IIAS the Newslet- Ter, 75, 2016, P.42-43
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Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2016 Hierarchy and contact: re-evaluating the Burmese dialects McCormick, Patrick Abstract: We think of Burma as a country of great linguistic and ethnic diversity. The government today classifies the population into 135 ‘national races’, most of which they place under eight larger overarching categories. The Ethnologue website, which provides information about languages across the globe, says that there are 117 living languages in the country. This discrepancy points to both differences in classification schemes, but also perhaps highlights an expectation—common at least in theEnglish- speaking world—that language and ethnicity should be nearly co-equal. Since the colonial era, indigenous ways of making sense of identity and community, which may or may not have been based on language, have been overtaken by a practice that the British introduced: equating language first with race, and later, as the idea of race evolved, with ethnic group. Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-127179 Newspaper Article Published Version Originally published at: McCormick, Patrick. Hierarchy and contact: re-evaluating the Burmese dialects. In: IIAS The Newslet- ter, 75, 2016, p.42-43. The Newsletter | No.75 | Autumn 2016 New urban Pakistan clarified Chaekgeori: proletariat Kristoffel Lieten the power of books Emilia Roza Sulek The Study | 4-5 The Review | 24 The Portrait | 56 theNewsletter Encouraging knowledge and enhancing the study of Asia 75 ethnicity in Burma? Does language equal language Does This Focus moves forward a long-stalled reconsideration to argue that the relationship between language, ethnicity, and identity in Burma is not necessarily set in stone. Rather, language may be one element informing an ongoing process that various groups engage in to define themselves in relation to others. 2 | The Newsletter | No.75 | Autumn 2016 Contents The Focus Does language 3 From the Director equal ethnicity THE STUDY 4-5 New urban proletariat: Why town development in Burma? needs pastoralists Emilia Roza Sulek 6-7 The Green March brings forth the desert treasures: Japanese cooperation and Morocco’s south-Atlantic fishing Mayuka Tanabe 8-9 The Leshan Giant Buddha Scenic Area: Contestation among the stakeholders Xiaomei ZHAO 10 -11 Social protection and regional migration governance: Some insights from ASEAN Elisa Fornalé 12 Heritage and political change in Indonesia Tod Jones 13 Special feature: The Exhibition Moving Cambodia Jaskiran Dhillon, Radhika Subramaniam & Miriam Ticktin 14-15 Special feature: The Interlocuter Being human in the world: Towards alternative pedagogies Aarti Kawlra & Françoise Vergès 29-31 Introduction THE REGION 16-17 News from Southeast Asia After decades, the possibilities for doing research 18-20 News from Northeast Asia 21-23 China Connections in and about Burma have slowly begun to increase. Guest editor Patrick McCormick pairs the trajectory of THE REVIEW the country, which cut itself off from the international 24 Pakistan clarified Kristoffel Lieten academic community, with the stagnation of Burma 24 Electoral dynamics in Indonesia Studies. Yet the hurdles academics and intellectuals Kevin Evans 26 From the other side of the fence: face are still steep. Two new books about Bali Graeme MacRae 32-33 39 26 Images of the Canton factories The Tai or Shan people of Burma stand in Rachel Weymuth focuses specifically on Hope Marie Childers a complex linguistic and cultural relationship the technical aspects of creating a common 28 The ICAS 10 Asian Studies Book Fair with the peoples around them. Mathias Jenny Palaung language out of disparate lects, explores how they have adopted ideas and a process involving considerations of power linguistic practices from their larger, more power- and prestige. THE FOCUS ful neighbours, while simultaneously fulfilling 29-43 Does language equal ethnicity in Burma? that same role for nearby upland peoples. 40-41 Guest Editor: Patrick McCormick ‘Reducing’ speech to script means actually 34-35 reducing its variety and variation. Through THE REVIEW Continued The Kachin have long featured in anthropology, the lens of creating a Palaung dictionary, 44-45 New reviews and titles on newbooks.asia but how long has this super-ethnic category Nathan Badenoch traces this process to indexed a local reality? André Müller presents remind us that the ways Palaung groups a linguistic analysis suggesting that at least have related to each other and their larger THE NETWORK some of the speakers in this category have neighbours is hardly unchanging. 46 AUP Publications been in close contact for a long time. 47 IIAS Announcements 42-43 48-49 Urban Knowledge Network Asia – An update 36-37 People tend to equate language with ethnicity Keita Kuraba and Masao Imamura trace the in Burma. Yet as Patrick McCormick explores, 50-51 The Adspace rise of Jinghpaw as the language franca and in whatever way speakers of Burmese dialects preeminent medium of cultural and literary consider themselves – as an ethnicity separate 52 IIAS Announcements expression among the Kachins in Burma from the majority Burmans or not – they 53 IIAS Research and Projects since the nineteenth century. tend to occupy the same hierarchical position 54-55 IIAS Fellowship Programme as the Burman majority. 38 What happens when people are made into THE PORTRAIT an ethnic group, yet one without a common 56 Chaekgeori: the power of books language or script? Takahiro Kojima explores Jinyoung Jin how various Palaung groups have struggled to agree upon and promote a common Palaung language and script. The Newsletter | No.75 | Autumn 2016 From the Director | 3 Expanding humanities My message here would not be complete without saying The 2016-2017 academic year started well for IIAS, as we received a major a few words about ICAS 10. Work is currently underway to prepare for the convention that will take place in Chiang Mai, grant from the New York-based Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to continue Thailand, from 20-23 July 2017, in partnership with Chiang Mai University (CMU). The tenth edition of the biennial ICAS our innovative work to develop new research and teaching paradigms that event will be innovative in many ways. In close collaboration with CMU, IIAS is seeking to diversify the range of activities seek to move beyond traditional area studies, towards what can best be and experiences at the convention, with an effort toward closer connections between intellectual and cultural activities defined as globally connected humanities. within the local society (ICAS 10 will take pace directly after the annual International Thai Studies Conference, to be Philippe Peycam held at the same venue). In addition to thematic panels, roundtables and keynotes, the convention will host art and craft exhibitions, film viewings, and academic-civil society THE FOUR-YEAR GRANT, through a collaborative platform contribute to the realignment of the social role and mission exchanges. of over twenty Asian, African, European and North American of institutions of higher learning with regard to the human- Another major innovation concerns the ICAS Book Prize universities and their local social and cultural partners, istic principles and values that inspired their establishment (IBP), now in its seventh edition. For the first time, the IBP will support work toward the co-creation of an alternative in the first place (see also the article on pages 14-15 by Aarti will feature publications in languages other than English: humanistic pedagogy curriculum. This follows the successful Kawlra and Françoise Vergès). Chinese, Korean, French and German. We believe this completion of a previous three-year project (Rethinking This overall goal encompasses the following objectives: will contribute to the extension of ‘spaces of knowledge’ Asian Studies in a Global Context; www.rethinking.asia), the establishment of a trans-regional consortium of about Asia, and facilitate exchanges between them. also supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, engaged scholars, educators, and institutions committed The IBP is made possible thanks to the collaboration with to rethink the scholarly practice of area (Asia) studies in to innovations in research and education; the development a number of key partners including Leiden University’s today’s global context. of experimental methodological interventions through Asia Library, the GIS-Réseau Asie, the Hong Kong Institute The new programme is entitled Humanities across the collection, production, and analysis of humanistic of Education, the Seoul National University Asia Centre Borders: Asia and Africa in the World. The initiative calls for ‘meaning-making’ knowledge in four regions – Southeast (SNUAC), the German Institute of Global and Area Studies expanding the scope of the humanities by mobilising the Asia, South Asia, East Asia, and West Africa – along key ‘sites (GIGA), and the Schweizerische Akademie der Geistes- und knowledge in ‘everyday life practices’ that have remained of knowledge’ and common themes of comparison; the Sozialwissenschaften. largely unrepresented in contemporary academia. It will encouragement of university-society participatory activities As these two major IIAS undertakings demonstrate, connect and mobilise a global network of individuals and and, when possible, their institutionalisation in the form of 2017 – hailed as the ‘Asia