The Ethnic Identity Study Of Bumang-Dai In Jinping County

An important result of China’s ethnic identification that happened in the1950s and1960s is that more than400ethnic groups reported their own ethnic names to the government. Then they were integrated and classified into56nationalities who have real political and economic rights. Bumang people, living in Jinping County of Yunnan province, is one of the400ethnic groups. The ethnic identifying team thought that their ethnic origin is related more to Blang people, but considering of the situation that they communicated and integrated with their Dai neighbor more often in history, and for Bumang people’s long-term development, finally the Bumang were classified as Dai nationality.This thesis chose the Bumang-Dai who live in Jinping county as a case to analyze their ethnicity and ethnic identification from three aspects:the identifying work’s influence on Bumang people’s ethnic identity, psychologically they don’t agree with the nation’s classification,, and their self-adjusting of their ethnic identification in the context of China’s56nationalities. The Bumang people are trying to prove that as one of China’s56nationalities, they are unique because they are not only different from ethnic groups which are characterized by blood and lineage, but also different from nations which are emphasized to share the coincident cultural boundaries and political boundaries.Before the nationality identification, Bumang people had their own classification of themselves and others, and there were clear boundaries between themselves and other different groups. However, the government classified both Bumang and the white-Dai into Dai minority, thus the original ethnic boundary was broken. In the meantime, the Bumang people know that the classification of56nationalities was confirmed by the government legally and politically, and it will not be changed easily. Although psychologically Bumang people do not accept the identification, they still try to understand it in their own way. Furthermore, since China’s reform and opening up, there is more and more communication between originally isolated minority regions and local ethnic groups, and the Bumang become more and more acceptable to the government’s classification. So, it seems that there is a possibility that Bumang people will accept their new Dai identity finally.