Reflexive Han-Ness, Narratives of Moral Decline, Manchurian Subjects and “Mass” Societal Others: A Study of the Hanfu Movement in the Cities of Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Wuhan, and Xi’an

Abstract

In recent years, a small but growing body of scholarly work has emerged on the Hanfu movement in China. Researchers have drawn attention to globalisation, westernisation, national lifestyles, and development, the renaissance of Chinese culture, Han racism, Han ethnocentrism and xenophobia as drivers for the movement. In this article, we suggest that of all the extant literature that currently exists on the movement, the ethnography conducted by Kevin Carrico is the most accurate portrayal of the movement as it stands. However, and drawing upon visual and interview-based fieldwork with members of the movement in 2013 and 2015, our main argument is that existing scholarship has not attended to several nuances in the movement that problematise ideas of race, the way the movement views the recent past and the othering of Manchurian subjects. Unpacking these problematics, this study advances upon existing scholarship: 1) by drawing attention to the way Hanfu enthusiasts demonstrate a great deal of reflexivity around the notion of race; 2) by focusing on the approaches by which Hanfuists interpret the Chinese past beyond narratives of Han ethnic decline; 3) by investigating the mode by which Hanfuists indirectly “other” Manchurian subjects; and 4) by exploring the manner in which Hanfuists hold a broad or “mass” societal “other” as responsible for a new era of moral decline in contemporary China.