Declining Evenki 'Identities': Playing with loyalty in modern and contemporary China

Aurore Dumont (1)

1 GSRL - Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités

Officially recognized as a single ‘ethnic minority’ in the Chinese administrative system, Evenki groups belong to a distinctive geographical and cultural milieu. This case study analyses Evenki expressions of loyalty to state authorities and relation to changing identities in modern and contemporary China. What kinds of ‘loyalties’ did Evenki proffer to their rulers and/or neighbours? How did these flexible loyalties evolve, strengthen, or disappear over the decades? The first section explores how the Evenki’s multiple identities have been shaped over the last two centuries and how their loyalty shifted from one state authority to another and to one or several groups of people. In the second section, the constructed category of Evenki, intertwined with the evolving ‘identity’ formation, will be analysed through the prism of the everyday contemporary practices and discourses witnessed during ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2008 and 2016.

Mots clés: China; Evenki; Identity; Loyalty; Ethnonyms

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie

Aurore Dumont. Declining Evenki 'Identities': Playing with loyalty in modern and contemporary China. History and Anthropology, 2017, Loyalty and Disloyalty on the Russia-China border, 28 (4), pp.515-530. ⟨10.1080/02757206.2017.1351363⟩. ⟨halshs-02520204⟩