From Ethnic Identity to Chinese National Identity: The “Identity Co-Construction and Boundary Breakthrough” Mechanism of Fostering a Strong Sense of Community for the Chinese Nation via Ethnic Sports

As an integral component of the fine traditional Chinese culture, ethnic sports possess unique value for fostering a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation. Nevertheless, the intrinsic mechanism underlying the transformation of ethnic identity remains under-explored in existing scholarship. Based on social identity theory, this study adopts mixed research methods encompassing participant observation, in-depth interviewing, and documentary analysis to examine typical ethnic sports practices, including Yi-style wrestling, Xizang’s horse racing, and the National Traditional Games of Ethnic Minorities. On this basis, this study proposes and validates a theoretical framework of “identity co-construction and boundary breakthrough”. The study yields three key findings: 1) Ethnic sports establish an endogenous driving system of identity transformation through the three-dimensional co-construction of affective identity, cultural identity, and historical identity. These three dimensions exhibit a functionally differentiated and mutually reinforcing hierarchical structure of “foundation-intermediary-core”. 2) Ethnic sports facilitate stepped advancement and cross-ethnic sharing of collective identity via two breakthrough pathways: The vertical transcendence across tiered boundaries from single ethnic groups to the nation-state and ultimately to the community of the Chinese nation, while the horizontal transcendence across sequential boundaries of cultural cognition, emotional affiliation and historical memory. 3) The effective operation of such identity transformation mechanism is conditioned by four contextual factors: ritualization degree, cross-ethnic participation equity, historical narratives integrity, and policy support sufficiency. The deficiency of any conditional factor will undermine the effectiveness of the mechanism. This study expands the theoretical explanatory framework of “group boundary activation” in social identity theory by shifting the traditional “in-group and out-group” dichotomy toward a multi-dimensional and multi-layered boundary-crossing perspective. It delivers a novel analytical tool to unpack the complex transformation from subgroup identity to holistic national identity within multi-ethnic countries, while providing theoretical grounding for the formulation of ethnic sports policies and activity design.