sample studies on ethnicity

Regarding the issue of frontier and ethnicity, the volume edited by Crossley et al. makes significant contributions. Probably out of the hand of Crossley, the introduction to this volume maintains the ambiguity of that in The Translucent Mirror. Apart from that, arguments in the ten articles are generally quite straight-forward.

Eliotte and Crossley continues their study of cultural identity---the former emphasizes the 18-century identity crisis of the Manchu people, the latter changes the topic from Manchu to Mongol. Faure continues his study of lineage in South China, discussing how official registration, similar to the lijia system, integrates indigenous people into the state. Siu and other scholars explores different minority people in South China.

These articles share three main characteristics:
1) they all fight against the explanation of “sinicization”;
2) they all, to different extents, emphasize the constructed nature of ethnicity;
3) they all emphasize the determining role of the “state”(or political factors) in creating ethnic groups.

Put together, however, these articles propel the reader to ask: what other arguments can you/we make apart from that of political construction of ethnicity? Or, how does such studies contribute to the overall understanding of a culture and society?