The Story of Yushichang Village

Table Of Contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title
• Copyright
• About the author
• About the book
• This eBook can be cited
• Contents
• Preface: History and Ethnography – Process Study of a Local State
• Ahistorical Anthropology
• Micro and Specific History
• Personal Life History and Ethnography
• A Panoramic View of the “Local State”
• Chapter One: Folk Memory and Historical Construction: Sixty Years Ago
• Migration Routes of the Pumi People
• Historical Evolution
• Early Life
• Chapter Two: Social Reconstruction after the Reform and Opening Up
• Development of Production and Economic Recovery
• Diversification of Life and the Return of Culture
• Intervention of External Forces and Rural Adaptation
• Chapter Three: Social Process and Network: Individual Choices
• The Generation Born Before 1949
• The Generation Born Between 1950s and 1960s
• The Generation Born After the Reform and Opening Up
• Chapter Four: Destiny of the Village: Road and Direction
• Division and Integration of the Village Society
• Cultural Identity and Intersubjectivity
• Different Stakeholders and the Stakes
• Postscript: Life and Text
• Bibliography

Zhu Lingfei

The Story of Yushichang
Village Process and Choices of a Local State,
1949– 2009

Translated by Liu Jing

PETER LANG
New York - Berlin - Bruxelles - Chennai - Lausanne - Oxford

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Zhu, Lingfei, author.

Title: The story of Yushichang Village : process and choices of a local state, 1949-2009 / Zhu Lingfei.

Other titles: Yushichang de gu shi. English

Description: First edition. | New York : Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., [2024] | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2023033538 (print) | LCCN 2023033539 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433177736 (hardback) | ISBN 9781433177743 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433177750 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Yushichang (China)—Ethnic relations. | Pumi (Chinese people)—China—Yushichang. | Lanping Baizu Pumizu Zizhixian (China)—History—20th century.

Classification: LCC DS797.86.Y87 Z4813 2023 (print) | LCC DS797.86.Y87 (ebook) | DDC 951/.35—dc23/eng/20230811

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023033538

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023033539

DOI 10.3726/b16584

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

The German National Library lists this publication in the German National Bibliography; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Cover design by Peter Lang Group AG

ISBN 9781433177736 (hardback)

ISBN 9781433177743 (ebook)

ISBN 9781433177750 (epub)

DOI 10.3726/b16584

Supported by a Grant from the Yunnan University Double First- Class Initiative

© 2024 This edition is an authorized translation from the Chinese language edition

Published by arrangement with Social Sciences Academic Press (China)

All rights reserved

Published by Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York, USA

info@peterlang.com – www.peterlang.com

All rights reserved.

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright.

Any utilization outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution.

This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems.

This publication has been peer reviewed.

About the author

Zhu Lingfei received his PhD in sociology from Nankai University and is now Professor and Researcher at Yunnan University. His main research interests are globalization and ethnic societies, including anthropology of the road, the border, and the study of the sense of community for the Chinese nation.

About the book

Located in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, Yushichang is a typical village of the Pumi ethnic group. With a current population of more than 360, the village has been home to the Pumi people for more than 500 years. Over the first six decades of the People’s Republic of China, Yushichang village has managed to protect both its ecological environment and the Pumi culture. Drawing on a rich trove of oral history and ethnographic studies, this book tries to understand, at both the micro and macro levels, how this population has navigated the tension between tradition and modernity and what resources it might bring to bear to meet future challenges.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Contents

1. Preface: History and Ethnography – Process Study of a Local State
2. Ahistorical Anthropology
3. Micro and Specific History
4. Personal Life History and Ethnography
5. A Panoramic View of the “Local State”
6. Chapter One: Folk Memory and Historical Construction: Sixty Years Ago
7. Migration Routes of the Pumi People
8. Historical Evolution
9. Early Life
10. Chapter Two: Social Reconstruction after the Reform and Opening Up
11. Development of Production and Economic Recovery
12. Diversification of Life and the Return of Culture
13. Intervention of External Forces and Rural Adaptation
14. Chapter Three: Social Process and Network: Individual Choices
15. The Generation Born Before 1949
16. The Generation Born Between 1950s and 1960s
17. The Generation Born After the Reform and Opening Up
18. Chapter Four: Destiny of the Village: Road and Direction
19. Division and Integration of the Village Society
20. Cultural Identity and Intersubjectivity
21. Different Stakeholders and the Stakes
22. Postscript: Life and Text
23. Bibliography

Preface: History and Ethnography – Process Study of a Local State

The year 2009 marked the 60^th anniversary of the founding of People’s Republic of China. Completing a stem-branch cycle, 60 years carry special meaning for Chinese people whose time frame is based on this cycle. At the macro level, China has grown from a country on the brink of collapse into the fourth largest economy in the world, which is bursting with vitality after recovering from evisceration. At the micro level, individuals have gained more living space, choices, rights and entitlements. Changes are still happening, because China is still undergoing a huge and profound transition, but it is also high time for review and reflection. Basically, we can regard these 60 years of change as a diachronic social process. It contains cyclic social interactions and cultural as well as historical changes, taking the forms of competition, both abrupt and gradual changes, conflict and adaptation, control and differentiation, assimilation and so on. All these can be divided into two broad categories, namely historical process and social interaction.

Located in Hexi Township, Lanping Bai and Pumi Autonomous County, Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yushichang is a typical village of the Pumi ethnic group. According to research, the Pumi people have been settled here for more than 500 years, with a current population of more than 360. Despite 60 years of transformation, Yushichang Village has preserved its ecological environment and kept traditional Pumi culture relatively intact. However, changes are inevitably happening, and even at an accelerating pace under the impact of a national culture. This book contains an in-depth field investigation of Yushichang village with a view to provide insights into the journey ethnic minority concentrated areas took in the past 60 years through a microscopic perspective.