衍生于传统的文化:以蜡染为例

The Culture Derived from Tradition: A Case Study of Batic

在今天的文化认同中,蜡染是中国西南少数民族文化的象征。但在历史上,蜡染是中国大多数地区普遍存在的服饰传统之一。什么一个曾经为多个民族包括汉族在内广泛使用的服饰传统在今天却变成了部分少数民族竞相展现的民族文化?本文认为,在现代生活方式广泛扩散的过程中,一个社会的主体民族放弃了自己的一些传统,通过接受普遍认同的生活方式完成了现代转型。与此同时,少数民族则通过对传统的保留与改造将部分普遍的传统转化成了一个民族在现代性渗透过程中的识别符号。在一定的意义上,这类似于霍布斯鲍姆和兰格所说的被"发明的传统"。但必须强调的是,在这个过程中,一种识别符号的形成并不是因为民族缺乏其他的识别符号,而是因为被转化的识别符号具有商业化的价值。换句话说,在文化的生产中,商业化价值是一个重要的影响因素,而不是像吉尔茨所说的那样,文化的意义系统在代际之间的传递是纯粹文化之间的强势与弱势之争。

Batik ( wax-printing) symbolizes the cultural identity of minorities in southwestern China. However, in its long history , batik was widely used as one of the traditional styles of clothing in the central and western parts, but nowadays it has become a fad for different minorities to show the special features of their ethnic culture. This paper holds that in the wide expansion of modern life, a society undergoes a series of transformation in which the dominant people give up some of its own tradition and adopt some styles of life that are universally accepted. Meanwhile, the minorities undergo similar transformation in which they preserve part of their tradition by changing them into their differential signs for their identities in the process of modern penetration. In a sense, this is similar to what Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger have called ' the invented tradition. ' It should be noted that the formation of a differential sign is not due to the lack of such signs but to the fact that the invented sign has commercial value. In other words, commercial value is a very important factor in the production of culture, therefore, the meaning of culture is not determined by the competition between the strong and the weak in generational transition as Clifford Geertz would believe it to be.