Provocative Behavior: Agency and Feuds in Southwest China

Abstract

Enthusiasm for agency in accounting for assertive, provocative behavior may lead to complacent analyses, distracting us from the hard work of confronting anomalous behaviors that challenge received wisdom. Drawing on feud narratives extracted from life history interviews with the Nuosu, an ethnic group in China's southwest, my analysis looks beyond feuding to other institutions in “old” Nuosu society that enabled or fostered a high degree of individual autonomy, evidence for more fluid social relations and far less authoritarianism than the orthodox portrayals of the Nuosu in Chinese ethnology. The Nuosu case may enlighten our understanding of other feuding societies, where the obstreperous personalities attributed to individuals are too often disconnected from descriptions of the smooth unfolding of the feud as lineage solidarity and indigenous leadership come into play.

Hierarchy, Resentment, and Pride: Politics of Identity and Belonging among Mosuo, Yi, and Han in Southwest China

“…Even years after the official end of slavery and slave raids, the Yi were “among the most numerous and most disdained” minorities in Yunnan province (Blum, 2000: 164). 4 Nuosu culture placed strong emphasis on clan and lineage pride, revenge, and, when called for, violent responses to provocations (Bamo, Harrell, and Lunzy, 2007; Hill, 2004). Not surprisingly, Mosuo people continued to harbor deep distrust of their Yi neighbors: many Mosuo thought of Yi people as poor, lazy ox thieves (Chen, 2012: 97).…”