What is Mingfen?A Study of Status Based on Indigenous Perspective
In modern social science research,a indigenous concept is often replaced by modern disciplinary concepts,making it difficult to bring its meaning and its research framework to light.Mingfen is a concept that has been replaced by hierarchy,role,identity,and norms of behavior,so much so that the academic interpretation of the concept remains shallow.Compared to these conceptual combinations,the meaning of Mingfen needs to be understood within its own conceptual combination.This paper therefore argues that in this regard Mingfen is the operationalization of ritual and etiquette,and that its purpose is to establish a matching hierarchy of superiority and inferiority in real vertical relationships in order to maintain daily order.Examining roles or identities,their commonality is based on"self-identity",while the operation of Mingfen requires establishing"field-identity"in political and social context and reality.What is meant by"field-identity"is that social members can regard the power relationships and interactive situations in different fields as a unified whole,so that different identities and roles can be comprehensively ranked in this system.This is possible because Li(ritual)has a holistic cognitive aspect,and the hierarchical ordering of its ranks is provided by the ideal of Tian Di Jun Qin Shi(Heaven,Earth,Monarch,Parents,and Teacher).The emergence of"field-identity"leads individuals to form a cognitive panorama of power relationships in the whole interactions due to their simultaneous confrontation with multiple roles.It enables an individual to clearly understand their own course of action and the appropriateness of their behavior on the one hand,and on the other hand to have a comprehensive understanding of the hierarchy of every individual,thereby leading their words and deeds to be less self-centered and more dependent on their status sequence and power.This interconnected pattern,although it achieves the expected order,stability,and harmony,also constitutes various potential power struggles in the field-identity.
Mingfen(status)self-identityfield-identityhierarchical order in a unified systempairs of power relations
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