Ethnic Identity In Tang China

摘要

Drawing on a rich body of Chinese primary source material, including dynastic histories, gazetteers, memorials to the emperor, poetry and artwork, Marc Abramson provides us with a fresh and interesting idea of how ethnic identity and ethnicity had penetrated deep into all corners of Tang (618-907CE.) discourse and how it heavily influenced Tang society, politics and culture. While cultural change was significant and was often a vector for ethnic change, Abramson seeks to demonstrate that, in Tang society, these two types of change were far from congruent. In Tang China, he proposes that the four fundamental themes that structured ethnic difference - culture, ancestry, the body and politics - were salient throughout the dynasty, and that these themes revealed deep ambiguities among Tang elites about the identity and cohesiveness of the ethnic 'Self and China itself. In general, Abramson argues convincingly that, while previous scholars have generally focused on cultural themes in discussing ethnicity in the Tang, ethnic identity was constructed out of all ongoing discourses (i.e. genealogy, culture, body, and politics), with one or more taking priority at different periods, different levels of society, and different events. The four themes and their associated theories of identity and discursive strategies, as he emphasises, were available throughout the Tang as ideologies in reserve and utilised by a wide range of actors and producers of discourse. Their relationship with social and political events of Tang China was accordingly complex and could be mutually reinforcing.