Han Peoples In Tibetan Area Of Gannan

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the cultural phenomenon of acculturation betweenHan people,which is part of numerious ethnic groups,and Tibetan people,which is one ofChina’s minor ethnic groups,in a long-term contact,providing an exploratory empirical textto innovate the research paradigm of acculturation in anthropological studies. As one of theimportant themes of researches on cultural changes,cultural phenomenon of acculturationhave long been the focus of studies for scholars from anthropology, sociology, cross-culturalpsychology and other disciplines.During the period of disciplinary reconstruction in the1980s, the concept of acculturation was introduced to Chinese academic circles.,yet it hasnot been paid adequate attention to by Chinese anthropologists. In recent years, throughreflections on the field,scholars found that the past acculturation research had deep-rootedideological prejudices and negative stereotypes about the minority ethnic groups. There aretwo reasons concerning why the author of this article chooses to study the Han people inTibetan Area of Gannan. Firstly,including Han people,each ethnic group is inevitablyacculturated by others in Gannan,which is a multi-ethnic society. However, the existingresearch in this area has always neglected the fact that Han people can also beenacculturated into other cultures,and it has mainly concentrated on the phenomenon ofHanization of minorities, which not only potentially signifies the superiority of Han’sculture,but also in a way misleads us to believe that the formation of the so-called Chineseculture is the process of minorities continuously being acculturated into Han’s culture.Secondly, there have already been some some scholars working on the research ofminoritization of Han people,but many of their researches still lack empiricalsupport.Therefore, whether when it comes to the reality of accelerated exchanges betweenethnic groups in China,or the special stage of development in global acculturationresearch,acdemical studies dedicated to the acculturation of Han people has meaningfulvalues. Based on ethnological fieldwork conducted in a river valley in a place dwelled byboth Hans and Tibetans,this article thoroughly introduces and analyzes the history,population and household structure of local Han people. The features of those Hanimmigrants strongly determine their unique living situation,cultural and ehnical self-identity.Then, the author analyzes the motivating factors of acculturation of Han people,respectively from the aspects of immigration mode,economical and ecologicalsystems,visual experience and rite,mutual flusion of cultural system and nationalpolicies.The last chapter is the ethnographic description of acculturation of Han people inGannan, and it is also the key and contribution of this study.