Resistance or Complicity, Songs of Changkhup: An Ethnographic Approach to Exploring Sipsongpanna Tai Lüe Oral Media in Contemporary China

In contemporary China, many ethnic minority groups such as Tibetans, Mongolians, Miao, and Tai have their own oral cultures, functioning as oral media. Tai Changkhup, for example, verbally disseminate history and culture and transmit information and knowledge among the Tai ethnic minority in the Tai language. In a straightforward sense, these aspects of oral media are people in and of themselves, and can be called singers, poets, or chanters. Tai oral media, therefore, is the Changkhup themselves. Situated in a specific strategy of subaltern resistance, this research aims to explore a softer ‘everyday form of resistance’—oral media resistance through Tai Changkhup, thereby reflecting the asymmetric power relations between the Han Chinese majority and Tai ethnic minority. Taking an ethnographic approach, participant observation and interviewing combined with individual interviews and a focus group are used for data collection. Thematic analysis is primarily used for analyzing data. The findings reveal that Tai oral media functions as a form of cultural resistance against Han cultural hegemony in a subtle and sometimes unconscious way to preserve Tai traditions and identity, wherein the rituality of Changkhup plays a unique role in sustaining the resistance. Essentially, Changkhup resistance is intertwined with complicity, continuously negotiating with hegemonic power and reinforcing Han cultural hegemony as a result.