當今羌族村寨婦女穿著色彩鮮豔樣式特殊的「民族傳統服飾」。然而文獻與相關 照片顯示，二十世紀前半葉羌民的服飾以灰白色調為主，非常樸素。當時有些觀察研究者也 指出，當地土著服飾毫無特色，由服飾無法分辨羌、漢之別。在本文中，我以二十世紀前半 葉到九十年代民族主義在漢族與「羌族」中的發展，來說明羌族「民族服飾」的形成過程， 我認為這是「民族化」的結果與反映；透過少數民族服飾以造成鮮明化的民族特色，以強化 「民族化」所造就的各種認同與區分（中華民族與外族、漢族與少數民族、城鎮中人與村寨 中人、男人與女人）。現代民族主義中包含「傳統」（或團結）與「現代化」（或進步）兩 個相互矛盾的概念。因此，在「民族」自我塑造中，「傳統」一方面代表一個人群的歷史延 續性與團結而被強調, 一方面代表過去的保守落後而被迴避。因此，羌族村寨婦女因其邊緣 與弱勢的社會地位，而成為民族傳統服飾的展示者。

　　　　　Woman villagers of the Ch'iang nationality today wear very colorful and distinctive "national dress". During the first half of the Twentieth century, however, phtotgraphs. Because it was so devoid of distinctive character, one scholar in those days their dress had been plain and basically in white and gray color, as shown by field researchers' reports and suggested that it would be difficult to distinguish the Ch'iang from the Han in the mountainous area of western Sichuan on the basis of their dress. This article explains the formation of the national dress of the Ch'iang as the reflection of the development, form the early Twentieth century to the present day, of ethnic nationalism both among the Han and among the people who are being labeled as the Ch'iang. The dress of minority women partially displays a characteristic national culture that self-consciously confirms and strengthens various identities and distinctions such as those of Chung-hua min-tsu versus foreigners, the Han versus non-Han minorities, men versus women, and town-dwellers versus villagers. These distinctions have been created or modified by a movement of explicitly defining minority nationalities and their ethnic characteristics. There are two mutually contradictory elements in ethnic nationalism: tradition (or unification) and modernization (or progress). In the process of nationality-building in China, "tradition" is stressed on the one hand as it represents historical continuity and ethnicunity, but is avoided on the other hand as it represents historical continuity and ethnicunity, but is avoided on the other hand because it contains the potential of conserving the backwardness of the past. It is therefore by dint of their mostly inferior and peripheral social position that the woman villagers of the Ch'iang have become the only ones wearing the "national" dress. In doing so, they are strategically placed as "performers" of the newlydefined minority identity.