Down to Earth

Download or read book Down to Earth written by David Faure and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contributors argue that local society in the Delta was integrated into the Chinese state through a series of changes that involved constant redefinition of lineages, territories, and ethnic identities. The emergence of lineages in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the deployment of deities in local alliances, and the shrewd use of ethnic labels provided terms for a discourse that reified the criteria for membership in Chinese local society. The ideology produced by these developments continued to serve as the norm for the legitimation of power in local society through the Republican period