Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China

Thomas Mullaney

Published by University of California Press 2010

Coming to Terms with the Nation

Ethnic Classification in Modern China

Thomas Mullaney

Volume 18 in the series Asia: Local Studies / Global Themes

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520947634

Overview
Contents

About this book

China is a vast nation comprised of hundreds of distinct ethnic communities, each with its own language, history, and culture. Today the government of China recognizes just 56 ethnic nationalities, or minzu, as groups entitled to representation. This controversial new book recounts the history of the most sweeping attempt to sort and categorize the nation's enormous population: the 1954 Ethnic Classification project (minzu shibie). Thomas S. Mullaney draws on recently declassified material and extensive oral histories to describe how the communist government, in power less than a decade, launched this process in ethnically diverse Yunnan. Mullaney shows how the government drew on Republican-era scholarship for conceptual and methodological inspiration as it developed a strategy for identifying minzu and how non-Party-member Chinese ethnologists produced a "scientific" survey that would become the basis for a policy on nationalities.

Author / Editor information

Mullaney Thomas :

Thomas S. Mullaney is Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
List of Tables Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Foreword Publicly Available Download PDF	xv
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xxi
introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. identity Crisis in Postimperial China Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	18
2. Ethnicity as Language Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
3. Plausible Communities Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	69
4. The Consent of the Categorized Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	92
5. Counting to Fifty-six Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	120
Conclusion: A history of the Future Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
Appendix A: Ethnotaxonomy of Yunnan, 1951, According to the Yunnan Nationalities Affairs Commission Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
Appendix B: Ethnotaxonomy of Yunnan, 1953, According to the Yunnan Nationalities Affairs Commission Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Appendix C: Minzu Entries, 1953–1954 Census, by Population Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	142
Appendix D: Classification Squads, Phases One and Two Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Appendix E: Population Sizes of Groups Researched during Phase One and Phase Two Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
Character Glossary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages
- Main content: 256

eBook

Published: November 4, 2010
ISBN: 9780520947634