Mosque On The Island

This dissertation is to investigate the identity of Hui ethnic group in Lingui county, Guangxi province through the case study of temples and workshops(寺坊) community in Jiucun. The previous researches on identity of Hui mostly focus on the angle of ethnic identity, and take religion, region, patriarchal clan, politics and so on as one of the elements or sub-contents under the concept of "ethnic identity". Thus they neglects the phenomenon of the multi-identities of Hui and their interaction. And there is lack of profound anthropological case study on the historical vicissitudes of Hui's identity.This dissertation thinks that identity is a comprehensive system including many levels such as regional identity, religious identity, state identity, national identity, etc. These different levels of the identity would present in different appearances due to different historical periods or social settings. And there are different relationship and influences of the compound and delicate interactions of the identity in different situations. This dissertation tries to surpass the one-track analyzing frame on the study of ethnic identity. It shows the aspects of multi-identities within the system of Hui ethnic identity of Jiucun and their abundant interactions in historical recounts of the long period by the narrative technique in which combining diachronicity and synchronicity together. The main interests in this study are the following: the main identity forces existed and existing in Jiucun, the influence factors of the identity forces, the way Hui in Jiucun expresses and present those forces and the relationship among the multi-identities.The author adopts the visual angle of "multi-identity" based on solid fieldwork. He analyzes the local knowledge of Hui ethnic identity in Jiucun from different levels such as regional identity, religious identity, state identity, national identity, etc. This work not only helps to deepen the study of identity of Hui ethnic group, but also enriches the regional study of Hui in China from the angle of ethnography and helps to understand the structure of "Unity of pluralistic society of Chinese nation". In such theoretical settings, the author puts the identity of Hui in Jiucun to the social vicissitudes since Ming and Qing Dynasties. And he describes the historical prospects of identity vicissitudes from "people who believe in Hui (Islamism)" to "Hui ethnic group" in Jiuxun. The multi-identity of Hui in Jiucun and their interactions are also discussed concerning with his fieldwork.This dissertation constitutes of three sections, namely, introduction, body(6 chapters) and the conclusion.The introduction talks about the origin of this research, the review of the relative documents, the selection of research visual angle, the way of the research method, the aim and meaning of the study, etc. The body of the dissertation includes six chapters which mainly present the identifying process of the Hui in Jiucun.In chapter one——the formation of Shifang(寺坊), the author introduces the community background, memory of ethnic origin, the building of mosque by tracing back the history. Since the building of the mosque in the middle part of the Ming dynasty, Sifang(寺坊) in Jiucun became the cultural "isolated island" surrounded by the big letter Culture of Confucianism for Han people. This cultural "isolated island" is the result of the combination between the regional identity and religious of Hui in Jiucun, and embodies the "opposite-suit" relationship between religious identity and national identity(identity on Confucianism) as well.Chapter two is about patriarchal clan and religion. The author describes such expressions of the clan system as surname, clan genealogy, clan hall, clan fortune, clan head, zou-fen(走坟),hui-zu(会族) to analyze the relationship between "clan rules" and "religious regulations", and thus discusses the relationship between clan identity and religious identity of Hui in Jiucun.Chapter three is "promoting the religion and founding the nation". This chapter records the events about the close collaboration of local government and religious sphere after Pekin Chengda Normal college being moved to Guilin during War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. Those events shows that National Government devoted itself to the foundation of national identity through promoting religious culture. The setting up of Muslim elementary school in Jiucun indicated the conspiracy of the religious identity and national identity.The fourth chapter named declination of religion. The author put much emphasis on the discussion of "nationality identification" in the 1950's, and this event started the transference from the "people who believe in Hui (Islamism)" to "Hui ethnic group" in Jiuxun. The religious identity and national identity were in the state of peaceful coexistence before the year 1958, but after that year, religious identity quitted from the public living sphere in Jiucun.Chapter five is under the name of Hui. The author investigated the influence on the Hui's identity by government policies during the year 1958 to 1978 when traditional religious authority defected. And from this investigation we can see how the Hui in Jiucun interpreted and expressed their own "national identity". And this period is very important in the building of nional identity in Hui of Jiucun. And Hui people in Jiucun get more interest in economics, political, culture by shows that they are Hui.Chapter six named the revivification of religion. After 1989's, the religious activities in Jiucun began to revive. This paper tries to show the revivification of religion through the force of old-man(乡老), the flow of the Imam (阿訇)and the rebuilding of Mosque. And the author discusses the features and the change of identity to reveal the rich and complex identity in Hui ethnic group at present.The conclusion named multi-identity and harmonious though different. The author concludes the transference of Hui to raise the opinion that the identity in Jiucun experiences the process of three states: religious identity being the leading part of multi-identity, interaction of religious identity and national identity, multi-identity centered with national identity. And at last, combining Fei Xiaotong's "Unity of Pluralistic Society of Chinese nation" and Lin Yaohua's theory of equilibrium, the author put forward the opinion of "interaction in Multi-identities" which mainly means that "multi-identity and harmonious though different". And it helped to understand the identity problem of Hui.