Ethnic Classification Writ Large

Abstract

Like other forms of state-led demographic enterprises, the PRC-era Ethnic Classification Project, or minzu shibie, was an inventive process of social engineering, not simply an attempt at neutrally reflecting primordial qualities of the non-Han social sphere. The engineering of the categories depended upon three main factors. First, it required a particular form of taxonomic enthusiasm — a “will to classify” — committed to the division of the non-Han social realm into mutually exclusive categories of identity. Second, it required a taxonomic methodology with which to undertake this division. Finally, it required the power necessary to calibrate the social world with newly formed theoretical categories — to make these new categories “stick” at the local level.

The first two of these factors were holdovers from the Republican period, whereas the final factor was something unique to the PRC. PRC researchers inherited a distinct brand of nation-statist, taxonomic enthusiasm from their Republican predecessors, as well as a selection of potent taxonomic methods — linguistics-based ethnic categorization being the most significant. Consequently, the classificatory schema produced by PRC researchers bore the distinct imprint of taxonomic work advanced by scholars in the 1930s and 1940s. Despite this unmistakable Republican pedigree, the Ethnic Classification Project would not have been possible without the unprecedented participation and power of the newly centralized Communist state.