A Case Study Of Ethnic Identity And Identity Construction Of “JiZhao People” In Western Guangdong Province

Located in Tanba Town,Wuchuan City,Guangdong Province,Jizhao Village is a fishing village with long history.The local residents are Han nationality,but they can speak a minority language,namely “Jizhao Dialect”.In the cognition of the local and surrounding residents,they think that this dialect differs from Cantonese,Hokkien,and Hakka that are often used in the southwest of Guangdong.Some villagers claim: “ weare Han nationality who can speak a minority language.” The family name of the entire villager in Jizhao is Yang,and many surrounding villages derive from Jizhao Village.Moreover,villagers in Wuchuan have their own beliefs.In addition to Ancestor Gods,Jizhao villagers also have beliefs in Emperor Liang Wang and the Sea God in China.The beliefs in Jizhao Villager are presented in a complicated and interlaced situation in religion.With the deepening of researches on Jizhao Dialect,academic researchers begins to focus on these unique cultural events.At present,the research on Jizhao Village mainly focuses on the angle of linguistics,and researches on other aspects are seldom studied.In this thesis,the methods of literature research and field visit investigation are adopted to study the ethnic identity and identity construction of “Jizhao People” on the basis of anthropological investigation.The thesis mainly discusses the ethnic identity of Jizhao People from three aspects: language,religious beliefs and patriarchal clan.From the angle of history,it constructs the identity of the Jizhao People and discusses the influence of external factors on their own identity.The whole thesis is divided into six chapters.Firstly,it introduces research background,significance,literature review,research ideas and methods.Secondly,the anthropological investigation of Jizhao Village is intended to provide a reference background for the specific analysis.Then,on the basis of anthropological investigation,the author discusses the ethnic identity of the “Jizhao People” from three aspects: ethnic language,religious beliefs and clan culture.Meanwhile,from the historical point of view,the identity of the Jizhao People is constructed,which is considered to be “descendants of the local minority”,and analyzes the changes and appeals of the identity of the Jizhao People to explore the changes in the own identity of the local ethnic groups under the influence of the outside world.Finally,the thesis makes a conclusion that the ethnic identity of the Jizhao People is based on the blood and geography.Religion and language construction maintains this ethnic identity,and the emergence and development of social groups have strengthened this identity.Inferred fromthe culture of place name,language identity and clan,the Jizhao People are “descendants of the local minority”.The construction of the identity of the Jizhao people is firstly influenced by the outside world and gradually generates spontaneity from the inside,which is a combination of “primordialism” and “instrumentalist approach”.