Abstract
This chapter focuses on writings by ethnic minority women in China—with special attention to the connection between healing and the vegetal world in the changing social and natural environments in post-socialist China. We examine “Herbs Living in the Body” (2012) by the Tujia writer Chen Danling and “Snow Lotus” (2012) by the Hui writer Mao Mei to articulate how ethnobotanical healing addresses questions of margins and centers in post-socialist China. The chapter explores the ethnobotanical in the distinct ways that it blurs the concept of margins and centers in geopolitical terms. We argue that the ethnobotanical serves as a source of connection among the environmental, corporeal, and spiritual, and is central to processes of physical or spiritual healing.
The authors’ names are arranged alphabetically by last name. The authors contributed equally to the chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
There are fifty-six officially recognized ethnic groups in China, with the Han being the largest group in terms of population and political, economic, and cultural power and influence. “Herbs Living in the Body” and “Snow Lotus” are part of an anthology we started to edit and translate in 2014. It features mostly recent works (poetry, prose, and short stories published between 2012 and 2015) of new, emerging, or established women writers from thirteen ethnic minority groups in China, highlighting those from ethnicities even less visible than those from more noticeable areas, such as Tibet and Taiwan. Altogether, this body of literature gives voice to a panoply of diverse ethnic perspectives on the challenges and opportunities of post-socialist China. We use “post-socialist China” broadly to encompass a range of historical, political, economic, and cultural meanings that have been articulated by historians and theorists of sinology and intellectuals in China since the 1980s. For detailed theoretical discussions of post-socialism, see Dirlik and, also Litzinger.
- 2.
In 1958, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China organized a symposium in Beijing to discuss the task of writing ethnic minority literary history and literature.
- 3.
For a list of the seven books and Blum’s commentary, see “Margins and Centers: A Decade of Publishing on China’s Ethnic Minorities,” The Journal of Asian Studies. 61.4. November 2002.1287.
- 4.
For a detailed discussion of ecomemory, see “(Re)connecting People and the Land: Ecomemory in Environmental Writings by Ethnic Minority Women Writers in China.” English Language Notes. 55. 1–2 Spring/Fall 2017. 135–142.
- 5.
Beginning 1983, the ecological migration program in China has undergone three phases and relocated millions of Chinese residents, mostly in the rural area, to address issues of poverty, degrading environment, deforestation, and imbalanced access to resources. The majority of relocated residents are from ethnic minority groups living in different provinces and ethnic autonomous regions. For the Evenki people, the relocation put the reindeer at risk, as they were used to a specific type of moss in the forest and were sick or died as a result of the relocation. The state government adjusted the migration plan and allowed the Evenki people to herd reindeer in the forest by living in the new settlement location and up in the mountains so they can watch their reindeer.
- 6.
Several American scholars who study ethnic minorities in China have published about the complexity of Chinese ethnic languages and the ambiguity of ethnic groups’ attitudes to Chinese and Han education. See David Bradley “Language Policy for the Yi.” Martin Schonenhal. “Education and Ethnicity among the Liangshan Yi.”
- 7.
Snow lotus, a plant usually seen at over 12,000 feet above the sea level, also grows in Tibet, Qinghai, and Sichuan. It is Saussurea involucrata or saussurea laniceps in Latin and Tagilis in the Uyghur language meaning “king of the plant kingdom.” Because of human-induced disturbances and climate change, the snow lotus has become scarce and is facing threat of extinction.
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Isbister, D., Pu, X., Rachman, S. (2019). Blurred Centers/Margins: Ethnobotanical Healing in Writings by Ethnic Minority Women in China. In: Chang, Cj. (eds) Chinese Environmental Humanities. Chinese Literature and Culture in the World. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18634-0_4
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