国家发展中“边民”概念的形成与演变

THE FORMATION AND EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT OF BORDER PEOPLE IN NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

“边民”一词由来已久,其内涵随着国家发展而发生阶段性的演变。在王朝国家时代,边民是介于内地“编户民”和边疆“蛮夷”之间的人口形态。近代的中国开启了民族国家构建进程,边民概念随之发生了“国民化”的转变,出现了取代“少数民族”成为边疆居民之泛称的趋势。在中华人民共和国成立之初,边民概念曾一度淡出,“民族”成为边疆居民主要的身份标识。此后,陆地边界的勘定、周边外交的开展、边境治理的实施,使得边民概念重新受到重视,并用于指称沿边居民。近年来,社会舆论中出现了“边民热”现象,但对于这一概念的使用并不统一,甚至还存在着偏误和混乱。因此,有必要对边民概念进行辨析与整合,形成基本的概念共识,从而为相关研究和政策实践提供有效的概念供给。

The term of border people has a long history,and its connotation has undergone pe⁃riodical evolution with national development.In dynastic era,border residents were population form between inland householders and frontier barbarians.Modern China starts the process of building a nation-state,and the concept of border people has undergone a corresponding nationalization transfor⁃mation,indicating the tendency to replace ethnic minorities by the general term of border people.At the beginning of the founding of People's Republic of China,the concept of border people was once faded out,and ethnicity became the main identity of border residents.Since then,the delinea⁃tion of land borders,the development of neighboring diplomacy,and the implementation of border governance have made the concept regain attention and referred to residents along the border.In re⁃cent years,there has been a hot topic of border people in public opinion,but the uses of this con⁃cept are not unified and there are even errors and confusions among them.Therefore,it is neces⁃sary to discriminate and integrate the concept of border people to form the basic conceptual consen⁃sus,so as to provide an effective conceptual supply for related research and policy practice.