Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MONGOL-GNP (GENDER NARRATIVES AND POLITICS IN THE MONGOLIAN SACRED GRASSLANDS)
Reporting period: 2020-08-01 to 2022-07-31
For centuries, people have constructed religious sites in order to benefit from the magical power they are believed to provide. In the grasslands of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the People’s Republic of China, indigenous people build and worship at sacred monuments to ensure, among other things, the fertility of their herds and the well-being of their community. Besides their accredited ritual power, these holy places also offer an accurate overview of the way local societies have been shaping the different social and political norms regulating their everyday lives.
Sitting astride social anthropology, gender studies, and religious studies, the overall objective of the present research is to provide a comprehensive framework of the changing social organization of the Mongols of China from the beginning of the 20th century to the present in terms of gender and politics. This project combines ethnographic fieldwork in Inner Mongolia with oral and written sources to explore 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 power holders gather and demonstrate authority, respect, or allegiance to administrative political power.
Taking the Mongolian societies of China as a case study, this project also raises larger questions: what can a religious site tell us about the evolution of gender roles and political legitimacy in a given community? How have men and women adapted their social norms and religious values while living through changing political regimes? This research also echoes contemporary issues topical in other parts of the world: the place of minority groups within authoritarian states, relationships between the central state and local societies, and gender equality.
Sitting astride social anthropology, gender studies, and religious studies, the overall objective of the present research is to provide a comprehensive framework of the changing social organization of the Mongols of China from the beginning of the 20th century to the present in terms of gender and politics. This project combines ethnographic fieldwork in Inner Mongolia with oral and written sources to explore 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 power holders gather and demonstrate authority, respect, or allegiance to administrative political power.
Taking the Mongolian societies of China as a case study, this project also raises larger questions: what can a religious site tell us about the evolution of gender roles and political legitimacy in a given community? How have men and women adapted their social norms and religious values while living through changing political regimes? This research also echoes contemporary issues topical in other parts of the world: the place of minority groups within authoritarian states, relationships between the central state and local societies, and gender equality.
My methodological approach was initially to combine participant observation in the field (Inner Mongolia) together with written sources. However, my research has been heavily affected by the Covid pandemic and the shutdown of China’s borders for many years. I thus had to rethink my methodology to pursue my research without doing in situ fieldwork. I have decided to give priority to archival work (WP1) and to the treatment of data (WP3) already collected during previous fieldwork conducted between 2016 and 2019. Furthermore, I have also integrated online research into my methodology, in particular the WeChat platform, an online Chinese sharing tool that I learnt to use as a digital foundation for conducting research on ritual practices.
During WPI, I compiled a literature review on the topic of religious and gender studies in the Mongolian cultural world and in northern Asia, worked on several primary written sources in Chinese and Mongolian (some of these sources were previously collected during fieldwork but not analyzed) related to the topic of religious sites, and examined photographs taken in the 1930s. This archival preliminary work was done in parallel to data treatment and online ethnography.
During WP4 (research part devoted to gender narratives) and WP5 (research part devoted to political hierarchy), I mainly worked towards the writing up and publication of my research. I published three articles in peer-reviewed journals and two chapters in edited volumes. During the two years of my Marie Skłodowska-Curie individual fellowship, I engaged in communication activities (WP6), mainly consisting in the presentation of my ongoing research during international conferences and workshops. I organized one international conference in Paris in 2020 and one panel at Chug-Ang University in Korea (online) in 2022. In 2021, I presented three papers during international conferences held at the Musuem d’histoire naturelle in Paris, the University of Tartu (online), and the Czech Academy of Sciences (online), as well as eight papers at workshops held in different universities and research centres in France. As part of my dissemination activities, I gave a class on the topic on the traditional Mongolian way of life in primary schools in 2020, participated in a radio programme, and presented at a consultative workshop for the United Nations on the topic of "Indigenous peoples and the right to freedom of religion or belief” in 2022. Finally, I also had the opportunity to teach two postgraduate courses (“Religions and Rituals in the Mongolian World”) at Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales and at the University of Paris in 2021 and 2022.
During WPI, I compiled a literature review on the topic of religious and gender studies in the Mongolian cultural world and in northern Asia, worked on several primary written sources in Chinese and Mongolian (some of these sources were previously collected during fieldwork but not analyzed) related to the topic of religious sites, and examined photographs taken in the 1930s. This archival preliminary work was done in parallel to data treatment and online ethnography.
During WP4 (research part devoted to gender narratives) and WP5 (research part devoted to political hierarchy), I mainly worked towards the writing up and publication of my research. I published three articles in peer-reviewed journals and two chapters in edited volumes. During the two years of my Marie Skłodowska-Curie individual fellowship, I engaged in communication activities (WP6), mainly consisting in the presentation of my ongoing research during international conferences and workshops. I organized one international conference in Paris in 2020 and one panel at Chug-Ang University in Korea (online) in 2022. In 2021, I presented three papers during international conferences held at the Musuem d’histoire naturelle in Paris, the University of Tartu (online), and the Czech Academy of Sciences (online), as well as eight papers at workshops held in different universities and research centres in France. As part of my dissemination activities, I gave a class on the topic on the traditional Mongolian way of life in primary schools in 2020, participated in a radio programme, and presented at a consultative workshop for the United Nations on the topic of "Indigenous peoples and the right to freedom of religion or belief” in 2022. Finally, I also had the opportunity to teach two postgraduate courses (“Religions and Rituals in the Mongolian World”) at Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales and at the University of Paris in 2021 and 2022.
One innovative aspect of my research was to consider religious sites as both gender and political markers and to “fill the gap” with a study combining religion, gender, and politics as inseparable and intertwined analytical tools. The preliminary results of my research show that religious monuments are constitutive of beliefs, practices, and actions that reflect an emic understanding of Mongol social organization.
A large part of my research has been devoted to mountain-top cairns (oboo) and shaman burial sites (shindan). I have first shown that by tracing back the history of an oboo and a shindan, one can determine the patrilineal ascendance of a given clan, its relationship to the administrative authorities, and thus the status of male clan members in the territory’s political hierarchy. Besides being a support for local history, I have also demonstrated that narratives and worship at religious sites highlight a sense of belonging to a homeland while simultaneously supporting a process of ethnic differentiation. Finally, I have shown that in the context of tourism development, local people may take advantage of cultural heritage politics to promote their own sacred monuments and their belonging to a distinct community.
Another part of my research dedicated to gender practices is still ongoing. Some preliminary results already show that by exploring the roles attributed to men and women during religious ceremonies, we can see that gender categorization and norms at sacred sites actually echo social organization in the domestic sphere. When I am able to go back to China for fieldwork, I will investigate more accurately notions of “female power” and “male strength” to show that both sexes are complementary during ritual actions. Indeed, I believe that while men symbolically energize the spirits with their strength, women reinforce the actions of men by infusing them with vital power. Through this analysis, I will sketch the evolution of the status of women in Mongolian society in China.
A large part of my research has been devoted to mountain-top cairns (oboo) and shaman burial sites (shindan). I have first shown that by tracing back the history of an oboo and a shindan, one can determine the patrilineal ascendance of a given clan, its relationship to the administrative authorities, and thus the status of male clan members in the territory’s political hierarchy. Besides being a support for local history, I have also demonstrated that narratives and worship at religious sites highlight a sense of belonging to a homeland while simultaneously supporting a process of ethnic differentiation. Finally, I have shown that in the context of tourism development, local people may take advantage of cultural heritage politics to promote their own sacred monuments and their belonging to a distinct community.
Another part of my research dedicated to gender practices is still ongoing. Some preliminary results already show that by exploring the roles attributed to men and women during religious ceremonies, we can see that gender categorization and norms at sacred sites actually echo social organization in the domestic sphere. When I am able to go back to China for fieldwork, I will investigate more accurately notions of “female power” and “male strength” to show that both sexes are complementary during ritual actions. Indeed, I believe that while men symbolically energize the spirits with their strength, women reinforce the actions of men by infusing them with vital power. Through this analysis, I will sketch the evolution of the status of women in Mongolian society in China.