Resumen de Everyday heritaging: Sino-Muslim literacy adaptation and alienation
- English
What we in this article describe as “Sino-Muslim heritage literacies” have existed in China for as long as there have been Muslims in the region (since the 7th century according to the best evidence). The community’s religious and heritage literacy practices can incorporate a systematic Arabic representation of Chinese, systems of Chinese characters representing Arabic pronunciation, and more contemporary digitalised manifestations of heritage literacy in everyday life. Using a social practice approach to literacy, this paper reports on multi-generational interviews, artefact collection, and ethnographic observations with two families in Xi’an (Shaanxi, China) to explore how heritage literacy practices maintain a presence in Sino-Muslim life through traditional systems of community and religious education and contemporary social and material networks. We discuss what these empirical cases reveal about literacies in Sino-Muslim religious life, with respect to how heritage is adapted or diminished across generations. We also argue that it is crucial to situate Sino-Muslim heritage literacy in spaces beyond rigid and state-defined ethnic and religious discourses which tend to confine the identity of Sino-Muslims into officially designated categories. Doing so, we contend, has useful theoretical and methodological import, and can shed light on inquiry about heritage literacy in other minority settings.
- 中文
本文中所描述的 “中国穆斯林文化遗产素养” 从 7 世纪时穆斯林来到中国后(根据考证)就已经存在了。社区的宗教和文化遗产素养包含使用系统的阿拉伯字母代表中文发音、系统的汉字代表阿拉伯文读音,以及在日常生活中文化遗产素养的更多当代数字化的表现。本文采用社会实践视角研究读写素养,通过对西安(中国陕西)两个家庭的多代访谈、手工艺品收集和民族志观察等研究方法来探索文化遗产素养实践是如何通过传统的社区和宗教教育体系及当代社会物质网络在中国穆斯林生活中保留和传承的。我们认为这些实证案例揭示了中国穆斯林宗教生活中的文化素养, 以及文化传承是如何代代相适或削弱的。我们还认为将中国穆斯林的文化遗产置于超越僵化和国家定义的民族和宗教话语的空间中是至关重要的, 因为这些话语空间倾向于将中国穆斯林的身份限制在官方指定的类别中。我们认为这样做具有有益的理论和方法意义, 并可以为其他少数民族环境下的文化遗产素养调查提供启示。
