Resultados

While achievements have been made in the research of local governance in China, issues still exist. For example, the expression of local governance appears frequently, but there is confusion between local governance, the governance of local government and local autonomy. Moreover, the research in recent years just focuses on Chinese subnational regions and cities where market economy and civil society are more developed. The research of local governance in ethnic and rural communities has just started in the inland, ethnic and poor areas such as in Guizhou province. The deputies play one of their dual roles which is representing the interests of communities. In order to understand the roles that the deputies play in their communities, there is a need to differentiate the types of communities

Liu (1996, pp. 193-194) identifies two types of ethnic communities: nationalistic and primordial. The collective ethnic communities in both types have a strong sense of distinctiveness. The nationalistic type of community enjoys a degree of self-governance before coming under the rule of the Chinese Community Party (CCP) such as the Tibetan community. The Miao community belongs to the primordial type according to Liu. The imperial governments before the Qing Dynasty practiced “a policy of indirect rule” (Oakes, 1997, p. 36) called the chieftain system (Section 3.2 in this chapter), rather than the Miao’s self-governance.

Ma (2009) discusses government policies in guiding ethnic identity in China and recognises two contrasting policies that govern ethnic relations in viewing ethnic groups as political

entities or cultural groups . The policy based on political entities stresses “integrity, political

power and territorial conservation of ethnic groups” and the policy based on cultural groups emphasises the “cultural characteristics of ethnic groups” and as a result, their political

interests are attenuated (Ma, 2009, p. 202). The research of Hoddie (1998) on ethnicity favours the instrumentalist perspective, and he argues that the ethnic identity in China is not fixed and the ethnic identity shifts because:

A number of minority citizens seem to be weighing the potential costs and benefits of minority status based on current government policy. It is only during periods when government policy favours ethnic minorities that there is a substantial shift away from identity with the dominant group (Hoddie, 1998, p. 121).

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Cultural tourism in the ethnic and rural areas may play such a role to increase the ethnic identity because it is promoted as a strategy to invigorate the economy in the ethnic areas by Chinese central government authorities. Following this strategy means that the ethnic areas can obtain resources and funding from central government. “Tourism makes a valuable but often under-rated contribution to freedoms in China as the Government progressively relaxed its restrictions on travel for both international visitors and domestic tourists, an opening that

has been not just physical but psychological and philosophical” (Sofield & Li, 2011, p. 28). According to (H. Q. Zhang, Chong, & Ap, 1999), the roles that the Chinese government has played in tourism development can be examined as operator, regulator, investment stimulator, promoter, coordinator and educator. For example, in the county where the field research was done, the development of cultural tourism is one of the two strategies made by the Party Committee of the County (PCC) and the County People’s Government (CPG), and the other is the development of the tea industry.

In her research on the Miao ethnic tourism in Guizhou, (X. Wu, 2000) points out that cultural tourism “bridges two societies that have a significant cultural, technological, and income gap” (p. 29). In spite of this promise, the lack of a proper strategy for managing the ethnic cultural tourism makes the “disadvantaged society become a victim” (X. Wu, 2000, p. 29). Ethnic communities and their heritages are recognised by both residents and visitors as an attraction

for outsiders in China. However, ethnic groups must “have an awareness and understanding of both the positive and negative impacts of tourism” (X. Wu, 2000, p. 1) in order to sustain their culture and society.

(Henderson, Teck, Ng, & Si-Rong, 2009) argue that ethnicity and its diversified cultural presentations are the major tourism assets. Cultural tourism can be a double-edged sword as it may be used by regimes for social and political control and but may also lead to over- commercialisation and the replacement of authenticity by contrived and artificial cultures. Therefore, (Henderson, et al., 2009, p. 537) call for greater empowerment for China’s ethnic

groups in tourism which assumes “wider political, economic and socio-cultural changes”. Questions of how the ethnic cultural capital (Bourdieu, 2008) influences ethnic political representation and how such cultural capital can be converted into political capital still remain.

The deputies in the field research area have strong links with their traditional cultural heritages and those Miao people who are proficient in certain aspects of Miao culture have more opportunities to be elected as a deputy. Some Miao deputies are elected because they

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are good practitioners of their Miao cultures such as embroidery, hosting Miao rituals, or they can speak Miao dialects very well so that they can assist in establishing good communications between different Miao branches. The deputies have the privilege to arrange and carry out certain development projects. Such political participation influences the local political environment and development intervention and projects of the central authorities. In order to discuss the political and ethnic representation of the deputies, it’s necessary to explain the meaning of several core concepts in Chinese context such as consensual democracy (Section 3.7), development intervention and projects (Section 3.8) in China.

3.7 Core concepts in Chinese local context: consensual democracy, interest groups and