Foreign "miao" Collection And Research

In this paper, the researcher used "Miao Album" to refer to albums which were compiled in Qing Dynasty (or Ming Dynasty), and were about ethnic groups in southwest China .Some other albums, originating far from the southwest region, with images of minorities as content , should also be assigned to the "Miao Album" list in a wider sense. These albums used to be called as "Miao albums", "Miau albums ",or "Miao-tze Albums" in West works. Considering that the albums reflected geographical and ethnic diversity, the researcher suggested to use "Qian Miao Album", "Dian Yi Album," "Chu Miao Album ", "Qiong Li Album ", "Tai Fan Album " and so on, as classification. In our study, "Miao Album" is a valuable national cultural heritage, which provides great image data for the study of Chinese history, culture and art.From the beginning of the nineteenth century, a number of western government officials, missionaries, explorers, businessmen, academics, etc, with different purpose ,began to collect "Miao Album" extensively, which caused many valuable and rare albums brought overseas, and mainly stored by museums, libraries, research institutions and individuals in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the United States, Italy and other countries. "Miao Album " ,as a part of the documents about Chinese civilization they took back, was integrated into the development of Western sinology and Chinese study. In contemporary time, with the development of the humanities and exchange of ideas, disciplines or methods, western schools such as art history, cultural anthropology, etc, have taken great interest in "Miao Album", and a certain number of representative researcher and works have arisen.Firstly, the research recorded as many as the collections of "Miao Album" abroad, and compared them with those of our country. Secondly, the research outlined the progress of foreign research on "Miao Album", introducing and exploring different methods and works of history, anthropology, etc. Thirdly, based on the achievement of Chinese and foreign study, the research tried to explore the representation of "Miao Album" and it's values under the context of Chinese history and culture. Fourthly, according to the perspective of cultural criticism, the research made reflection on foreign research of "Miao Album" and put forward criticism on the "colonialism" theory and the "other" theoretic perspective.The researchers used some methods to carry out studies, such as collecting, reorganizing, translating information of different editions overseas, analyzing and interpreting values of the "Miao Album" according to representation theory, carrying on field investigation of ethnic groups in Yunnan Province who had been depicted in some "Dian Yi Albums", conducting a comparative study on editions and methodology in our country and abroad.The innovation of this research is as follows:First, the research gave an introduction of foreign collections and studies comprehensively and systematically for the first time. Second, the research suggested that although the albums might have some effect on each other ,it had been testified that those of different regions had unique styles ,so they should be classified as "Qian Miao Album ", " Dian Yi Alblum " etc. Third , the research tried to trace the personality history of two authors: Hechanggeng and Zhaojiuzhou, who complied Albums stored in Britain and Germany, so that it could provide reliable basis for exploring some origin and values of "Dian Yi Album". Fourth, by making an investigation in Yunnan Province, the research established a link between "Miao Album" as history ethnography and field survey as modern ethnography. Fifth, through reviewing the western studies on "Miao Album", the research pointed out that when western scholars dealt with the relationship among the "Miao Album", it's author and the reader, they might ignore the historical-cultural background of China and it's social tradition, so their interpretation lacked Chinese historical dimension. Their theses on "colonialism" and their points of view of taking the "non-Han" ethnic groups as "the other ", might be based on "western-center" ideology, which resulted in the differences of their interpretation. The researcher stressed that "Miao Album" originated from multi-culture unity and should not be dissevered, the "other" must be integrated in one unity.