The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Individual Documents
Description:
Abstract: "The
Five
Buddha
Districts
system
prevailed
from
the
1790s
to
the
1880s
on
the
frontier
between
Yunnan, in Southwest China, and the Burmese Kingdom, in the mountainous areas to the west of
the Mekong River.
Through
more
than
a
century
of
political
mobilization,
the
Lahu
communities
in
this
area
became
an
integrated
and
militarized
society,
and
their
culture
was
reconstructed
in
the
historical
context
of
ethnic
conflicts,
competition,
and
cooperation
among
the
Wa,
Dai,
and
Han
Chinese
settlers.
The
political
elites
of
the
Five
Buddha
Districts,
however,
were
monks
who
had
escaped
the
strict
orthodoxy
of
the
Qing
government
to
become
local
chieftains,
or
rebels,
depending on
political
changes
in
southern Yunnan.
As
a
centralized
polity,
the
Five
Buddha
Districts
system
was
attached
to
the
frontier
politics
of
the
Qing
state
before
the
coming
of
European
colonial
powers.
The
Qing
state
provided
a
sociopolitical
space
for
local
groups
to
develop
their
political
ideals
between
various
powerful
Dai-Shan
chieftains.
The
negotiation,
competition,
and
cooperation
between
the
Five
Buddha
leadership
and
the
Qing,
Dai
chieftains,
and
neighboring
political
powers
had
been
thoroughly
integrated
into
the
frontier
politics
of
this
interdependent
society
for more than two hundred years. As t
he
history
of
the
Yunnan-Burma
frontier
formation
shows
that
no
mountain
space
existed
to
allow
the
natives
to
escape
from
the
state
through their shifting agriculture,
and
anarchism
was
not
practiced
by
the
mountain
people
who
were separated from the state, t
he
author
argues
that
a
stateless
region
like
James
Scott?s
?Zomia”
did
not
historically exist in this region..."
Jianxiong Ma
Source/publisher:
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)
Date of publication:
2013-09-00
Date of entry/update:
2015-10-12
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
949.47 KB
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Description:
"From the 1870s to the 1940s, the construction of lineages among the Han settlers on the
frontier between China?s Yunnan province and Burma became significant. Through these
lineages the construction of Han identity was also extended toward Burma along various
transportation routes. In the continuing reformation of frontier society, gentry power, based
on lineage corporations, expanded and performed a crucial role in the construction of a
new style of border, as well as functioning as a leading force for ethnic competition by extend-ing state power into the borderland. After the colonization of north Burma by the British in
1886, new economic opportunities attracted more Chinese merchants who built networks
along transportation routes between cities in Burma and commercial centers in Yunnan,
which also changed the social landscape of the frontier. The construction of lineages as a
Han system not only overlapped with trade networks, but also provided sufficient economic
and political resources to build a Han identity, which competed with other types of identity-polity systems?such as those of the Dai, the Lahu and the Wa?between the Mekong
River and the Salween River..."
Jianxiong Ma
Source/publisher:
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)
Date of publication:
2014-00-00
Date of entry/update:
2015-10-10
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
482.77 KB
more
Description:
Abstract: "This research reviews the formation of the Yunnan-Burma frontier since the
1720s, when the Qing government reformed the administrative systems from
chieftainships to official counties in the middle and southern Yunnan mountains
areas. One of some crucial political changes was the policy of salt revenue
which directly stimulated large scale ethnic resistance in the region of salt
wells. However, the social political context of continuing ethnic conflicts was
not only rooted in the reshaping of the salt-consuming districts, but also rooted
in social changes in the Yunnan-Burma borderland because of increasing Han
Chinese immigration and their penetration into mining, long distance trade and
local agriculture. In order to successfully control mountain resources as the base
of revenue, the Qing government continued to gradually integrate native Dai
chieftains into official counties. Local resistance continued and reached a peak
from the
1790s to the
1810s. Pushed by the Qing government, and with the
collaboration of different social actors, the synthesized mobilization of frontier
formation had made ethnic politics a main style of social political reconstruction,
even if commercial exchange, long distance trade, and demographic reshaping
also continued to be mixed with ethnic politics as another layer of the Yunnan-
Burma frontier formation..."
Jianxiong Ma
Source/publisher:
Cambridge Journals via Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Date of publication:
2013-07-00
Date of entry/update:
2015-10-10
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Language:
English
Format :
pdf
Size:
696.89 KB
more
Description:
1,310 results (October 2015)
Source/publisher:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Date of entry/update:
2015-10-09
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Language:
English
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Description:
1,840 results (October 2015)
Source/publisher:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Date of entry/update:
2015-10-09
Grouping:
Individual Documents
Category:
The Chinese University of Hong Kong
Language:
English
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