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Ethnic by Design: Branding a Buyi (Bouyei) Cultural Landscape in Late-Socialist Southwest China
The UC Berkeley Center for Chinese Studies presents Yu Luo, asking how branding works in contemporary China through looking at the strategies of an ethnic minority in the southwest jockeying for regional and national positioning.
When:
October 7, 2016 4:00pm to 6:00pm
Where
Speaker: Yu Luo, Center for Chinese Studies postdoctoral fellow, 2016-2017, UC Berkeley
China's Worlds Lecture Series
The speaker asks how branding works in contemporary China through looking at the strategies of an ethnic minority in the southwest jockeying for regional and national positioning. Based on 18 months of fieldwork, she will highlight Tai-speaking Buyi (Bouyei) in multiethnic Guizhou Province which treasures minority culture as heritage to battle against its relatively modest level of development. Historically more Sinicized in public perception, Buyi face a conundrum: they are not “exotic” enough. “Ethnic by design” thus captures the conscious fashioning of cultural identity by which Buyi quests for “uniqueness” align with both the language and institutional power of the state as well as new market forces. As Chineseness is being redesigned with energy and ambivalence at this juncture of late-socialism, quotidian productions of Buyi identity by multiple layers of participants reveal subtle negotiation and misrepresentation in juggling the politics of difference.
Sponsor: Center for Chinese Studies (CCS)
Event Contact: ccs@berkeley.edu, 510-643-6321
Cost:
Free and Open to the Public
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