Ji’an Tang-an Anthropology Study Of A Nanyin Music Club

Based on in-depth fieldwork, this thesis aims to give a detailed analysis, through the perspective of organizational anthropology, about the structure model of Ji’an Tang, which is a representative Nanyin music club in Southern Fujian culture area. As a historical Nanyin music club, Ji’an Tang is always playing an important role in the development of Nanyin music. Viewing Ji’an Tang as a common-interest association, this thesis tries to explore the complicated relationship between Nanyin music with individuals and with club, and then to reveal the complex networks among the members of a common association by interviews of personal life history, further more to quest for how different persons through a link—Nanyin music, could make up a relatively stable group and keep on doing music activities during more than a century. A kind of organizational cultural power that promotes the development of Nanyin has been formed in this process, thus it provides a centralized case and an explanatory framework in the research of the organizational significance of Nanyin clubs in the regional cultural network.This thesis is divided into six chapters, respectively states the significance of the topic, the context of field site—Ji’an Tang, the organizational structure of Ji’an Tang, the internal and external activities of Ji’an Tang, the interpersonal relationship and the power network of Ji’an Tang, the cultural existence of Ji’an Tang. The thesis holds that, as an important cultural link, Nanyin music promotes the constitution of common-interest associations, just like Ji’an Tang. In turn, it is the existence of these common-interest associations who make Nanyin music that represents the regional cultural traditions survived, not swallowed in urbanization and modernization. In conclusion, we should pay more attention at the power of association that is an important phenomenon in our research on inheritance and protection of Nanyin music as a kind of cultural heritage.