The University of Sydney
This seminar will be delivered in Mandarin Chinese
4–5.30pm Monday, 19 August 2019
SLC Common Room 536, Brennan MacCallum Building A18, University of Sydney
There are three essential hypotheses about the origin of silk in China: originating in either food, or clothing, or faith. My fieldwork research in White-trousers Yao areas provides a very interesting case strongly supporting the hypothesis: silk originated in faith. The White-trousers Yao is one of the subgroups of the Yao people. With a population of 20,000, this ethnic group mainly distributes in the karst mountain areas of the northwest of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and the south of Guizhou Province. My fieldwork in these areas indicates that silkworms play a very important role in their daily life. In Yao people’s community, the silkworm symbolises the origin of life, the cycle of life, belief in the soul, and so on. It weaves up the web of meanings of their social life.
About the Speaker
Associate Professor Lisong Jiang holds a Ph.D. in ethnology from China Central Minzu University and B.A. in history from Nanjing University, China. He is now an Associate Professor in ethnic minority studies at Southwest University, Chongqing, China. With extensive fieldwork experience in ethnic minority regions in Southwest China, he is now the fieldwork coordinator in the Southwest Research Centre for Ethnic Minority Education and Psychology at Southwest University, China.
More information
Dr Josh Stenberg: josh.stenberg@sydney.edu.au