The Dragon King Valley: Popular religion, socialist state, and agrarian society in Shaanbei, north-central China

This dissertation is an ethnographic account of the revival and social organization of a popular religious temple in contemporary rural Shaanbei (northern Shaanxi Province), north-central China. Considered as “feudal superstition,” the Black Dragon King Temple was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Soon after the reform era began in the early 1980s, however, villagers rebuilt the temple, expanded it, and made it into one of the most popular temples in Shaanbei. Based on a total of 18 months of fieldwork, this dissertation presents the story of the Black Dragon Temple as a case of popular religious revival. Three important conditions of possibilities lie behind popular religious revivals in Shaanbei. First, the social organization of popular religious activities replicates the principles and mechanisms of the organization of peasant secular life, which enabled quick revitalization of popular religion even after severe suppression. The temple association is examined as a key folk social institution staging much of Shaanbei folk culture. Second, village-level local activists seize upon temples and temple associations as valuable political, economic, and symbolic resource. The re-appearance of temples as sites of power generation and contestation is accompanied by the emergence of a new kind of local elite. The story of a temple boss and his legitimation strategies illustrates the shifting socio-political terrain in contemporary rural China. Third , shifting priorities compel the local state to regulate and even to profit from popular religion rather than suppress it, thus giving temples space to thrive.