Review of 'The Han' in 'China Review International', by Yu Luo

This paper focuses on the majority population in the People’s Republic of China—the Han—and their various collective identities. The Han play a pivotal role in consolidating the Chinese territory and the multiethnic Chinese nation. Therefore, the governments in the twentieth century have invested substantial efforts in promoting a unitary Han identity. In spite of that, powerful local identities related to native place, occupation, and family histories persist. This essay traces these identities and analyzes their intertwinement. Further, it discusses the question of ethnicity of both the Han and local identity categories, and concludes that while Han enact ethnicity in their relations to other minzu, local identity categories are more social than ethnic. It further posits that moments of confrontation, “degree” of ethnicity, scales of categorization, and relationality of identities are notions that should be given particular attention in the studies of ethnicity in China and elsewhere.

This article draws on ethnographic material collected in Yangzong county of Yunnan, a province well known for its ethnic diversity. It deals with how the members of this peripheral Han population are categorised by others and by themselves in relation to minority groups and notions of Chinese identity. The specificity of the Han of Yangzong is framed by an ongoing tension between two contrasting points of view: they appear both as a local ethnic minority among others, and, notably by means of ritualised theatrical representations, as the legitimate representatives of the national majority. The Han people of Yunnan, who represent two-thirds of the province’s population, have been largely ignored by contemporary research. However, this study sheds light on the necessary interplay of different levels of identity and asserts the understanding of the category of ‘Han’ as perceived by the Chinese State as well as by the local people.

中央研究院近史所集刊

Studies of ethnicity have been beset with a contradiction between searching for the universal truth and a desire to transcend it. The truth, it has been asserted, is that everyone in the world has an ethnic identity by virtue of group relationships, and ethnic identity always has the potential to become violent, increasingly so as human groups have come to interact more closely. Studies of ethnicity have tried to overcome such Hobbsian "truth" by denouncing ethnic bigotry and jingoism, frowning upon ethnic discrimination, and blaming the state for inventing ethnic groups, including giving them formal definition and institutional expression. We are now told that ethnicity ought to be ethical, nonantagonistic, that ethnic groups ought to be mutually supportive and live in harmony, because they all belong to the same humanity. With the "truth" firmly established to be negative, as a lethal "problem," studies of ethnicity have now taken on a new mission to promote interethnic cooperation, hospitality, or tolerance. An extreme version of the mission, driven by a radical cosmopolitan vision, sees no value whatsoever in ethnic or even national identity.

The China Quarterly, 2018

Asian Ethnicity

Critical Sociology, 2024

When the concept of ‘internal colonialism’ has been applied to China, it has often been focused on the plight of ethnic minorities. The political and cultural subordination of non-Mandarin Han groups, however, has drawn little attention. We argue that critical Han studies, by posing a challenge to the state ideology of Han ethnic unitarism, provides a theoretical arsenal capable of broadening the application of the internal colonialism framework to the study of non-Mandarin Han groups and regions in China. To provide empirical support for our argument, we examine ethno-geographic representation among Chinese political elites. We find an internal heterogeneity and ethnic hierarchy between different Han groups who have integrated into the political ruling class of China, which is dominated by the Mandarins, to various extents: the Wu people of Shanghai and Zhejiang represent the top layer of the hierarchy; the Xiang of Hunan, the Hokkien of Fujian, and the Gan of Jiangxi constitute the intermediate layer; and the Cantonese and the Teochew of Guangdong belong to the bottom layer. These findings provide the basis for our discussion of internal colonization in China with a specific focus on Guangdong and Hong Kong.

Greater Liangshan is one of the few regions of China where, among 70–80% of Nuosu, the Han are a minority. Instead of the much more common phenomenon of 'Hanification,' here we can observe Han absorbing traits of other ethnic groups. Based on two seasons of fieldwork combined with historical texts and previous ethnographic research, this paper discusses this phenomenon, raising issues of ethnic identity and the influence of local circumstances on interethnic relations. Throughout the paper, it becomes clear that there is no simple dichotomy between Han and Nuosu, but that the situation is considerably more complex. The Nuosu fall into several castes, and the Han settlers had two different experiences. Some were captured as slaves and tried to become fully Nuosu. Ethnic relations in the Greater Liangshan are thus highly complex and require more research to be thoroughly understood.

Journal of Chinese Current Affairs, 2022

In recent years, a small but growing body of scholarly work has emerged on the Hanfu movement in China. Researchers have drawn attention to globalisation, westernisation, national lifestyles, and development, the renaissance of Chinese culture, Han racism, Han ethnocentrism and xenophobia as drivers for the movement. In this article, we suggest that of all the extant literature that currently exists on the movement, the ethnography conducted by Kevin Carrico is the most accurate portrayal of the movement as it stands. However, and drawing upon visual and interview-based fieldwork with members of the movement in 2013 and 2015, our main argument is that existing scholarship has not attended to several nuances in the movement that problematise ideas of race, the way the movement views the recent past and the othering of Manchurian subjects. Unpacking these problematics, this study advances upon existing scholarship: 1) by drawing attention to the way Hanfu enthusiasts demonstrate a great deal of reflexivity