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Main | Photographer of the Year - Freelance/Agency | Third Place
First Place
Paolo Pellegrin
Magnum Photos

Second Place
Tomas Munita
Freelance for The New York Times

Third Place
Paolo Marchetti
Freelance

Award of Excellence
Vincent Yu
Associated Press

Third Place
Paolo Marchetti
Freelance

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To the south of China, on the border with Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar, the last Himalayan peaks protect a region very special: Yunnan, literally, "south of the clouds". 93% of the Chinese population and 'represented by people of Han ethnicity. The remaining part of the Chinese population and 'fragmented into 56 different ethnic minorities, more than half' of whom live in the far South-west of the country, just in Yunnan. Their culture, with the necessary specifications, it is a mixture of different religious components which come together in a strange syncretism between them, many beliefs including Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism, but there are also elements of primitive religions based shamanic, other borrowed from Islam and to a lesser extent by Christianity. For decades now, are numerous efforts by the Chinese government to extend its economic influence in the areas populated by ethnic minorities and the imposition of political and socio-cultural development of the territory, is rapidly demolishing the identity of these ancient populations. The direct consequence is the extinction of an ancient culture in favor of a policy of regime determined only to accelerate the exponential growth of its economy. In recent decades, the government proceeded to move entire villages, areas that were within the levels of industrialization, so uprooting from their land, thousands of people, with the consequent zeroing their lifestyles and their cultures. Lingdi, 2 years old, she belong to Achang minority. Here in her house in the village of Husa.

 

 

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