Capitalization Of Ethnic Culture

The studying object of this paper is the Bai ethnic group in Sangzhi County,Hunan Province.Before the 1950 s,they were known as "Minjia" or " people of Minjia",and from 1950 s to 1984 they were identified locally as the Han or Tujia ethnic group,then in 1984 re-identified and transformed into Bai people.The change of their identity is based on a re-investigation by local,county and provincial authorities in the 1980 s.It is believed that the ancestors of Bai ethnic group in Sangzhi were Bai people from Dali,Yunnan province,finding that many of the current living customs of them are similar to those of the Bai people in Dali,Yunnan.After the transformation,they began to construct their own culture.The author through the field work found that their transformation from "Minjia" to "Bai people" was based on two main reasons.The one was the feelings to their own ethnic origin,and the other was to get rid of being marginalized,which was believed to be a rational choice out of practical interests.Since 1984,they have constructed their own Bai culture to promote their local fame and economic status mainly through the development of tourism,which is an attempt to transform cultural capital into reputation and economic capital.This phenomenon,apparently,is the capitalization of ethnic culture,whose further essence is actually the capitalization of ethnic identity.Without acquiring the "Bai people" identity,the so-called cultural construction would be in vain.Through the case of the Sangzhi Bai ethnic group,we can see that the history of ethnic origin is the key factor in constructing ethnic identity,which is also the premise and important basis for the construction of their own ethnic culture.The ethnic culture construction highlights the identity and transforms cultural capital,which ends up with the development of the ethnic group itself.Therefore,the ethnic identity is closely related to the development of the ethnic group and the ethnic culture that is constructed based on the ethnic identity.