Gender and Hmong Women's Handicrafts in Fenghuang's ‘Tourism Great Leap Forward,’ China
Author(s):
Feng, Xianghong
Format:
Journal article
Citation:
Anthropology Of Work Review, Volume 28, Issue 3 (2007). pp. 17-26.
Language:
English
Abstract:
Fenghuang County in rural Hunan Province started its “Tourism Great Leap Forward” in 2002, when the county government granted a 50-year lease for development rights over eight local major tourist sites to Yellow Dragon Cave Corporation (YDCC) headquartered in Changsha City, the capital of Hunan. Based on ethnographic research in 2002 and 2005–2006, this article explores the sociocultural impacts of Fenghuang's tourism development on local Hmong women's gender roles and their traditional handicrafts. According to the official state development discourse, local Hmong communities' traditional ethnic culture is associated with both poverty and the solution to poverty. Local Hmong women's handicraft practice in the context of tourism is used in this article to illustrate how local people react to this dilemma, and how ethnic minorities and rural residents are being drawn into the widening orbit of contemporary China's neoliberal economic development.