To learn more about the variegated work of the Kunming group dealing with cultural diversity, cultural assets, poverty and resettlement, visit the Paper Archive and read the groups proposals.

The Yunnan (China) group felt that research on issues relating to ethnicity in relation to national borders and sovereignty would be politically sensitive, and also difficult for Chinese nationals to conduct cross-border research. Thus we selected a set of topics that relate to the above themes based on two understandings: (1) the main presence of the state in Yunnan is in the form of a 'developmental state'; (2) CBIK and its partner institutions are socially engaged actors. It is on the basis of these two premises that the research topics and case studies have been chosen.

The 'Developmental State': a historical review

The historical origins of 'the Chinese nation' (zhonghua minzu) has been extensively researched, though many divergent opinions exist. 'Chinese-ness' has also become the focus of much research in the context of historical emigration, and the more recent growth of China's position in the global economy. Studies of communities of Chinese origin in different parts of the world show many interesting new configurations of ethnic and local identities in relation to nations, citizenship and culture. Within China, there are also many different ethnic groups. Issues concerning the identification of ethnic groups ("national minorities") in China have been previously researched by both Western and (more recently) Chinese scholars. It is widely recognized among both Western and Chinese scholars that the state's process of ethnic identification in the early 1950s was heavily influenced by the needs of the newly forming state and its Stalinist conception of ethnicity (see e.g. volumes by Steven Harrell). One interesting conclusion that might be drawn from this literature is that the identities of different ethnic groups have been formed in close relation to the formation and transformation of the nation state, and through the process of the state extending its administrative control to remote areas.

While there is still much room for researching vernacular identifications and their contrast with state identifications among many ethnic groups of Yunnan, CBIK feels that this issue has already been highlighted sufficiently in the existing literature, and further work that avoids political sensitivity would thus be of limited value to scholarship at large and to CBIK and its counterparts. Thus, in considering potential research topics, CBIK has sought to develop a perspective on 'official' and 'vernacular' identifications that fits sufficiently well within official discourses, and yet allows room for critical perspectives on issues of identity in Yunnan in ways that are constructive. In seeking this perspective, the role and identity of the state as a 'developmental state' is seen as crucial. Since the 1950s, the Chinese state has clearly identified itself as a developmental state. In the 1950s, inequalities that were identified as systemic blockages to socio-economic development were identified and eradicated. Collectives and communes were formed with the specific goals of releasing productive forces by bringing them into the public (as opposed to private) realm. In the 1950s, a well-known slogan was that China should strive "to overtake Britain and catch up with America". Along with institutional reforms, ideological movements were seen as playing a crucial part in molding the people in ways better suited to the great tasks ahead. Following the ideological excesses and institutional collapse during the Cultural Revolution, in 1978 the Central Government explicitly redirected the focus of mobilization efforts towards 'modernization'. This new direction was accompanied by an explicit focus on 'getting rich', and with the exception of two political movements in the early 1980s, ideological mobilization became closely related to this goal of wealth generation. A clear example of this is the "Material and Spiritual Civilization Construction' movement, which aims to create the ideological conditions for improvements in material living conditions. The Chinese economic reform designer, Mr. Deng Xiaoping said that "Development is a fundamental principle". In the 1990s, as Chinese society has become more complex, it has become increasingly clear that state legitimacy is seen as resting on the ability of the Communist Party to deliver improvements in living standards. In 1999, Chairman Jiang Zemin formulated this into an explicit party-state strategy known as the 'Three Representatives' which is currently compulsory reading for all Party and government cadres. Given living memories of the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and the striking change in living standards that began in the early 1980s, the force of an ideology that focuses on improvements in living standards as opposed to other communist ideals is felt by almost all citizens. In Yunnan, this focus on wealth generation has led to the creation of several local policy strategies and specific practices on the part of the provincial government. During the second half of the 1990s, the provincial government created nine poverty alleviation programs covering the work of major departments, such as health, agriculture, forestry, science and technology and so on. This brought the achievement of 'poverty alleviation' targets into the assessment of the performance of many government departments at each level. Following the rapid development of Yunnan's tourism industry in the 1980s and 1990s, a second strategy was to set the goal of creating Yunnan into a "Great Cultural Province" in order to create a unique market niche for Yunnan's tourism industry. In practice, this has focused on identifying cultural assets, such as ethnic minority clothing, handicrafts, song and dance etc, packaging them as commercializable products and supporting the development of related enterprises. A third strategy has been to set the goal of making Yunnan into a "Green Economy Province", in order to take advantage of Yunnan's potential comparative advantage in bio-resources. Again, this has involved bio-prospecting and development of bio-resource processing enterprises. There is policy support for identifying medicinal and other plants of Yunnan's ethnic minorities in order to serve the economic goals of government and enterprises.

Thus, we see that the Party and state in Yunnan is increasingly presenting itself as a 'developmental state' or 'development frontier' in the national strategy for "Developing the West" recently. This 'developmental state' differs from others in that there is an explicit awareness that the legitimacy of the state depends on its ability to deliver 'poverty alleviation' and 'wealth generation' to the people. In this context, discourses of inclusion in the state focus less on issues of ethnic identity or citizenship per se, and more on the participation of the people in socio-economic development, and improvements in material living conditions in particular. With the development of the recent strategies mentioned above, the inclusion of Yunnan's 25 ethnic minorities in the polity has been increasingly pursued through practices associated with poverty alleviation, tourism development and bio-resource exploitation. Given this broad context, CBIK has chosen a set of topics that relate to the overall themes for the CRN research on the understanding that the most influential identification processes in Yunnan in recent years have been those associated with the discourses of the 'developmental state'. CBIK too has been participating in surveys, research and planning exercises on behalf of the provincial government, and has thus been participating in, being shaped by and helping shape discourses in these fields. Recent work of CBIK has included a set of case studies on "threats to biodiversity" for the Provincial Planning Commission, a set of local planning exercises aiming to enhance local livelihoods and biodiversity conservation for the Provincial Planning Commission and the Asian Development Bank, policy review and institutional capacity analysis for the Yunnan Environmental Development Program funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) of the British Government, and convening an international congress on the links between cultures and biodiversity that led to the presentation of an advocacy document, 'the Yunnan Initiative'. We see the CRN research project as an opportunity to examine the processes of identification taking place in the fields in which CBIK is involved, as a way to promote reflection within CBIK and among its counterparts on the roles that scholars and social activists have been playing. Through basic research on these issues, we hope to enhance CBIK's position as an actor that supports local communities in appropriate ways.