Work

The crisis-events and reassembled ethnolinguistic-cum-environmentalist subjects in Inner Mongolia

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This paper explores the emergence of ethnolinguistic-cum-environmentalist subjects in two crisis events as they are animated by the polarized qualia of darkness versus luminosity and of silence versus sonorousness. I combine an analysis of artistic works by Mongols with ethnographic evidence to show how the two critical laments of nationalism, the Mongolian language and grasslands, are interlocked and fused as the qualia of darkness and silence or their opposite sensuous qualities imposed onto a number of objects ranging from animals, rivers, future time-space, a fearless hero to a sudden gap in everyday conversations. That is, I draw on the concept of qualia to account for the formation of an intensified and maximally-existing subject as crisis-events unfold in the context of environmental destruction and language assimilation in Inner Mongolia.

Source: Central Asian Survey

DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2025.2471604

Author: Gegentuul Baioud

Institution: Uppsala University

Language: English

Topic: China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Funders: University of Cambridge, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond

Award: Improvisation and hope in the face of assimilation: Mongolian identities in a changing China