Resources, Environment, Culture And Ethnic Relations

The paper, based the data obtained form the field work and the literature concerned, discusses the changes in the ethnic relations and the factors that may influence the relations between Xibo ethnic groups and Han ethnic group in Aixinsheli town of Xibo Autonomous County, Xinjiang. The theoretical perspectives of the paper are mainly from ethnic-sociology and ecological anthropology, and as the research filed of the author lies in the studies of environment and society within ethnology, more attention is given to the field.The main contents are as follows:The first part of the paper is an introduction, which describes the topic, methodology, and reasons for selecting the field site and a brief introduction to the field work site.In the second part of the paper, a brief description is given to the adaptation strategies of Xibo people in Wuzhu Niulu and Yilaqi Niulu to the natural ecological environment before 1950. The good conditions of the eco-environment of the site were relatively suitable for development of ethnic cultures. It led to the premises practiced by the Xinjiang Xibo people that formed the model of gender role in the family and that developed the conception of stressing farming and belittling business.The third part of the paper discusses the process of Han immigrants in Aixinsheli town for the past 100 years, and this process is believed to have gone through three phases, and it describes the land-reclamation by the first-generation and third-generation Han immigrants and their adaptation to the local eco-environment. The focus is on the features of the sub-culture developed in Henan Street of the town and on the eco-environmental factors concerned the development.In the forth part, a detailed description is given to the situations in which the Xibo-Han ethnic relations changed from "clearly-defined marginalization border"to"multi-dimension interaction"between the Xibo people and Han people in Aixinsheli Town. The discussion based on the description is unfolded in three variables:cultural or action acculturation, social-structural acculturation and inter-ethnic marriage.In the Part five, the author offers an in-depth discussion on the eco-anthropological factors that influence the changes of the ethnic relations between the Xibo and Han people in Aixinsheli Town, and the discussion involves three aspects: "regulation by mini eco-environment, technology improvement and the differences in the land capacity".The author comes to the following three points in the conclusion:first, adaptation to eco-environment is an important factor for the formation and changes of the cultures of an ethnic group; second, the ethnic relations between Xibo and Han people of Aixinsheli Town have changed from "clearly-defined marginalization border"to"multi-dimension interaction", and third, "regulation by mini eco-environment, technology improvement and the differences in the land capacity"are important factors for the changes of the ethnic relations in Aixinsheli Town.The present study is an attempt not only for knowledge-construction on the ethnic relations in China's frontier areas, but also for exploring the possibility of using eco-anthropology in the studies of ethnic relations in Xinjiang. It is assumed that eco-environment factors in Aixinsheli Town function as a"border factor"in understanding the ethnic relations and that they also function as a"boundary". Therefore, the complex impacts of eco-environment, natural resources and resource-use on the formation and development of ethnic relations should not be neglected, and it is believed that in certain conditions, there are multi-dimension and important impacts of these factors on the ethnic relation between small social forms.