Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures
Illustrations of Bai Social Life
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Abbreviations
Chapter One Contextualising the Bai and the Research
Chapter Two The Making of Minzu and its Conceptual Implications
Chapter Three The Politics of Local Scholarly Making of the Bai
Chapter Four Partial Identity and the Different Degrees of Bai-ness
Chapter Five Identity Manifested in Religious Practices
Chapter Six Negotiating Interpretations and Identity-Making in an Annual Social Event: Gua sa na
Chapter Seven Ethnic Identities under the Tourist Gaze
Chapter Eight Becoming Ethnically Distinctive
Glossary
Tables and Figures
Illustrations of Bai Social Life
Appendix 1: Bai Characters on Unearthed Tiles
Appendix 2: Poster for gua sa na west Town, 2005
Appendix 3: Web Sources and Printed Publications for gua sa na stories
Appendix 4: Gua sa na Income in Sunshine Village Temple, 2005
Bibliography

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Few would have expected or comprehended why many Western anthropologistswould find it so difficult to understand the NECP and to reeognise the validity of the NECP for decades on end, however, reasonable their criticisms may appearfrom a Western perspective.）As Wang Mingke （2007b） correctly points out: neither the term minzu developed over history in China nor the anthropological term ethnic group is helpful in understanding the peoples under study. However, the NECPnot only seems to have frozen up minzu or ethnic groups that had beenin fluidity, but also ended up engendering and heightening people's self-awareness （see Harrell 1995a）. To members of any group, the NECP offersmore than official recognition and equal rights, post-NECP categories havebecome handy tools to combat socio-political changes. Most importantly,the NECP provided a basis for subsequent efforts to fill the empty minzucategories with whatever people assume ethnic within a traditionally andpolitically acceptable framework.
The NECP has not only been important to the state and the peopleinvolved, it is also significant, in a theoretical sense, to anthropologists.The implementations of the project and its theoretical implications haveprovided ideal case studies for intellectual, political and social critiques in apost-colonial and post-modem era.
Early English-language publicationson the NECP have been as influential on English scholarship on Chineseminzu as the NECP has been on the Chinese population. Its role in shapingdiscussions of Chinese minzu has caught much attention. The arbitrarynature of the NECP, the role of the state and the political ideology havebeen critically engaged, but some of its conceptual implications have beenscarcely mentioned in the English literature. The following section willintroduce how Western researchers responded to the NECP before discussingthe theoretical concerns of this book.

Preface
In 1999, I became interested in the impact of tourism development on localBai gender roles in the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture （DBAP）,Yunnan,China.0） I had encountered many rural Bai women in downtown Dali wholeft their husbands and children home in order to earn cash. This questionedthe assumed model of social division of labour previously in my mind andin many Chinese publications on the patriarchal Bai society.I wascurious about the newly acquired.
gendered social roles brought in by therapid social economic development after the Reform and Opening-up Policyin 1978 and was eager to explore this aspect of socio-cultural change. After Ilearned more from and about local people, I realised that tourism was only oneof the many causes that had brought about a change in gender roles. Thewomen's strong identification with the officially designated Bai categoryand the way they perceived a distinctive Bai culture captured my attention.As will be unfolded later, I did not understand, since minzu labels and legalBaizu identity are all fixed there in the official documents, why people arestill so sensitive as to whether they are Bai, Yi or Han, and why they keeparticulating their Bai identities seriously on various occasions and invarious ways. I gave up my initial interests and decided to find out whypeople are still so sensitive to the minzu label of official ethnic identitygranted by the state half a century ago.