Religious and Ethnic Revival in a Chinese Minority

Download or read book Religious and Ethnic Revival in a Chinese Minority written by Liang Yongjia and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is based on anthropological fieldwork among the Bai, an ethnic minority with a population of two million in Dali, southwest China. It explores the religious and ethnic revival in the last two decades against a historical background. It explains why and how religions and ethnic identity are revived in contemporary China, with the revived analytical concept of "alterity", which suggests a world beyond here and now. The book focuses on the particular institutions and ritual technologies that seek for access to the invisible, transcendental other—both spatial and temporal. It covers a variety of topics, including pre-modern kingship, modern utopia, religious alterity, ethnic identity, religious associations, the Intangible Cultural Heritage, and temple restorations.