The Shrine, The Ancestral Hall Theater And Social Integration

This dissertation focuses on the description of ancestral temple and its drama ritual in Xia village of Wenzhou, in order to exploring the function of social integration from the village's ancestral temple and temple's drama ritual. In the era of the Reform and Opening-up in China, the rural district is dominated by the modernization on behalf of urbanization and industrialization. De-collectivism, strata polarization, individualism in daily life are usual in our village society. Therefore, it is an important research target to rebuild the social integration in village. According to the case study in Xia village, this dissertation draws the way of traditional cultural performance, in the presence of ancestral temple and its drama ritual, to promote the communal integration of village.According to the revival of ancestral worship and lineage organization in recently years, especially the reconstruction of Chen's ancestral temple and annual temple drama in Xia village, this research takes the operation of the concept of social integration in four dimensions:Effective diffusion and ubiquitous identity of traditional value; collective emotional cohesion; consistent interaction among varied people; influencing the daily life to shape the unified social order. After the fieldwork, I made the conclusion that the traditional cultural performance, in the presence of ancestral temple and its drama ritual cause the limited integration in village. Social integration lies in "ritual site" and some special social strata and groups, rather than the whole village.The innovations of this research may take in several aspects:(1) Compared with previous research, this research gives more attention on the question:whether the modern ancestral temple and temple drama successfully educating traditional and modern values to people, as well as in their daily life to have the effect of social integration.(2) In construction the theoretical framework, this research explores the reflection of social integration in three mutual associated dimension: individual, ritual and village. In conclusion of bilateral evidences from "integration promotion" and "integration failure", I make the final concept of "limited" integration caused by ancestral temple and temple drama. (3) In the discussion of social integration theory applied in the empirical research, this research supplies some consideration and suggestion from three parts:the theoretical level of social integration in empirical research, the complexity of social integration model in Chinese village society, conditional promoting integration of traditional ritual.This research mainly adopts qualitative approach, including the structural interview in village and field observation in the process of drama ritual, with aiding methods such as survey and literature research as well.