Abstract

SANTOS, Gonçalo Duro dos. The "farmers" and the "emperor": Ethnographic reflections on wet-rice cultivation and social stratification in rural Southeastern China. Etnográfica [online]. 2006, vol.10, n.1, pp.41-70. ISSN 0873-6561.

This article revisits the topic of social distinction in human societies with ethnographic material recently collected in a Cantonese lineage-village situated in the wet-rice farming region of subtropical Southeastern China. The article suggests that the imperial metaphor of social stratification is frequently used by the village "farmers" to position themselves in the world is part and parcel of a practical scheme of social stratification whose popularity can be partially explained by it being deeply rooted in a way of life based on the immemorial practice of wet-rice farming. It is also suggested that this wet-rice permeated popular scheme of social stratification is not only an "ideological model of" but is also an " ideological model for" social distinction that is thus subject to the transforming power of history.

Keywords : wet-rice farming; social distinction and stratification; culture; practice; history; China.

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