Minorities Report: Indigenous Peoples in Socialist and Post-Socialist China

Recording Link: https://iastate.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=5687ac85-9f49-4ce2-9c50-adc00121f5fd

2021 Phi Beta Kappa Lecture

What are “indigenous peoples” in China, and what are their worlds like? How did the Ming and Qing states manage non-Han indigenous peoples through the native hereditary chieftain system (known as the tusi system)? How did the socialist state create a nation of 56 “nationalities,” and what were its policies towards so-called “minority nationalities”? What is the current state’s stance towards minority ethnic groups, and how is it transforming? This talk attempts to answer these questions.

Dr. Erik Mueggler is a Professor of  Anthropology at the University of Michigan, affiliated with the University’s Center for Chinese Studies and the Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropology and History. His research covers a variety of topics in social and cultural theory, focusing on the politics of ghosts, the history of natural history, and the ritualization of death in the border regions of China.