By investigating Southwest China within the framework of the traditional
centre–local dichotomy, previous scholarship has categorised it as a
borderland. Scholars have interpreted the expansion of the Chinese state
to the periphery as a civilisation project, which coupled with
state-encouraged assimilation and acculturation ultimately aimed to turn
ethnic populations into subjects of the emperor. Adopting the approach
of historical anthropology and selecting local society as the focus of
analysis instead of the state, this volume demonstrates the agency of
local elites in reconstructing their own communities to adapt to Ming
state institutions and ideologies. By emphasizing local agency, the
authors show how shifts in state policies created fluidity between
social boundaries and ethnic identities which in turn provided local
elites with the leeward to manoeuvre and manipulate institutions to
their own advantage. Daniels and Ma outline the new military and
civilian institutions introduced by the Ming that formed the backdrop to
the transformation of pre-1382 Yunnan society into an imperial
province. They elucidate how protraction of the Dali kingdom’s
socio-political-religious culture until 1382 arose out of peculiar
historical circumstances during the Mongol-Yuan period, and discuss
recent scholarship on the role of Buddhism and political power in the
Dali kingdom period.