从“他者”到“国民”——近代中国关于疍民的公共话语与族界建构

From “Others” to “Citizens”——Public Discourse on the Boat People and the Construction of Ethnic Boundaries in Modern China

疍民作为南方古老的水上族群,长久以来在帝国的历史书写中以"边缘群体"的形象出现,甚至被排除在"我们的"历史之外。1840年以后,随着香港、广州和福州相继开埠,这群"奇异"的"水上人"开始受到西人的关注与报道。近代报刊文本中被放大的异文化话语与原有歧视疍民的文化传统相结合,使得疍民的"他者"形象越发明显。戊戌变法和辛亥革命之后,"共和"与"平权"的观念深入人心,围绕疍民族属和权利问题的讨论屡见报刊,"水上人"在近代公共文本中逐渐被视为是应当共享权利的"国民"。新文化运动之后开展的民俗调查,使得疍民及其文化得到知识界的更大范围关注,从而为疍民的族界讨论创造了丰富的文本资源与知识脉络。

The boat people ("疍民",Dan Min),as an ethnic subgroup in southern China,had been represented as a "marginal group"in Chinese written history.With Hong Kong,Canton and Fuzhou becoming "treaty ports"after the Opium War,the boat people began to be reported in some print media, and therein the discourse stressing on cultural diversities,combined with the discrimination rooted in local tradition to intensify the building of their "others"image.Hundred Day's Reform and the Revolution of 1911enlightened the Chinese civil society and stimulated a mass of public debates on the ethnicity and human rights of the boat people,whose image gradually transformed to "citizens"in public narratives.On the other hand,the modern China folklore investigation within New Culture Movement accelerated a series of academic researches towards the boat people and produced abundant literatures,which to some extent constructed the ethnic boundaries between Dan Min and Han people.