女書四十年學術力、傳承力和文化政治力

Forty Years of Nüshu: Research, Practice, and Cultural Politics

世界唯一的女性文字「女書」，自1982年在湖南省江永縣發現迄今，已經邁入四十個年頭。四十年來，在學者、女書傳襲人和當地政府三股能量的交互推動下，原本即將走入歷史的女書，因之有了新的生機。但「生機」是女書老傳統的賡續？抑或變身為時代新女書？本文從學者的學術力、女書傳人的傳襲力和官方的文化政治力三面向，來探討女書作為瀕危文化在過去四十年所面臨的變革和挑戰；本文並將透過物質性、實作力和關係性三構面，來觀照女書從傳統到當代的發展進程。藉由記錄這段歷史過程，筆者深切希望女書傳統的文化氣韻—它的賦權能量和它所承載的集體情感意識—不至湮滅在紛沓的時代變局之中，而是在浩瀚的史籍中留有一席之地。

Nüshu, the world’s only“women’s script”which circulated in Jiangyong county of Hunan province in southern China and is on the verge of extinction, has now survived into its fortieth year since it was first discovered in 1982. Over the four decades, three social forces—namely, scholarly efforts to investigate and preserve the writing tradition of the peasant class, nüshu inheritors with diverse backgrounds emerging to continue the practice, and the local government’s administration and cultural politics—have infused various streams of vitality into this endangered heritage. But is this“vitality”meant to perpetuate the old tradition or to revitalize it into a new legacy? This article examines the changes and challenges the above three social forces have brought to nüshu in the past forty years, and through the lenses of materiality, practice, and relationship (specifically, power relations and dialogic interactions), also discusses the different meanings of nüshu in contemporary society. By recording the historical process by which nüshu has moved into modern times, I wish that the cultural spirit of nüshu as a women’s expressive tradition, imbued with empowering energy and peasant women’s“collective sentimental consciousness,”will neither fall into oblivion nor be overwritten by its contemporary manifestation, but rather have its place in history.