MYSTIFYING CHINAS SOUTHWEST ETHNIC BORDERLANDS

The Confucian notion of Harmony with difference he er bu tong has great political and cultural resonance in contemporary China which propagates the quest for a pluralist harmony between cultural and ethnic components of society In an attempt to examine a range of responses to this stateenvisioned ideal of accommodating ethnic differences this book analyzes the literary and cultural discourses that surround three minority regions in Southwest China Dali which was once the location of the ancient Nanzhao and Dali Kingdoms the homeland of the matrilineal Mosuo known as the Country of Women and the Tibetan areas associated with utopian ShangriLa This book borrows Foucault39s concept of heterotopia to address the contradictory and often simultaneously existing views of the minority region as rich treasure house of tradition and as intractable barrier to modern development which combine to give rise to productive tensions in scholastic and artistic creations Through reconstituting and performing the myths and legends of or about minority culture the representations of the three places turn into heterotopias which are posed between the mythical and the real in different ways Functioning as a selfreflective mirror they simultaneously offer images of the actual habitats of the ethnic other which have been subject to socialist projects of modernity and become a viable means by which to exert material effects on the real landscape Products of a fascination with alternative social spaces the three mystified lands all contain conceptualizations of harmony be it spiritual genderbased or ecological that are conceivably absent in the imperfect actuality of the Chinese heartland In conclusion these aesthetically constructed spaces of the other negotiate and enrich the discourse of Harmony with difference reacting to ethnic politics in PRC history and creating an audience that grows attentive to the traditions of minorities