Study On Change Of Ethnic Identity In Modern Nationa-State Discourse Taking Phu Thays And Phu Nongs In Banwai Village Of Jinlong As An Example

Based on case-study of ethnic relationships on Thay Nong groups in Banwai village of Jinlong town and perspective of state power, the thesis applied ethnic anthropological theories and methods to make descriptions and analyses on changes of interaction between The Thays and The Nongs in the context of modern states. Change of ethnic identity has been closely related with process of nation-state's modernizations. In contemporary Chinese society, modernity discourse is widespread. The Phu Thays and The Nongs who live in border village of Guangxi are two ethnic groups with different culture, tradition and history. From being clear separations in history to no difference in their relationships today, these two ethnic groups'survival and ideological change must have left deep traces of modern national discourse. At the same time, the inherent cultural awareness of an ethnic group itself is always acting as a rejection power against it. Started from daily experience of the Dai Nong people, this paper first of all described the historical changes on Dai Nong relationships and the identified experience these changes have brought to ethnic group members before and after founding of the states; and then constructed the identity change system of the Dai Nong groups under the countries'new institutional and power arrangements based on the modern producing and living level. At last, it come to the local traditions and described different local knowledge that the Dai and the Nong groups have on their own, and the change forms and characteristics of this local knowledge with the current infiltration of state power.Through research and analysis of this typical case, the dissertation discusses in which way the modern nation-state accepted ethnic groups with cultural specialties into its unified political and economic body by its own discourse interpretations; and in what situations will the local ethnic group members admit or reject these interpretations, thereby reflect to what extent the nation-state will have effect on change of ethnic identity ; and the tenacious nature of ethnic cultures in struggle to adapt. The author believes that national discourses involve in and response to the demands of different ethnic groups'survival needs, it promotes different ethnic groups to cross ethnic boundaries to create a new interactive mode. However, the native ethnic sentiments is an objective rather than an imagination existed, as compromises and struggle of the construction of the state power, ethnic-specific historical narrative and memory appeared in the tendency of inter-generational transmission. As a result of interaction between internal cultural awareness of group members and external national discourse, the complexity of ethnic consciousness will last a long time.