Since the Chinese Communists took control of Inner Mongolia, very little has been written about that region, the vast steppeland of northern China. This book charts the recent history of the pastoral Mongolian minority there. It examines the effects of five decades of social engineering by the Chinese state, and explores the role of economic forms, ritual, symbolism, and ideology in the transformations and continuities of life on the inner Mongolian steppe.

Changing Inner Mongolia: Pastoral Mongolian Society and the Chinese State (Oxford Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology)

Politics & Social Sciences

Sneath, David

Social Sciences

Oxford University Press

In this groundbreaking work, social anthropologist David Sneath aggressively dispels the myths surrounding the history of steppe societies and proposes a new understanding of the nature and formation of the state. Since the colonial era, representations of Inner Asia have been dominated by images of fierce nomads organized into clans and tribes―but as Sneath reveals, these representations have no sound basis in historical fact. Rather, they are the product of nineteenth-century evolutionist social theory, which saw kinship as the organizing principle in a nonstate society. Sneath argues that aristocratic power and statelike processes of administration were the true organizers of life on the steppe. Rethinking the traditional dichotomy between state and nonstate societies, Sneath conceives of a "headless state" in which a configuration of statelike power was formed by the horizontal relations among power holders and was reproduced with or without an overarching ruler or central "head." In other words, almost all of the operations of state power existed at the local level, virtually independent of central bureaucratic authority. Sneath's research gives rise to an alternative picture of steppe life in which aristocrats determined the size, scale, and degree of centralization of political power. His history of the region shows no clear distinction between a highly centralized, stratified "state" society and an egalitarian, kin-based "tribal" society. Drawing on his extensive anthropological fieldwork in the region, Sneath persuasively challenges the legitimacy of the tribal model, which continues to distort scholarship on the history of Inner Asia.

The Headless State: Aristocratic Orders, Kinship Society, and Misrepresentations of Nomadic Inner Asia

History

Asia

Columbia University Press

The vast steppe region of Inner Asia is historically dominated by Mongol culture, Buddhist-shamanist religion and an economy based on mobile pastoralism. Now, as its constituent states China, Russia and Mongolia adapt to market conditions, this long-standing cultural economic zone is seen to be facing more radical change than at any previous time in its past."

The End of Nomadism?: Society, State and the Environment in Inner Asia

Humphrey, University Lecturer in Social Anthropology and Fellow Caroline

Global Oriental

The vast steppe region of Inner Asia is historically dominated by Mongol culture, Buddhist-shamanist religion and an economy based on mobile pastoralism. Now, as its constituent states - China, Russia and Mongolia - adapt to market conditions, this long-standing cultural economic zone is seen to be facing more radical change than at any previous time in its past.

This book explores the historical and contemporary processes that have made and remade Mongolia as it is today: the construction of ethnic and national cultures, the transformations of political economy and a 'nomadic' pastoralism, and the revitalisation of a religious and cosmological heritage that has led to new forms of post-socialist politics. Widely published as an expert in the field, David Sneath offers a fresh perspective into a region often seen as mysterious to the West.

Mongolia Remade: Post-socialist National Culture, Political Economy, and Cosmopolitics (North East Asian Studies)

Amsterdam University Press

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Books by Sneath, David

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sneath, David. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Changing Inner Mongolia: Pastoral Mongolian Society and the Chinese State (Oxford Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology)

The Headless State: Aristocratic Orders, Kinship Society, and Misrepresentations of Nomadic Inner Asia

The End of Nomadism?: Society, State and the Environment in Inner Asia

The End of Nomadism?: Society, State and the Environment in Inner Asia

Mongolia Remade: Post-socialist National Culture, Political Economy, and Cosmopolitics (North East Asian Studies)