Comparative Anthropology of Southeast Asia" seminar 2021-2022

"Comparative Anthropology of Southeast Asia" seminar 2021-2022

9 sessions of 3h (6 ECTS)

Responsables: Vanina Bouté (CASE/EHESS), Yves Goudineau (CASE/EFEO), Catherine Scheer (CASE/EFEO)

Thursday, March 3 to Thursday, June 16, 2022.
The 1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month from 2pm to 5pm.
Maison de l'Asie (Grand salon, 1st floor), 22 avenue du Président Wilson, 75016 Paris.

To participate/validate the seminar, register on this page.

Contact: vannina.boute@ehess.fr

Ethnicity and historical dynamics of political and cultural integration

The seminar introduces the analysis of the complex relations that were instituted between the populations occupying mountain and/or forest areas, i.e. a vast part of continental Southeast Asia, and the central, colonial and then national powers. Studies of these so-called marginal populations have generally contributed to an antagonistic perception, either from the perspective of the inevitable dilution of minority cultures into imposed national cultures, or, conversely, highlighting the resistance of ethnic minorities or their long-lasting "flight" in the course of history in the face of the logic of state control. Based on the comparative analysis of detailed ethnographies, we propose to complexify this dichotomized, and all too reductive, vision by showing phenomena of interaction, interdependence, and even mutual appropriation between "centers" and "margins" in the recent history of Southeast Asia.

Program

● Thursday, March 3, 2022
[14h-16h] Yves Goudineau (CASE/EFEO), "Introduction to the seminar"
[Workshop 16h-17h - Discussion of Izikowitz, Karl Gustav 1969. "Neighbours in Laos", In F. Barth (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, London: George Allen & Unwin, pp. 135-149.]

● Thursday, March 17, 2022
[14h-16h] François Robinne (IRASIA, CNRS), "Pour une anthropographie des carrefours sociaux"
[Workshop 16h-17h - Discussion of Alexander Horstmann, 2002, "Incorporation and Resistance: Border-Crossings and Social Transformation in Southeast Asia", Anthropologi Indonesia 67: 12-29.]

● Thursday, March 31, 2022
[14h-16h] Pierre Petit (Université Libre de Bruxelles, EHESS visiting professor), "Histoire et mémoire chez les Tai Vat du haut Laos"
[Workshop 16h-17h - Discussion by Olivier Evrard, 2019, "From Tai-isation to Lao-isation: Ethnic changes in the longue durée in Northern Laos", The Australian Journal of Anthropology 30, pp. 228-242.]

● Thursday, April 7, 2022
[2-4pm] Alexander Horstmann (Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen, Germany), "Ethno-history of forced migration from highland Southeast Asia"
[Workshop 4-5pm - Discussion of Yves Goudineau, 2000, "Ethnicité et déterritorialisation dans la péninsule Indochinoise : considérations à partir du Laos", Autrepart 14, pp. 17-31]

●Thursday, April 21, 2022
[14h-16h] Jonathan Padwe (univ. Hawaii, visiting professor EHESS), "Mosquitoes and the Making of the Annamite Hill Country: A Parasitical Speculative History".
[Workshop 4pm-5pm - Discussion of Jacques Dournes, 1974, "Le Milieu Jörai: Éléments d'ethno-écologie d'une ethnie indochinoise", Études Rurales, n°53-54-55-56, pp. 487-503]

● Thursday, May 12, 2022
[2pm-4pm] Jacques Leider (EFEO), "Un point de vue décentré sur l'histoire des marges entre Birmanie et Inde".
[Workshop 4pm-5pm - Discussion of Victor Lieberman, 1978, "Ethnic Politics in Eighteenth-Century Burma", Modern Asian Studies, 12, no. 3, pp. 455-482.]

● Thursday, May 19, 2022
[2pm-4pm] Oliver Tappe (univ. Heidelberg), "Mobility and Mimesis in Houaphan: Historical trajectories of interethnic relations in the Lao-Vietnamese borderlands".
[Workshop 4pm-5pm - Discussion of Grant Evans, 2000, "Tai-ization: Ethnic Change in Northern Indo-China". In A. Turton (ed.), Civility and Savagery: Social Identity in Tai States, Richmond: Curzon, pp. 263-290.]

● Thursday, June 2, 2022
[14h-16h] Jean Michaud (univ. Laval, Quebec, visiting professor EHESS), "The Art of Not Being Scripted So Much: Musings on the Absence of a Common Writing System for Hmong Language(s)".
[Workshop 4pm-5pm - Discussion by James C. Scott, "Chapter 6. Orality, Writings, Texts", Zomia, pp. 291-309 (The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, 2009, Yale University Press)].

● Thursday, June 16, 2022
[2pm-4pm] Vanina Bouté (EHESS/CASE) & Catherine Scheer (EFEO/CASE), concluding session
[Workshop 4pm-5pm - Thongchai Winichakul, 2002, 'Writing at the Interstices: Southeast Asian Historians and Post-National Histories in Southeast Asia.' Paper presented to the panel on Boundary Margin and Local Autonomy in Thai History, 8th International Conference on Thai Studies, Nakhon Phanom, Ramkamhaeng University, January 9-12
& Hjorleiffur Jonsson, 2010, 'Above and beyond: Zomia and the ethnographic challenge of/for regional history', History and Anthropology 21, 2, pp. 191-212.