Festivals and re-ethnicization of China’s Miao migrant community: Culture for network linkage and institutional embeddedness
Asian Education and Development Studies
ISSN: 2046-3162
Article publication date: 17 September 2019
Issue publication date: 6 January 2020
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the efforts of an ethnic Miao migrant worker association to recreate and engage with festivals both in the host society of the Pearl River Delta and back home in Southeastern Guizhou province of Southwest China. It analyzes how and under what conditions the disadvantaged migrant workers collectively demonstrate and assert their cultural identity in festival activities, rekindling and strengthening their ethnic consciousness.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on ethnographic field data, this study focuses on the connections between migrant workers’ lives in modern host societies and their traditional culture back home. Special attention is paid to the temporal dynamics of migrant workers’ cultural identity and socio-economic development.
Findings
The leaders of the Miao migrants’ association created network linkages to channel the flow of labor, capital and culture between the host society and the migrants’ hometown, and made efforts to secure institutional embeddedness at both ends of the flow. Their use of festivals and related heritage as cultural capital has facilitated the cultivation of network linkages and institutional embeddedness for economic advancement and overcoming ethnic prejudices and institutional disadvantages.
Originality/value
By illustrating how the economic development has been imbricated with culture, this research enhances understanding about the role of network linkage and institutional embeddedness in the flow of labor, capital and culture between host society and home place of migrant communities.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This paper is submitted as part of the themed section on “Ethnicity, Ritual and Festivals in Asia” guest edited by Siu-woo Cheung and Oscar Salemink.
The research of this paper was supported by the project “Areas of Excellence (Fifth Round): The Historical Anthropology of Chinese Society” funded by the Hong Kong SAR University Grants Committee. The author is also indebted to the two reviewers of this paper for their insightful suggestions. Of course, all shortcomings remain the author’s own responsibility.
Citation
Cheung, S.-w. (2020), "Festivals and re-ethnicization of China’s Miao migrant community: Culture for network linkage and institutional embeddedness", Asian Education and Development Studies, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEDS-02-2018-0030
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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