The Chinese state reaches out to ethnic communities in three different channels of autonomy, ethnicity, and poverty. However, each of these channels designates a submissive position to ethnic citizenship. Amidst theoretical uncertainty on how the state has affected local communities, ethnic minorities can develop subjectivity. Through this, they can sincerely participate in the state's policy agenda, conveniently incorporate the state into the ethnic identity, give feedback to the state within the framework of official discourse, or hide behind the state to evade ethnic identification. Rather than finding a life outside the state, the ethnic communities can, in one way or another, position themselves inside the state.

Introduction: Performing Unity * POLITICAL, CULTURAL, AND ECONOMIC UNITY * The Teleology of the State: Top-Down Regional Ethnic Autonomy * Performing Ethnicity: Politics of Representation in Multi-Ethnic Guilin * Silencing the Poor: The Statist-Liberal Incapacity in Western Hunan * THE STATE TURNED UPSIDE DOWN * The State as a Borderline Identity: Setting the Jing Ethnicity in Dongxing * Imagined Genealogy: Behind the Cultural Formation of Huishui's Buyi Nationality * Cement or Excrement? Autonomous Ecological Thinking in Xiaoki's Poverty Discourse * OUT OF PLACE * 3 + 1 + 1 = 1: Disempowerment in Multi-Ethnic Autonomous Longsheng * Lost Agency for Change: The Diasporic Identity in Yizhou's Shui Villages * RIDING THE CITIZENSHIP * Assimilation into Mulao Consciousness: The Rise of Participatory Rigor in Luocheng * Living with the State: Multiplying Ethnic Yao Narratives in Jinxiu * Learning to Be Rational: The Drive toward Marketization in Fenghuang * Conclusion: From Unity to Harmony-Progress or Regression?