Ethnic and Social Minorities in China
A research and book project at MMRC (Completed)
Project description:
My research at the MMRC comprises two parts: a book project on the musical culture of Chinese “floating” migrants and a project focusing on the indigenous peoples being officially registered as ethnic minorities in China. In addition, I conduct field research with migrants from China in Vienna.
“Floating” migrants are a group of domestic, rural-to-urban migrants in modern China. Led by a series of urban-biased policies and the resulting income gap between rural and urban regions, these rural residents left their hometowns, floating in and between the cities in search of better living opportunities. These “floating” migrants have been disadvantaged in Chinese cities because they violate government restrictions on population mobility. They suffer various forms of discrimination in urban contexts for failing to occupy their assigned structural positions in the social system. This book project was developed from my doctoral dissertation research conducted in 2011-2014 with these “floating” migrants. This book project reinterprets the collected materials, along with more recent field observations in Chinese cities, within a freshly structured analytical framework.
Centering around the ethnomusicological concept of minority, this book reveals how power relations and negotiation were embodied in the musical representations of and about these marginalized migrants. This book discloses the intricate interplay between forces, factors, and individual and collective choices embodied in the musical representations of these migrants, as well as the tensions, compromises, and agencies behind each representation. If we see “minority” as individuals and groups at a higher risk of discrimination, as this book project argues, the stereotypical musical representation of these minorities would be a source of such discrimination. Constantly reaching nationwide audiences of millions, state-sponsored musical performances shape public perception of migrants, not through negative portrayals of their behavior but through stereotyped images of their pleasant urban lives and their willingness to make selfless dedications. When most urbanites lacked access to dissenting voices and counterevidence, these mutually consistent representations diverted their attention from the social injustices these migrants endured. At the same time, rock music performances provided an alternative space for nonconformists who were not convinced by or uninterested in participating in state-sponsored musical representations. Although these rock performances have been advertised as rebellious voices from the underclass, they complement rather than challenge official musical representations, channeling people’s desires to act beyond restrictions. Moreover, power relations constantly shift over time and across different settings: a minority group disadvantaged in one environment can be the dominant group enjoying privileges in another; a group making music to resist social discrimination in one place may uphold unjust norms elsewhere. By examining the women’s voices in patriarchal contexts and in the musical practices of “floating” migrants, this book reveals how multiple power relations can intertwine and how the status of minority and majority can coexist within a group and in their musical-making.
In addition to this book manuscript about “floating” migrants that is forthcoming with the mdw Press, I re-examined the ethnographic data I collected with China’s ethnic minorities between 2015 and 2022. This research reveals the construction of ethnic minority music in China and calls for decolonizing or indigenizing the study of China’s music. Between 1950 and 1979, China launched a nationwide Ethnic Identification Project, through which its population was classified into 56 ethnicities. Since then, every Chinese musician, along with their musical practices, has been assigned one of these 56 ethnic identities. However, as my decades of ethnographic research suggest, some of these 56 ethnic groups did not exist before the 20th century. At least 500 groups native to China’s frontier provinces identified themselves as ethnicities according to official criteria in the 1950s, but these culturally disparate indigenous groups were broken down and combined to constitute the newly conceived ethnicities. My research suggests both a re-thinking of these state-determined ethnic categories, the freshly composed ethnic histories, and imposed ethnic cultural attributes, and an embracing of indigenous voices in the study of Chinese music.
Since August 2023, I have been working with migrants from China living in Vienna, whose musical culture has long been overlooked or stereotyped. My research focuses on musical activities that occur in everyday life outside professional spheres and are hidden from public attention. Drawing on the metaphor of “third space” proposed by Edward Soja (1996) and Homi Bhabha (2004), I explore migrants’ musical activities as creative zones where different cultures, identities, and socio-political forces collide and interact to generate new forms of expression and practice. Inspired by minority music studies and urban ethnomusicology, my research explores how migrants from China make their own “micromusics” (evoking Mark Slobin’s [1992] use of the term) in Vienna, a multifarious site hosting multiple musical worlds. It also studies the roles of migrants’ musical practices in transcending existing barriers and social divisions, in enabling communal emotional experiences to build alliances among the migrant population, and in facilitating mutual understanding and respect with locals. This research prepared me to submit the grant application for the Austrian Science Fund’s Principal Investigator Project.
During my three years as a member of the Music and Minorities Research Center, I enjoyed the valuable experience of exchanging research ideas with ethnomusicologists working with minorities in different parts of the world. MMRC colleagues’ research projects with diverse migrant communities inspired me to pay attention to the long-neglected musical practices through which underrepresented migrants from China culturally survive and socially participate in Viennese society. The lively discussion on the interrelation between music, music research, and activism led me to reexamine the data from my previous research and to pay attention to power structures and negotiations in the musical performances of the musicians I have been working with. My research with Chinese ethnic minorities also introduced new aspects to the music and minorities discourse by revealing how “minority” functions as a contested, misleading label in the processes of social positioning and human grouping.
Project lead: Kai Tang
Project duration: October 2022 – September 2025
Funding: Deborah Wong Research and Publication Award der Society for Ethnomusicology, Austrian Science Fund FWF Grant-DOI 10.55776/Z352