Born And Bred:An Anthropological Interpretation Of The Human-Land Relationship

The human-land relationship is a complicated and ceaseless topic.People simply cannot disconnect from the land.Without the support of the land,mankind cannot survive.Land cannot be separated from people,while the use and protection of land must involve humanity;people and land are intimately related.However,with the rapid development and process of global industrial modernization,environmental pollution and energy crises have become more and more serious.How to correctly handle the relationship between humankind and the lands on which we live,and how to continue to effectively develop our economies while protecting the environment and preserving a sustainable ecology,have become a core and common focus of many people.Eco-cultural researchers believe that small-scale indigenous societies have richer,more practical environmental knowledge,having accumulated experiences and lessons after living in close contact with the environment since time immemorial.The Zhuang people live in the Baipeng area of Liujiang,Guangxi province.They use an ingenuity of production and life experiences passed on over generations to make full use of their valuable lands,in order to maximize benefits for the people.This paper looks at the change of crops as a starting point.Taking Baipeng Town of Liujiang as an example,using anthropological methods of in-depth interviews,participant observation,a literature review and other research methods,this research situates the context of crop changes in the Baipeng area and discusses the relationship between local farmers' development,the utilization of land resources,and the development of the local economy.This paper attempts to provide a useful reference for land use and conservation by analyzing the changes experienced as Baipeng people shift from planting rice to planting lotus roots.It also provides an empirical anthropological model for the rational development andutilization of resources,and the continuous development of local economies.This dissertation includes the introduction,the main body and the conclusion.It is divided into five parts.The first is the introduction which explains the origin of the research,its purpose and meaning.It also presents research ideas and methods,and the related research status.The second part introduces a basic overview of the survey points,including the natural environment,social environment and other content,helping readers form a more holistic cognition regarding the cultural ecology of Baipeng Town.The third part begins with a discussion and presentation of “solid products crops” and describes the history of cultivating crops,as well as the influence of time and space in taking crops as a core feature of in Zhuang people's modes of production and life.It also explores the folk beliefs of farming culture produced by planting rice,revealing the importance of the land in the material and spiritual needs of Baipeng people.The fourth part is about the recent development of lotus roots in Baipeng.Using cultural ecology as a theoretical basis,and through a comparative analysis,this section illustrates the inevitability and necessity of this crop change.The fifth section looks at "solid producing lotus" through a description of the development of lotus root cultivation and tourism.Taking the Lotus Festival as a core example,it shows that local people fully explore their readily available natural resources as well as local social and culture changes resulting from changes of livelihood.The final section is the conclusion which summarizes the Baipeng people's use of natural resources and the land.Baipeng people give full play to their subjective initiative in developing the local lotus root industry.While exploiting the land fully,they do not forget to protect them to finally achieve an ideal model of harmonious development in the human-land relationship.