Book: The Mongols at China's Edge: History and the Politics of National Unity (World Social Change S.) Uradyn E. Bulag

The Mongols at China's Edge: History and the Politics of National Unity (World Social Change S.) Uradyn E. Bulag

Product Details:
* Paperback 288 pages (April 28, 2002)
* Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
* ISBN: 0742511448

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Synopsis
An exploration of the multifaceted Mongol experience in China, past and present. Combining insights from anthropology, history and postcolonial criticism, Uradyn Bulag avoids romanticising Mongols either as a pacified primitive Other or as gallant resistance fighters. Rather, he portrays them as a people whose communist background and standing in China's northern borderlands has informed their political efforts to harness or confront Chinese nationalistic and political hegemony. In this study of Chinese and Mongol history and ethnicity, the author seeks to offer a fresh interpretation of China viewed from the perspective of its peripheries. The author interrogates much received wisdom about Chinese and minority nationalism by unravelling the genealogy of the Chinese discourse of "national unity", constructed through political rituals and sexuality in relation to Mongols and other non-Han peoples. Titular rulers of an autonomous region in which they constitute a minority, Mongols face enormous barriers in building and maintaining a socialist Mongolian nationality and Mongolian language and culture. Acknowledging these difficulties, Bulag discusses a range of sensitive issues including the imbrication of nation, class and ethnicity in the context of Mongol-Chinese relations, tensions inherent in writing a post-revolutionary history for a socialist nationality, and the moral dilemma of building a socialist model with Mongol characteristics. Charting the interface between a state-centred multinational Chinese polity and a primordial nationalist multiculturalism that aims to manage minority nationalities as "cultures", he explores Mongol ethnopolitical strategies to preserve their heritage.