GENDER NARRATIVES AND POLITICS IN THE MONGOLIAN SACRED GRASSLANDS

ended

This anthropological project investigates how sacred sites and connected ritual activities reflect gender narratives and political hierarchy among the Mongols in the People’s Republic of China. To put it another way, what can a monastery or a shamanic grave tell us about the evolution of gender roles and political legitimacy within a local community? For centuries, people have constructed religious sites to benefit from the magical power they are believed to provide. In the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, local people also build and worship at sacred monuments to ensure the fertility of their herds and the well-being of their community. Besides their accredited ritual power, religious sites also offer an accurate overview of the way local societies have been shaping the different social and political norms regulating their everyday lives. By taking religious sites as the starting point, the project explores two intertwined issues. The first analyzes the way gender practices have been narrated and performed throughout the 20th century in order to shed light on changing indigenous interpretations of sex difference and complementarity. The second examines how memorable characters and other mythical ancestors have redefined the political landscape of Inner Mongolia. More precisely, this focuses on how power holders gather and demonstrate authority, respect or allegiance to the administrative political powers. Sitting astride anthropology, gender studies and religious studies, the project combines ethnographic fieldwork with oral and written sources to provide a comprehensive framework of the changing social organization of the Mongols of China in terms of gender and politics. Taking Mongolian societies of China as a case study, this project will also echo contemporary issues topical in other parts of the world: the place of minority groups, relationships between the central state and local societies and gender equality.