ABSTRACT
Ethnic minorities and religion in today’s China are often a headline issue, especially when seen in terms of separatism, human rights, security concerns, and notably the Uyghur, Hui or Tibetan “questions”. For many, these issues have become synonymous with the lived religious experiences of ethnic minorities in China. Some very real concerns have arisen with respect to the regionally and ethnically specific religious histories of China’s 56 “ethnic groups”, or minzu (Ch. 民族), which are vastly diverse across the country. Much like their compatriots among the Han majority, China’s ethnic minorities shape their religious knowledge and practice in concert with the limitations imposed on them by the Chinese state. But the ethnic minorities, who are officially considered to be “small nationalities” (Ch. shaoshu minzu 少数民族) in China, often build up inter-ethnic and sometimes international relations that promote their own forms of religious and ethnic life through scholarship, tourism and political networks (Harrell and Li 2003). As Koen Wellens suggests, those minzu who reside in their own nationality autonomous counties may benefit from the intersection between the “Regional National Autonomy Law (RNAL) (Minzu quyu zizhi fa)” and “the local autonomous regulations (zizhi tiaoli) that it produces” (2009: 435). Taken together, the legalities of ethnic autonomy in China should give minorities “an implicit right to the practice of religion” even as religious life unfolds as “the product of a public discourse of larger tolerance of religious practices among recognised minority nationalities, a grey zone between laws and regulations governing religion and de facto ‘ethnic autonomy’” (Wellens 2009: 435). In this chapter, I discuss several important themes that show how China’s ethnic minorities may shape their religious knowledge and practice in locally specific ways that carve out a unique social space for themselves. I suggest that China’s minorities produce and present their religious lives as being distinct from the popular religious practices of the Han majority and the religious lifeways of yet other minorities across the country. After briefly addressing the familiar issues of separatism and human rights, I turn to discuss some other pivotal factors that underpin the diverse modes of religious life among China’s minorities.
