Autonomy, Ethnicity, and Poverty in Southwestern China

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-iv

   PDF

2. Introduction: Performing Unity

   1. Introduction: Performing Unity

      • Chih-yu Shih

      Pages 1-14

3. Political, Cultural, and Economic Unity

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 15-15

      PDF

   2. The Teleology of the State: Top-down Regional Ethnic Autonomy

      • Chih-yu Shih

      Pages 17-28

   3. Performing Ethnicity: Politics of Representation in Multi-Ethnic Guilin

      • Chih-yu Shih

      Pages 29-39

   4. Silencing the Poor: The Statist-Liberal Incapacity in Western Hunan

      • Chih-yu Shih

      Pages 41-71

4. The State Turned Upside Down

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 73-73

      PDF

   2. The State as a Borderline Identity—Distancing the Jing Ethnicity from Vietnam

      • Chih-yu Shih

      Pages 75-94

   3. Imagined Genealogy: Behind the Cultural Formation of Huishui’s Buyi Nationality

      • Chih-yu Shih

      Pages 95-109

   4. Cement or Excrement? Autonomous Ecological Thinking in Xiaoxi’s Poverty Discourse

      • Chih-yu Shih

      Pages 111-128

5. Out of Place

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 129-129

      PDF

   2. 3 + 1 + 1 = 1: Disempowerment in Multi-ethnic Autonomous Longsheng

      • Chih-yu Shih

      Pages 131-146

   3. Lost Agency for Change: The Diasporic Identity in Yizhou’s Shui Villages

      • Chih-yu Shih

      Pages 147-160

   4. Feeling Poverty: On the Same Side of the Poor in Baise’s Zhuang Villages

      • Chih-yu Shih

      Pages 161-175

6. Riding the Citizenship

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 177-177

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   2. Assimilation into Mulao Consciousness: The Rise of Participatory Rigor in Luocheng

      • Chih-yu Shih

      Pages 179-195

   3. Living with the State: Multiplying Ethnic Yao Narratives in Jinxiu

      • Chih-yu Shih

      Pages 197-213

   4. Learning to Be Rational: Peasants’ Responses to Marketization in Fenghuang

      • Chih-yu Shih

      Pages 215-231

7. Conclusion

   1. Conclusion

      • Chih-yu Shih

      Pages 233-237

8. Back Matter

   Pages 239-268

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The Chinese state reaches out to ethnic communities in three different channels of autonomy, ethnicity, and poverty. However, each of these channels designates a submissive position to ethnic citizenship. Amidst theoretical uncertainty on how the state has affected local communities, ethnic minorities can develop subjectivity. Through this, they can sincerely participate in the state's policy agenda, conveniently incorporate the state into the ethnic identity, give feedback to the state within the framework of official discourse, or hide behind the state to evade ethnic identification. Rather than finding a life outside the state, the ethnic communities can, in one way or another, position themselves inside the state.

• assimilation
• autonomy
• China
• consciousness
• empowerment
• identity
• learning
• politics
• poverty
• state
• development aid

"Shih s fascinating book examines the interplay of the Chinese state and ethnic groups to show a complex relationship of cultural governance and resistance. Drawing on years of fieldwork in South China, Shih charts how ethnic subjectivities take shape with state power, occasionally against it, and often alongside it." - William A. Callahan, Chair of International Politics, University of Manchester and Co-Director of the British Inter-University China Centre

"Chih-yu Shih is a pioneering figure in the study of contemporary Chinese politics. The conceptual innovativeness and empirical richness of his writing has consistently placed his work at the cutting edge of the field. The study of minority nationalities forwarded in this book is sure to further cement such a reputation. Professor Shih convincingly challenges much of the existing conventional wisdom about the contemporary relationship which between minorities and the contemporary Chinese state."

- Allen Carlson, Associate Professor of Government, Cornell University

Chih-yu Shih is a University Chair Professor in the Department of Political Science at National Taiwan University.

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