Space and the Production of Cultural Difference among the Akha Prior to Globalization
Channeling the Flow of Life
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Amsterdam University Press
Published:29th Mar '12
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Based on the author’s extensive fieldwork among the Akha people prior to full nation-state integration, this illuminating study critically re-examines assumptions about space, power, and the politics of identity, so often based on modern, western contexts. Tooker explores the active role that spatial practices (and their indigenous link to a ‘life force’) have played in maintaining cultural autonomy in an historically migratory, multiethnic context. Space and the Production of Cultural Difference Among the Akha Prior to Globalization: Channeling the Flow of Life expands current debates about power relations in the region from a mostly political and economic framework into the domains of ritual, cosmology, and indigenous meaning and social systems.
"This is the best ethographic account of one of the most conspicuous and well-known upland groups in Southeast Asia. It is an excellent contribution to the study of space, ritual and cosmology in this region and beyond." -- Guido Sprenger, Heidelberg University, Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 30 (2), 2015
"Relying on decades of fieldwork, this brilliant book focuses primarily on the myriad ways in which the Akha conceptual construction of space provided these tribal people with a sense of their own cosmic power and centrality, despite their actual political weakness and marginality. This exemplary work is not only a moving evocation of a unique culture, it is also is a sophisticated re-examination of the multiple meanings of‘center’ and ‘periphery’ in Southeast Asian studies, and in anthropological theory. " -- Charles Lindholm, Boston University
ISBN: 9789089643254
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 585g
344 pages