Vanishing Worlds: Globalization and Local Change in Two Bai Fishing Villages in Yunnan, China

• In Event: Narrating Globalization

Abstract

China's rapid development since the early 80s and the recent explosion of domestic tourism have transformed rural landscapes and traditional ways of life among Yunnan's national minorities. There is a wealth of recent scholarship on minority culture and identity, and historical events are well documented. But there is still much we don't know about the meaning of this history, how local people understand it, what they bring to it, and how they shape it from the ground up. In China, where apparently everything happens from the top down, this study starts from a different perspective, using the tools of oral history to document the other end of the process, putting the voices of individual villagers at the center.

The project focuses on a lake and two villages in the Dali Bai Nationality Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan, one a cormorant fishing village, the other a small island. Neither village has any farmland; fishing and the lake are central to villagers' livelihood, identity and culture. I have been doing fieldwork in the area since 2007, observing the rapid change from year to year, talking with villagers and recording oral history interviews. The presentation will include video and still photos.

These start as stories of loss, the extinction of “intangible cultural heritage” and a way of life, then develop into something more complex, stories of resilience and creative adaptation in the context of modernization.

Author

• Alison Baker, Independent Scholar