Narrating Southern Chinese Minority Nationalities

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-vii

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2. The Chinese Nation and Nationalities as a Process of Collaborative Knowledge Production

   • Guo Wu

   Pages 1-11

3. “Big Family of Fifty-Six Nationalities:” The Chinese Communist Conceptualization of Minzu (1921–1951)

   • Guo Wu

   Pages 13-42

4. Disciplines and Politics: From Malinowski to “People’s Anthropology”

   • Guo Wu

   Pages 43-74

5. Inventing Primitive Society in Chinese Historiography and Ethnology

   • Guo Wu

   Pages 75-102

6. Investigating Southern Minority Nationalities

   • Guo Wu

   Pages 103-137

7. Collaboration and Resistance of Minority Elite: Huang Xianfan’s Struggle

   • Guo Wu

   Pages 139-160

8. Telling Southern Minority Nationalities to the Public

   • Guo Wu

   Pages 161-186

9. Back Matter

   Pages 187-229

   PDF

Based on fieldwork, archival research, and interviews, this book critically examines the building of modern Chinese discourse on a unified yet diverse Chinese nation on various sites of knowledge production. It argues that Chinese ideology on minority nationalities is rooted in modern China's quest for national integration and political authority. However, it also highlights the fact that the complex process of conceptualizing, investigating, classifying, curating, and writing minority history has been fraught with disputes and contradictions. As such, the book offers a timely contribution to the current debate in the fields of twentieth-century Chinese nationalism, minority policy, and anthropological practice.

• Modern Chinese Discourse on Nationalism
• Chinese Ideology on Minority Nationalities
• Ethnic Minorities in Southwest China
• Conceptualization, Investigation and Writing of Minority History
• National Integration and Political Authority

“The book is clearly written, well researched and documented (based on fieldwork, archival research and interviews). This makes Guo Wu’s study a fundamental contribution to historiography on its subject and an enriching reading for both scholars and advanced students of Asian Politics, China Politics and International Relations, in general. … the work is timely in light of some recent events. Here it suffices to refer to the so-called Xinjiang Papers, a 400-page report, possibly leaked from a high level source within the Chinese Communist Party … .” (Barbara Onnis, Asia Maior, asiamaior.org, Vol. 30, 2019)

• Allegheny College, Meadville, USA

  Guo Wu

Guo Wu is Associate Professor of History at Allegheny College, USA. He obtained his PhD in history in 2006 from the State University of New York at Albany and has been teaching at Allegheny College. His publications include one research monograph and multiple articles focusing on late imperial and 20^th century China.

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