失意的國族、詩意的民族、失憶的族/國：顯影民國時期的西南少數民族

Abstract

本研究旨在探討1920至1940年代，中國在濃厚的國族主義氛圍下，對西南民族的影像拍攝、傳播與藉此強化國族宣傳的過程，以及該時期拍攝留存的影像，在當代中國作為旅遊宣傳資源，和重建民國記憶之社會效益。這項民族影像史研究，分析材料以照片為主，輔以電影與紀錄片的文字資料。 民國時期，邊疆危機與第二次中日戰爭，迫使失意的中國在捍衛邊疆、撤守西南時，積極建立國族認同，意圖整合西南邊民為國之編民。當時在中國尚屬新興學科的人類學，將西南地區視為一座內容豐富的民族實驗室，不但奠定了學科日後研究發展的基礎，也留下可觀的影像紀錄。此外，西南地區以桃花源般詩意形象被重新認識，當時的研究者、記者、旅行者頻頻進入邊區，大量拍攝西南民族。從當時報刊影像中，可見該時期西南民族與主體社會密集的交流。西南民族形象還躍上銀幕，號稱首部深入猺山拍攝，根據真人實事改編的電影《猺山艷史》，雖宣稱獲得國民黨嘉獎，但該片在影史上的地位僅與蠻荒電影等同。 1949年以後，中國的政治運動，造成許多民國時期的人、事、物成為禁忌話題，部分民國記憶逐漸被扭曲與淡忘，其中包括多位致力西南民族影像紀錄與研究的中外人士。直到1990年代，為了西南旅遊發展之需，美國植物學家與探險家約瑟夫‧洛克和他於民國時期在中國西南拍攝的影像，意外捲入「香格里拉」地名爭奪戰，顯示西方人對東方的紀錄與想像，被轉化認可為當代中國西南深具指標意義的旅遊資源。同時，中國出版業颳起一股老照片旋風，前輩攝影師莊學本與孫明經的舊照、紀錄片陸續出土，民國時期的邊民影像重回民間並廣泛流傳，昔日禁忌的歷史與影像，成為今日傲人的文化資產，老照片喚起被淡忘、扭曲的民國記憶。藉由西南民族的顯影，分析人類學、影像史發展，與旅遊符號、歷史論述的創構，分別說明不同歷史脈絡下，影像在文化生產中的獨特地位。

This dissertation aims to explore the process in which historical visual recordings of China’s southwest ethnic minorities, and the subsequent dissemination of such material, served as a means to strengthen Chinese nationalism via nationalistic propaganda in the 1920s to 1940s, and the ways these surviving visual records became rich resources for tourism promotion and the social effects they had on reshaping Republican memories in modern China. This study on ethno-visual history is based primarily on historical photography and supplemented by other documents on cinema and documentary films. During China’s Republican era, borderland crises and the advent of the Second Sino-Japanese War forced the then-deeply frustrated nation to safeguard its frontier and retreat to the southwest to zealously strengthen national identities throughout the nation. One of its tactics was to infuse such ideology into the southwest frontier people by incorporating them as national citizens. At the time, anthropology was a newly established academic discipline and scholars treated China’s southwest region as a resourceful ethno-laboratory. The accomplishments made during their time laid the foundation for later research and development, and left behind considerable quantities of visual records. At the time, interest in southwest China gained a revival and was recognized as a romantic utopia: researchers, journalists, and travelers frequently visited the border areas and produced large amounts of visual archives of the minorities. The visual images produced in this era depict intensive interaction between the majority Han people and southwest minorities. Images of southwest minorities also made their way to the silver screen, although the general audience’s reception to such subject matter was mediocre; despite being praised by the KMT, Yaoshan Yanshi, a film adapted from a real life story claimed to be the first real footage in the Yao mountains, only reached a status equivalent to “barbaric” films in the history of Chinese cinema. After 1949, the PRC’s political campaigns transformed various people, events, and even artifacts of the Republican era into political taboos. Memories of the Republican era were gradually distorted and forgotten, including many efforts by Chinese and foreign individuals who had documented and researched China’s southwest ethnic groups. It was not until the 1990s when historical photographs of southwest China taken by American botanist Joseph F. Rock in Republican era became involuntarily involved in southwest China’s tourism revival with many counties vying for the term “Shangri-la”. It was a clear example of how Rock’s interpretation and imagination of China’s southwest region from a Western perspective had been transformed into tourism-boosting resources in modern China. Meanwhile, China’s contemporary media industry has helped rekindle wide interest in its own historical photography by uncovering the photographic and cinematic masterpieces of senior photographers such as Zhuang Xueben and Sun Mingjing. Once considered taboo, visual images of frontier ethnic minorities from the Republican era have grasped the people’s attention and have been circulated widely, becoming assets of China’s cultural heritage and are no longer the forgotten and distorted memories of the Republican era. This study concludes that visual images of China’s southwest ethnic minorities, through the development of anthropology and visual history, as well as the construction of touristic codes and historical narratives, explicitly explain the unique role that visual images have played in the cultural reproduction of modern China from a historical context.