Fragmented tribes of the India-Burma-Bangladesh borderlands: representation of the Zo (Kuki-Chin) people in colonial ethnography

In the absence of pre-colonial written records, reconstruction of the history and identity of indigenous tribes has to depend on oral stories and the documentation of the 'other', while the former is subject to distortion, the latter is often glossed with vested interest. Taking the case o...

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Veröffentlicht in:Asian ethnicity Jg. 23; H. 3; S. 608 - 629
Hauptverfasser: Pau, Pum Khan, Mung, Thang Sian
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: Abingdon Routledge 03.07.2022
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Schlagworte:
Borders
Classification
Colonialism
Distortion
Documentation
Ethnic identity
Ethnography
India-Burma-Bangladesh borderlands
Indigenous peoples
Kuki-Chin languages
Tribes and tribal systems
Zo (Kuki-Chin)
Bangladesh
Myanmar (Burma)
India
ISSN:1463-1369, 1469-2953
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Zusammenfassung:In the absence of pre-colonial written records, reconstruction of the history and identity of indigenous tribes has to depend on oral stories and the documentation of the 'other', while the former is subject to distortion, the latter is often glossed with vested interest. Taking the case of the indigenous tribes of the India-Burma-Bangladesh borderlands, this paper probes the representation of the Zo (Kuki-Chin) people in colonial ethnography, on one hand, and to what extent colonial knowledge was informed by 'investigative' or 'survey modality', which, in fact, was solely for administrative purpose, on the other. It argues that indigenous tribes of the India-Burma-Bangladesh borderlands were represented as completely fragmented in colonial ethnography, however, behind the colonial policy of classification one can still unearth the ethnic commonality of the various tribes when they are seen through the lens of cultural similarity or as a 'culture area.'
Bibliographie:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
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ISSN:1463-1369
1469-2953
DOI:10.1080/14631369.2021.1885291