Promotional Information

Gender, ethnicity, and nation in China, as seen through an ethnography of the changing cultural production of the Miao, a minority population.

Table of Contents

Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
Part I. Nation / Representation
2 Of Origins and Ethnonyms Contested Histories, Productive Ethnologies
3 Making Minzu: The State, the Category, and the Work
4 Internal Orientalism: Gender and the Popularization of China's Others
5 Reconfiguring the Dominant
Part II. Identity and Cultural Struggle
6 Songs for Sale: Spectacle from the Mao to Market
7 Scribes, Sartorial Acts, and the State: Calling Culture Back
8 Displacing Subalternity: The Mobile Other
9 Performances of Minzu Modernity
10 Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

Louisa Schein is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University.

Reviews

"Minority Rules is breathtaking. Combining sophisticated cultural analysis with sharp attention to political economy, Schein illuminates not only the way the Miao have been constructed historically but how they shape their own identities through cultural performances, whether in state theatre or for tourists."--Lila Abu-Lughod, author of Veiled Sentiments and Writing Women's Worlds "A highly readable exploration of the cultural politics of reform-era China that deserves a broad readership among anthropologists, historians, and those in cultural studies."--Ann Anagnost, author of National Past-Times: Narrative, Representation, and Power in Modern China "Louisa Schein's Minority Rules is an ambitious engagement with the ethnic frontiers of China and the theoretical frontiers of anthropology... an interesting work of interpretative anthropology ... "--Jrnl of the Royal Anthropological Institute, September 2003