Making a Difference: Bai Identity Construction in Dali

The Bai is one of the 55 ethnic minority groups (shaoshu minzu) officially demarcated in China between the 1950s and 1979. This study analyses the growth of Bai identity since the 1950s and the constructed or imagined difference with other peoples, and how the Bai have embraced the state-granted label, acted on it and experienced it emotionally, practically and politically. This book explores how Bai identities are produced and reproduced in-between the social-historical layerings of Bai/state, Bai/Han and Bai/Yi relationships.