variety of situations perceive as the relationship between the two identities. Third, there are the internal divisions of the Han. Here, too, there are studies of particular subgroups, such as Hakka, Cantonese, or Subei peo- ple, but not until The Han have we had so clear a picture of the circum- stances in which more local or regional identities, “home-place” identities as Joniak-Lüthi calls them, are more salient and those in which the unity of the Han is the more relevant concept. It is particularly interesting to know that regional stereotypes are pervasive among almost all groups of Han but that at the same time so many people can name characteristics of the Han as a whole. Fourth, there is the relationship between Han and minorities. Although previous works have looked at the ways Han think of minorities, none has so thoroughly examined how Han identity fits into the general picture of ethnic-group identity in China. At a time when minority identities and conflicts between minorities and the state have become increasingly salient for our understanding of China and its politics, we need to pay more attention to the question of what Han identity means for the Han themselves and how conflict between Han and minorities is explained by the nature of Han identity. The Han makes an important contribution to this understanding. Lastly, there is the question of ethnic groups and agency. Since we now know that China is not a totalitarian state where resistance is minimal and state-mandated categories are hegemonic in public discourse, but rather an authoritarian one where there is room to maneuver, even amid political repression and lack of democracy, it is important to know to what degree people accept the state’s idea of how they ought to think of themselves. The answer to this question resounds in The Han: despite all the internal diversity and regional stereotyping, despite all the unofficial categories that supersede “Han” in certain circumstances, almost no one disagrees Foreword | ix that there is such a thing as a Han and that it is an important category of ethnic identity in China. The issues that Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi addresses in The Han are thus complex, salient, and fascinating to any student of ethnic identity, nation- alism, or the relationship between the two. The Han is only the third book in the Studies on Ethnic Groups in China series to address Han identity specifically (the first two are Nicole Constable’s Guest People and Edward Rhoads’s Manchus and Han), and the current volume is the first one to address the topic comprehensively. We are proud to introduce The Han as our nineteenth publication in Studies on Ethnic Groups in China. AcKNOWLEDGMENTS This book would not exist were it not for the support of numerous peo- ple and institutions who have accompanied me between Poland, China, and Switzerland for over ten years. First and foremost, I would like to thank my dear Polish and Swiss families for their love and support and for always standing beside me. It is indeed the greatest luxury to feel this support in everything one does in life. Particularly, I would like to thank Peter, with whom I conducted my fieldwork in China in 1999, who was my research assistant during my field study from 2002 to 2003, and who in the meantime became my husband. As the person most directly affected by my complaints, energy breakdowns, working crises, and all the bad moods and doubts one experiences during writing, he earns a very special thank you. I also would like to thank my friends: I am grateful that we can go through life together, sharing joys and sorrows and never forgetting to have a good laugh. I have also experienced the warm help of tutors, colleagues, and friends at the graduate and postdoctoral level. First of all, I would like to thank Professor Alfred F. Majewicz from the Institute of Oriental Studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań for his supervision and for being fun, open, and motivating. I would additionally like to thank my former colleagues at the Institute of Oriental Studies for the fantastic working atmosphere and time spent together, during and beyond research and xi xii | Acknowledgments teaching matters. I still miss it! Next I would like to thank Professor Liang Deman from Sichuan University, my supervisor during my stay in Chengdu in 2002– 3. Professor Liang welcomed me to her home every week with liters of green tea, and during hours of tutoring she introduced me to the complexity of post-1950s linguistic research in China. Dur- ing my research in Beijing and Shanghai, I was helped enormously by Leszek Sobkowiak, who invited me to stay in his Shanghai apartment and provided me with everything I could possibly need. I also would like to thank Mieke Matthyssen; I was able to fine-tune my research design in her warm, snug flat in the middle of a Manchurian winter when she hosted me over the 2003 Spring Festival in Shenyang. My research was enriched by the useful ideas of a large number of Chinese and foreign colleagues; I express my infinite gratitude to all of these individuals. I also send a big thank you to all of the informants in Beijing and Shanghai who shared their time and energy with me; and to my collaborators and informants in Zuosuo, where I conducted fieldwork in 1999, and in Xinjiang, where I conducted fieldwork from 2011 to 2012. This research greatly informed the ways I analyzed the data in this book. The analysis and write-up of the fieldwork data took place at the Insti- tute of Social Anthropology, University of Bern, Switzerland. There, I was greatly assisted by the helpful comments, motivating ideas, and literature suggestions shared with me by Hans-Rudolf Wicker, Ellen Hertz, Martin Sökefeld, Judith Hangartner, Sue Thüler, and other colleagues. Attending the institute’s weekly colloquium together— and the exchange at a beer afterward— inspired me and gave me new energy to keep working.