MPhil Thesis Presentation - Reconstructing Borders: The Space of Contemporary Contradictions in Inner Mongolia

Abstract:

This study will focus on the internal space transformation of Inner Mongolia since the 1990s—a place that is located in the northern border region of China, adjacent to Mongolia and Russia. Inner Mongolia has been the mobile settlement for ethnic groups like Mongols, Han Chinese, and Manchus since the Ming and Qing dynasties; it serves as a multi-cultural strip of land intricately involved in the history of material exchanges and cultural transmission with the continents of Europe and Asia, as well as a border corridor that has transcended ethnicity, civilization, and spatiotemporality. By linking the theoretical models of "borderland" and "border," this research aims to illustrate how Inner Mongolia broke free from the traditional controversy between "ethnicity" and "regionality" under the new order of deterritorialization and global mobility from the end of the 20th century to the early 21st century.

Tapping into the textual roots of contemporary local and ethnic writing, it demonstrates how contemporary Inner Mongolia has sought a possible way out for the locality outside the quagmire of ideological tug-of-war within the subtle ethnic structure of feeling and mixed geo-identity. In the process of dismantling and escaping from the existing political and historical boundaries, Inner Mongolia has naturally become a new "borderland" that accepts, embraces, and catalyzes the gathering, reaction, and even resonance of various national, ecological, and regional civilizations. As a result of the deconstruction and reconstruction process, Inner Mongolia is regenerated into a "new wide area" of cultural frontier where many elements are actively colliding.

Key words: contemporary Inner Mongolia literature; borderland literature; borderland spatiality; local nomadism