State discourses, minority policies, and the politics of identity in the Lijiang Naxi people's autonomous county

Invoking a panethnicity theory approach to understanding identity formation processes among PRC minorities, this article examines how individual members of the Naxi 'minority nationality' of the Lijiang basin in southwest China's Yunnan Province construct their identities in the context of the contemporary post‐Mao era. In particular, the article traces out the variable ways in which Lijiang‐basin Naxi of a variety of statuses position themselves ‐ within their own society, with respect to the several other 'nationalities' (minzu) with whom they co‐reside, and with respect to Han Chinese culture in both the Yunnan context and in the context of the larger PRC society.