Worlds in the making

Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie, vol. 23 (2014)

Des mondes en devenir. Interethnicité et production de la différence en Chine du Sud-Ouest / Worlds in the making: Interethnicity and the processes of generating difference in Southwestern China

The image of a monolithic, immobile China is rather antiquated and yet the obvious complexity of this country-cum-continent is now more readily accepted,
if not understood. This special issue address this topic from historical and anthropological perspectives in the hope of contributing to a better understanding of this inner (“ethnic”) diversity that characterizes China today, like yesterday, and especially its southwestern border regions. Several contributors to this volume (David Atwill, Lara Maconi, Patrick Booz) are members of the international research programme entitled “Territories, Communities, and Exchanges in the Sino-Tibetan Kham Borderlands” funded by the European Research Council (ERC, Starting Grant no. 283,870) and coordinated by Stéphane Gros. While this special issue is the result of exchanges within this research project, other colleagues have been invited to contribute to it in order to broaden the scope. Together we have set out to compare a variety of visions and conceptualizations of these regions of China located at the crossroads between Southeast Asia and Tibet, and to provide additional insight and criticism of the analytical categories we use whenever we think Otherness and identity building.

SOMMAIRE / CONTENT

Stéphane Gros – Introduction

CONTRIBUTIONS

David G. Atwill – A Tibetan by Any Other Name: The Case of Muslim Tibetans and Ambiguous Ethno-religious Identities

Stéphane Gros – Devenirs identitaires dans les confins sino-tibétains : contextes et transformations

Edwin Schmitt – The Influence of Inter-ethnic Relations on Historical Shifts in the Value Systems of Agricultural Goods and Practices among the Ersu and Han of Sichuan, China

Sylvie Beaud – La diversité des Han de Yangzong 陽宗 (Yunnan) au prisme des discours sur l’origine du Théâtre de Guan Suo 關索戲

Lara Maconi – Dans les yeux des artistes : visions chinoises de Muli 木里 et du Kham pendant la Seconde guerre sino-japonaise (1937-1945)

Vanessa Frangville – Négocier les identités ethniques dans « Le Projet sur le cinéma non-han » : le cas du micro-film de Yang Rui sur les Wa du Yunnan

RAPPORTS DE RECHERCHE / RESEARCH REPORTS

Tang Yun 汤芸 & Zhang Yuan 张原 – Crossing Borders and Paradigms: the Intermediaries and the Reformation of Anthropology

Patrick Booz – In and Out of Borders: The Beifu 背夫 Tea Porters Encounter Tibet

Valérie Vandenabeele – Le respect de l’environnement naturel des Tibétains du Parc national de Pudacuo 普達措 (Yunnan 雲南) : attribut identitaire ou atout touristique ?

Tami Blumenfield – Resilience in Mountainous Southwest China: Adopting a Socio-Ecological Approach to Community Change

COMPTES RENDUS / BOOK REVIEWS

Charles McKhann – Erik Mueggler, The Paper Road: Archive and Experience in the Botanical Exploration of West China and Tibet

Pascale-Marie Milan – Tenzin Jinba, In the Land of the Eastern Queendom: The Politics of Gender and Ethnicity on the Sino-Tibetan Border

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