The Mongols at China's Edge: History and the Politics of National Unity (Asia/Pacific/Perspectives) - Softcover

Bulag, Uradyn E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0742511448 ISBN 13: 9780742511446

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002

Synopsis

This important study explores the multifaceted Mongol experience in China, past and present. Combining insights from anthropology, history, and postcolonial criticism, Uradyn Bulag avoids romanticizing Mongols either as pacified primitive Other or as gallant resistance fighters. Rather, he portrays them as a people whose communist background and standing in China's northern borderlands has informed their political efforts to harness or confront Chinese nationalistic and political hegemony. Breaking new ground in the study of Chinese and Mongol history and ethnicity, the author offers a fresh interpretation of China viewed from the perspective of its peripheries, and of minority nationalities in relation to the study of Chinese representation and minority self-representation. The author interrogates received wisdom about Chinese and minority nationalism by unraveling the Chinese discourse and practice of 'national unity.' He shows how the discourse was constructed over time through political rituals and sexuality in relation to Mongols and other non-Chinese peoples that hark back to Chinese-Xiongnu confrontations two millennia ago and Manchu conquest in the 17th and 18th centuries. Titular rulers of an autonomous region in which they constitute a minority, Mongols face enormous barriers in building and maintaining a socialist Mongolian nationality and a Mongolian language and culture. Acknowledging these difficulties, Bulag discusses a range of sensitive issues including the imbrication of nation, class, and ethnicity in the context of Mongol-Chinese relations, tensions inherent in writing a postrevolutionary history for a socialist nationality, and the moral dilemma of building a socialist model with Mongol characteristics. Charting the interface between a state-centered multinational Chinese polity and a primordial nationalist multiculturalism that aims to manage minority nationalities as 'cultures,' he explores Mongol ethnopolitical strategies to preserve their heritage.

About this title

About the Author:

Uradyn E. Bulag is associate professor of anthropology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of Nationalism and Hybridity in Mongolia.

Review:

The Mongols at China's Edge will interest readers interested in nationalism, autonomy, Tibet and Xinjiang (by analogy and contrast), China, twentieth-century history, and issues of representation. (Pacific Affairs)

Most valuable for the broad historical perspective it places on modern problems faced by one of China's most visible national minorities. (CHOICE)

An essential read for anyone working on minorities in China, or for that matter in any region. (Central Eurasian Studies Review)

Learned, thoughtful, and beautifully written. (Booknews)

Bulag's passionate, historically-grounded exposition of the complexities of ethnic reconstruction make this book one of the best recent studies of China's ethnic minorities. Through his ethnic lens, he analyses not just Mongols, but the evolution of China's national identity. Anthropologists, historians and many other scholars should incorporate his powerful critique into their teaching and research. (Peter Perdue, Yale University China Quarterly)

This is an insightful detailed study of ethnic identity and nationalism in China. Combining analyses of a wide range of topics, ranging through poetry, sexuality, children's stories, and historiography, Uradyn Bulag takes the reader on a journey through the evolution of Mongolian identity in China and shows how such identities are woven into the fabric of Chinese national identity. (The China Journal)

The book is a welcome addition to the relatively scarce body of literature that seeks to generate greater understanding of history and culture from the Mongols' point of view. (Nationalities Papers)

[This book] is likely to remain a major source both on the Mongols of China and the tortuous process of their absorption into the Chinese nation and may well become a model for studies of other national minorities of China. (Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies)

Old and thorny questions of ethnicity, nation, nationhood, nationality, national minority, national unity, ethinic or national identity, ways of imagery, national iconography and hagiography as weell as morals of ethnic policy receive in this book a vivid and fresh presentation in the mirror of changing luck of the Mongols of China's Inner Mongolia and Qinghai in the twentieth century. (Journal Of The Mongolia Society)

Bulag offers a textured and sophisticated discussion of the Inner Mongol's efforts to affect their own degree of integration and distinction in the People's Republic of China. This book is a significant contribution not only to the field of Chinese Area Studies, but also to the more general literature of political anthropology and cultural geography. (Alexander C. Diener, Pepperdine University)

About this edition

• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0742511448
• ISBN 13: 9780742511446
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320