Territorial Hierarchy And Festival Communication Practice In The Market Town Society

Shehuo is a kind of collective folk custom which is widely distributed in the rural areas of northwest China.Taking Tumen Town,Gulang County,Wuwei City,Gansu Province as a case study,this paper conducts a folklore study on Shehuo performance organized by villages in the town society,discussed the construction significance of Shehuo to regional spatial order and elucidated the subjective feelings of the people in the activities as a practical way of festival communication.As a material distribution center in the regional society,the market town is also a public cultural space for holding Shehuo performance.Out of the village and together in the town,the Shehuo performance activity contains the territorial hierarchy among the central villages of the town,the surrounding villages,and the marginal villages,and presents the isomorphic relationship between the Shehuo in festival and daily economic exchanges.In the process of "Nao Shehuo" and "Watching Shehuo",the dialogue and communication among individuals,families and villages can be realized,the historical identity of groups and the cultural personality of villages can be fully expressed,and the social order of market town can be consolidated and renewed.This paper consists of six parts.The introduction mainly describes the origin of the topic,the research object,the related research review,the research significance and the research method.The first chapter analyzes the historical and geographical situation of Tumen Town.The migration policy of the Central Plains Dynasty and the opening of the Silk Road made Tumen a military,commercial and cultural town,and Shehuo is an important folklore event carrying local history and culture.The second chapter mainly introduces the Shehuo's tradition of Tumen Town,which mainly includes the organizational performance process and regional characteristics of the Shehuo.The third chapter analyzes the territorial hierarchy presented in the Shehuo performance of market town.As a public space of the regional society,market town not only undertakes the function of material trade,but also a cultural stage for inter-village communication.The central villages of the town,the surrounding villages,and the marginal villages of the market town play different roles in the annual Shehuo performance,and jointly participate in the construction of the hierarchical order of the regional society.The fourth chapter compares and analyzes the cultural connotation and function of Shehuo and temple fairs,and conveys the personal feelings of different individuals as folk custom roles in festival by presenting the discourse practice of festival communication that interweaves individual narration and collective narration.The author finally refers that the essence of Shehuo in the perspective of practical folklore is a national gathering-style festival communication practice that expresses the identity of the relationship between the state and the territorial hierarchy.The conclusion part summarizes,reflects and looks forward to the full text.