Li brocade, a traditional textile technique developed by Li women over three thousand years ago on Hainan Island, is widely regarded as a "living fossil" of Li’s traditional culture. However, Li brocade has gradually been detached from the daily life of the Li ethnic group and becoming a cultural and temporal symbol. One was interpreted as cultural symbolism in the 1930s recorded in Western ethnography and film, and the other is viewed as an ethnic heritage in China since 1954, when Li brocade was considered as art presentation under minority policy. Since 2009 when it was listed as Intangible Cultural Heritage in UNESCO, it has actually been devitalized by acting either as heritage artifacts in museums or as souvenirs with superficial design in the culture market. This study raises the question of whether there exists another direction of it, not led by the Western or Chinese nation-state’s culture symbolism but grown from Li’s everyday tradition. Thus, I will take Li brocade as time-object which demonstrating the multiplicity of time, including the Western time through the lens of anthropologists and explorer in 1930s, the Chinese nation-state’s time constructed by national narrative since 1954, and Li’s traditional time perception identified through Li brocade in everyday life before 1954 and the devitalized one afterwards. By identifying Li's traditional time concept through everyday knowledge of Li brocade production, analyzing its conflicts with the Western ethnographic and Han Chinese national narrative’s representation, and Li’s potential resistance to Western and Han-Chinese centric issue, the framework of Li's future temporality can be presented to develop Li brocade. First, through ethnographic research and text analysis, I will analyze what and how the traditional time perception of Li women before 1954 was reflected through the daily making of Li brocade, including knowledge production, intergenerational inheritance, and aesthetic evaluation. Next, to show the future direction for Li’s temporality, I will utilize visual and text analysis to explore the reason and result of Li brocade’s being cultural and temporal symbolism in Western ethnographies and travelogues in the 1930s, as well as in Chinese nation-state's museums and propaganda since 1954. Additionally, an ethnographic study will also be conducted to understand the time perception of Li weavers in their everyday production of Li brocade since 1954 which has been transformed by Chinese national narrative. Lastly, through case studies, by recontextualizing Li’s traditional time in Li brocade’s potential resistance against the authority from Chinese empire (since Han dynasty), the knowledge monopoly held by text-based Han Chinese, and the dichotomy between the Hainan Island and mainland China, Li’s future temporal framework can be established. Overall, by exploring the relation between everyday production of Li brocade, Western ethnography in 1930s, and Chinese national narrative since 1954 from a temporal perspective, this research aims to contribute to a more inclusive understanding of diverse temporalities from various minority, indigenous, and marginal tradition, in the study area of culture, craft, and heritage.
Keyword: Li brocade, temporalities, everyday knowledge, representation, resistance
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Name: Yan Yan
Position: PhD Candidate
Institution: Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Department of Chinese Culture
I completed my undergraduate studies in Industrial Design in Beijing and pursued my master's degree in Social Design and Art in Hamburg, Germany. Currently, I am a doctoral candidate at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, specializing in Cultural Studies. My research interests revolve around topics such as materials, craftsmanship and heritage, islands, temporality, and modernity.
This article explores Li brocade on Hainan Island as a temporal object, examining its pattern repetition, alignment with natural body cycles, intergenerational transmission, social memory, and future imagination, which is created by Li women and fosters the subjectivity of Li culture. By reimagining its temporality, this perspective goes beyond viewing Li brocade as mere heritage or tourism souvenir but reveals its power to resist the historical influence of the dominant Han Chinese tribute system on dragon quilts, modern Western perspectives in travelogues and documentaries from the 1930s, and its portrayal in modern China's representations in museums, videos, and everyday experiences. Furthermore, this research highlights the connection and transformation between Li brocade's Austronesian origins and its relevance in contemporary Pacific islands, offering future potential.