The History and Development of De-Swiddening Among the Ersu in Sichuan, China

HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies Volume 34 Number 2 Article 12 December 2014 The History and Development of De-swiddening among the Ersu in Sichuan, China Edwin A. Schmitt The Chinese University of Hong Kong, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya Recommended Citation Schmitt, Edwin A.. 2014. The History and Development of De-swiddening among the Ersu in Sichuan, China. HIMALAYA 34(2). Available at: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol34/iss2/12 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. This Research Article is brought to you for free and open access by the DigitalCommons@Macalester College at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The History and Development of De-swiddening among the Ersu in Sichuan, China Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Bryan Tilt for encouragement to run with the idea of “de-swiddening”. Joseph Bosco provided important initial recommendations for trimming the article. Additional thanks are due to Patricia Howard and Rajindra Puri for inviting me to present this work during their panel at the 13th Congress of the International Society of Ethnobiology. Katia Chirkova also provided a unique opportunity to present a longer version of the paper at CNRS in Paris. As always, Christine Trac provided useful guidance and conversation relevant to the construction of this paper. Thanks are also due to Jeremy Spoon and Bryan Tilt, panel discussants at the 2012 Meeting of the American Anthropological Association which formed this special edition of Himalaya. Many thanks to Mark Turin, Sienna Craig and Georgina Drew for all their support and suggestions to help forge this into an intelligible and readable article. This research article is available in HIMALAYA, the Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies: https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/himalaya/vol34/iss2/12 The History and Development of De-swiddening among the Ersu in Sichuan, China Edwin A. Schmitt The process of coercing or persuading farmers above 2000 meters where swiddening practices to transition from shifting agriculture to more would traditionally take place. sedentary agricultural practices, a process I refer In this paper I plan to show that the policy to as ‘de-swiddening,’ has been well documented itself was part of a historical process of the for many decades. Most often this process takes de-swiddening of various ethnic groups in place in the political context of a state’s attempt Western China. Such a policy did not develop to make an agricultural system more ‘legible,’ as in a vacuum of knowledge but is connected Scott (1998) has aptly described it. to a Chinese understanding of intensified In a more recent context, de-swiddening agriculture. To demonstrate this I show how has actually been taken under the banner of the ethno-agricultural system in an Ersu environmental protection. In both instances, Tibetan community, has been undermined by an institutional bodies which design de-swiddening adherence to the Chinese state’s interpretation policies rarely consider its unintended of ‘scientific agriculture’ over the past 80 years. consequences. In China, to prevent erosion Yet, I also argue that Ersu villagers engage in upland regions of the country, the Ministry directly with these changes as their own desire of Forestry and the Ministry of Agriculture to obtain economic wealth has increased in established the Sloping Land Conversion recent decades. Program (SLCP) in 1998 to pay households not Keywords: swidden, anthropology, Sichuan, Ersu, history. to cut down timber. At the local level, this has effectively created an altitudinal boundary preventing households from cutting any trees HIMALAYA Volume 34, Number 2 | 97 Introduction discourse claims that the Dulong of Yunnan are unable to ‘properly’ manage their natural resources and agricultural In Asia, there are a few foundational scholarly works practices. This has serious implications for the ‘environ- that have examined upland farming systems that utilize mental subjectivity’ of Dulong farmers. The socialization swidden practices (Conklin 1957; Geertz 1963; Cairns 2007; of nature through the agricultural practices of the Ersu Mukul, Byg, and Herbohn Forthcoming), but, with a few Tibetans has been affected by the same discourse which exceptions (Yin 2001; Urgenson 2010; Trac 2013), research has a historical origin in the various guises of the Chinese on this topic in China is quite limited. Swiddening, an state. In this paper, I will explain how a changing political agricultural strategy of rotating fields which are allowed environment over the past 150 years has developed into to go fallow for multiple years (five to 15 years or more), the current standard for agricultural practices among the requiring the cutting and burning of vegetation that dominant Han and how the Ersu coped with this develop- grows during that period, is often misinterpreted as being ment as it was introduced into their community. ecologically damaging to the soil and forest ecology as well as economically inefficient because of the need for long Historically speaking, the socialization of nature2 has been fallow periods (Conklin 1957). Moving beyond the efficien- central to the cultural identity of many of today’s ethnic cy debate (Boserup 1965), recent studies are now more minorities in China’s periphery and contrasts strongly concerned with changes occurring in communities who with the cultural identity of the Han Chinese and their own engage in swidden agriculture as they are influenced by socialization of non-human objects, such as agricultural and integrated within larger socio-political systems (Ellen products. Wang (2009) has documented quite clearly that 1982; Denevan 1992; Heckenberger 2006). Through their Han Chinese often describe highland grain crops and those intrinsic hierarchical nature, states tend to impose a form who consume them as being uncivilized. Such interpre- of legibility on those within their political reach (Scott tations had a direct influence on the local identity of the 1998). Within the context of upland agrarian societies, I Qiang in Beichuan County. One of the key components of consider this imposition of political will by the state over China’s civilizing projects was to promote the idea that the agricultural practices to be called de-swiddening ( Scott agricultural practices of the ‘Western Tribes’ were ‘back- 2009; Schmitt 2011 ). In Western China, de-swiddening is wards’ (Yin 2001), which certainly includes swiddening a historical process that has impacted a variety of cultural systems. In the context of production it was important for groups to different degrees. The purpose of this paper is the modern Chinese state to replace local knowledge in pe- to examine how the process of de-swiddening has devel- ripheral areas with the legibility and standards associated oped in the socio-ecological system of the Ersu Tibetans of with the core’s understanding of how agriculture should Western Sichuan. I will first consider some of the broader be practiced (Scott 1998). As we will see though, the impact historical pressures that led to the eventual de-swiddening of de-swiddening is a historically contextualized negotia- of the Ersu and then how villagers perceive agricultural tion of power within a given community. change in the village up to the present. Overall this is a sto- ry of socio-political processes which drive “frontier land Bamboo Village use changes” (Rindfuss 2007) in Western China, the impli- 3 cations of which crystallize in an ethnographic context. Bamboo Village, the main field site of this research, is located in Asbestos County in Sichuan Province. It is part In Western China, agricultural production processes are of Songlin Township which governs over the highlands influenced by internal and external shifts in social and above the Dadu River that flows through the heart of As- political discourse. Harrell’s rendition of the ‘Han,’ who bestos County.4 Traveling from the Dadu River to Bamboo populate the core regions of China, implementing various Village, one must climb 1,000 m in elevation along the civilizing projects among minority ethnic groups in the pe- Songlin River5 in less than 15 km. The village households riphery, provides a historical spectrum of shifting politics are located along the base of the mountains or at the top of which has influenced concepts of cultural identity in the small rises. The valley floor was typically left to be used as Southwest frontier (1995).1 Here I also recognize that the plowed and furrowed cropland. These fields were primarily use of a common culture, kinship and history by the Han used to grow a mix of corn, potatoes and soybeans. Before was a means of creating an imperialistic or nationalistic the logging ban of 1998 (discussed below), swidden fields unity (Harrell 2001), but I am more concerned with the were located on high ridges above the village. Villagers way Han Chinese hegemonic power altered local knowl- can still denote at least five such areas and say that they edge of agricultural production in recent history. In this would rotate their fields every year, giving each

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