Primitive vs. modern: agrotourism transition in Qiandongnan minority community and rethink on its cultural implications

Abstract

Since the development of featured agrotourism industry, local minority residents have undergone an obvious advancement of living standards. However, the symbiosis and discrepancy between primitivity and modernity has influenced the process of cultural change. In this article, based on qualitative data derived from an empirical community investigation, four representational agrotourism regions belonging to Qiangdongnan Autonomous Prefecture were selected and researched by interview survey. Meanwhile, the connotation and ascription of primitivity and modernity will be analyzed, combined with the anthropological theory of ‘cultural change’. Moreover, the state of mind when indigenous people are participating in the transition will be explored. The writers argue that it is worthwhile focusing on the culturally connotational incommensurability of ‘primitivity’ whose concepts are constructed and modified by modernization. Choices made by the indigenous, most of the time, stem from the utilitarian deliberation for a better life rather than the heartfelt recognition to modern way of living.