research institutions for minority nationalities

Research institutions about minority nationalities are mainly scattered in the capital and the frontier provinces. These research institutions can be classified into three categories. The first category includes the institutions affiliated with the social science academy system. In the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, there are two institutes that conduct research on the minority nationalities. One is the Institute of Nationality Studies, which is one of the oldest and largest institutes in the academy. It was founded in the 1950s, and many of its researchers participated in large-scale field investigations into the history and society of China’s minority nationalities in the 1950s. It once boasted more than three hundred researchers and staff, but today the number has been greatly reduced.

Presently the institute consists of several departments: of ethnology, of history of minority nationalities, of languages of minority nationalities, of the economy of the minority areas, of Marxist theories of ethnicity, of global ethnic studies, and of visual anthropology. The other institute in the CASS is the Institute of the Literature of Minority Nationalities, which is much younger and smaller than the Institute of Nationality Studies. There are similar institutes in the provincial-level academies in the frontier provinces, where the minority nationalities live.

The second category consists of the research institutes directly affiliated with the central and local governments. In the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, there is an Institute of Ethnic Studies, which conducts research on policies towards minority nationalities. There is also the China National Centre for Tibetan Studies in Beijing, which is under the direct control of the central government. There are institutes that conduct similar policy research in the provincial governments of the frontier area.

The last category is formed by the research institutes affiliated with the universities, particularly the universities for minority nationalities and the universities in the frontier provinces. In the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing, for example, there are more than a dozen institutes that conduct research on various aspects of the minority nationalities. In Yunnan University, Xinjiang University and Inner Mongolia University, there are renowned institutes that conduct research on local minority groups.

HAN XIAORONG