The story underlying this ethnography began with the recent discovery and commercialization of the remnant of an ancient "queendom" on the Sichuan-Tibet border. Recorded in classical Chinese texts, this legendary matriarchal domain has attracted not only tourists but the vigilance of the Chinese state. Tenzin Jinba"s research examines the consequences of development of the queendom label for local ethnic, gender, and political identities and for state-society relations.Tenzin Jinba is professor of anthropology and sociology at Lanzhou University."A rollicking romp through the complexities of local identity. Tenzin tells this story in rich ethnographic detail and engages a series of important debates on nationhood, Tibetanness, gender, and peripherality." --Stevan Harrell, University of Washington"As both an outsider and insider, Tenzin does a fantastic job of demonstrating the complexities and contradictions of multiple forms of identification." -Emily Yeh, University of Colorado at Boulder