Study On Exploitation Of Oral Archives Of Yunnan Ethnic Minorities

Yunnan, as a province in the border region, is characterized by its largest number of ethnic minorities, unique ethnic groups, and cross-border ethnic groups. There are25minority ethnic groups with each one’s population being over5,000in the province. There are15unique ethnic groups and16cross-border ethnic groups in the province.In the long process of historical development as well as in their production and life practices, the ethnic minorities in Yunnan have made important and irreplaceable contributions to the cultural diversity of their country and the world. They created rich and unique cultural heritages including their languages, music, dances, folklore, customs, religious beliefs, ethnic medicines and anecdotes, which are important parts of the Chinese culture. But with fast economic and social development propelled by globalization and modernization, the values of all ethnic groups in border areas become diversified and their traditional cultures have greatly changed. As a result, the cultural and ecological environment in which the traditional cultures of the ethnic minorities exist and develop has tremendously changed, and especially some oral culture heritages are dying out, which makes it challenging and difficult to protect and inherit the traditional cultures of Yunnan ethnic minorities. Therefore, if there’s no timely protection, many valuable traditional ethnic cultures might become extinct.Oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities are data deserving to be preserved by the government or society in forms of text, sound or video collected with standard methods by interviewing informants familiar with cultural heritages of the ethnic minorities, participants or witnesses of the significant historical events, important historical figures, for the needs to protect and utilize Yunnan ethnic cultural heritages or to record, verify major historical events. The oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities are important parts of the state general archives, vital information resources about the history of the ethnic minorities, first-hand materials for the study of the languages, history, livelihood, customs, religious beliefs of the ethnic minorities, and important bases for making policies for and promoting economic and social development in ethnic regions. From the perspective of the "group memory, oral inheriting" feature of the ethnic culture, the oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities are undoubtedly important means for protecting the cultural heritages of the ethnic minorities.Oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities bear important values and roles in many aspects, but their archival values tend to be hidden. Only when they are utilized can their potential values become real. Thus, it is the fundamental responsibility of the archive departments to encourage the development of archive information resources in order to make extensive use of the resources and ultimately transform the resources into social productivity to get economic and social benefits, which is the final purpose of development and utilization of the archives. But unfortunately, the current academic research achievements rarely involve in systematic development and utilization of Yunnan ethnic oral archives. To a certain extent, it hinders the practices of exploiting such oral archives. Therefore, this dissertation, titled "Study of Exploitation of Oral Archives of Yunnan Ethnic Minorities", reviews the research results on oral archives, recalls the history of protecting the cultural heritages of the ethnic minorities, summarizes the achievements in utilizing the oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities, and discusses the principles, modes and measures for exploiting the oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities after analyzing the existing problems.This paper consists of seven parts as follows.Ⅰ. To discuss the paper’s research background, status, significances, considerations, methods and innovations.Ⅱ. To define the research object of the article----the oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities, according to the oral data, oral history, oral archives, concept of an archive of the ethnic minorities, and analyzes the types and characteristics of the oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities.Ⅲ. To explore the values and roles of the oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities. These oral archives are of significant values in the fields of history, culture, science, economy and education, and play roles of making up the lack of historical records, rescuing and preserving historical and cultural heritages of the ethnic minorities, providing raw materials for historical and cultural studies of the ethnic minorities, providing references and bases for making ethnic affairs policies, providing intellectual support for economic and social development in ethnic regions, providing teaching materials for traditional ethnic education, and providing vivid materials and museum collections for folk literary and artistic creation, so on and so forth.Ⅳ. To review the history of preservation of oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities. The review focuses on four large-scale surveys or censuses, involving all ethnic minorities in all regions of China. The oral archives collected through these surveys and censuses have laid a solid foundation for development and utilization of the oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities.Ⅴ. To analyze the meanings and significances of exploiting the oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities. The author analyses the subject and object, task and purpose of exploiting the oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities. Exploitation of these oral archives is of important significances in achieving the values of the archives, protecting and spreading the cultures of Yunnan ethnic minorities, promoting ethnic solidarity and social cohesion, and enhancing economic and cultural development of Yunnan ethnic minorities.Ⅵ. To analyze the current situation of exploiting the oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities. Since the establishment of People’s Republic of China, some achievements have been made in archive collecting, research result publishing, promoting of the development of the ethnic cultural tourism industry, the culture industry and the ethnic medicine industry in Yunnan. However, there are still many difficulties and problems such as weakness of people’s awareness, insufficiency of theory research, limitedness of research result forms, inadequateness of exploitation depth and scope, and shortage of all-round professionals, so that more efforts are expected to rescue, protect and exploit the oral archives.VII. According to the characteristics of ethnic oral archives in Yunnan and the findings on principles of development and utilization of the archive information resources, this paper puts forward the overall planning principle, the originality-innovation equilibrium principle, the demand principle, the prudence principle, the benefit principle, and the protecting-while-utilizing principle. The author also proposes a three-combination mode for exploiting the ethnic oral archives in Yunnan:combination of traditional and modern ways of development, combination of non-profit and commercial development, and combination of independent and joint development. Based on the analysis of the achievements and existing problems in exploiting the oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities while taking into consideration the current situation of the ethnic cultural tourism industry and the culture industry, this paper puts forward some measures for utilizing the oral archives of Yunnan ethnic minorities:to improve the culture-owners’ self-awareness and the awareness to exploit the oral archives, to establish the long-term mechanism for developing and utilizing the oral archives, to strengthen the development of archive resources, archive-related professionals and computerized archives, to develop archive information resources, catering to the needs of Yunnan ethnic cultural tourism industry and the culture industry as well as the needs of the international exchanges and cooperation.