ABSTRACT
Studies of Chinese ethnicity, many of which take postmodern perspectives and present historicist accounts of ethnic identities at various sites, have recently raised doubts about the essence of ethnicity. These accounts usefully disclose the constructed nature of ethnic identity. Hansen, for example, shows that the dominant Han government has assimilated the minorities into their assigned ethnic identities through state education. 1 Gladney further challenges the notion of Han identity from his research on Muslim identities. 2 In Harrell’s introduction to the book he edited, in which authors collectively question the validity of the popular specification of ethnicity, he touches on the mundane implication of these constructions for the production as well as the distribution of resources. 3 Similar deconstruction appears in the writings in Postiglione’s edited volume. 4 In response to hegemonic types of construction, however, I have pointed to room for creative adaptation by those identified in certain ethnic categories. 5 Even the locals themselves engage in sometimes careless, subversive, or constructivist politics of identity.
