HAYAMI, Yoko

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Title<Book Reviews>Mikael Gravers, ed. Exploring EthnicDiversity in Burma. 2007.Author(s)HAYAMI, YokoCitation東南アジア研究 (2008), 46(3): 471-473Issue Date2008-12-31URL http://hdl.handle.net/2433/84691RightType Journal ArticleTextversionpublisherKyoto University	  !"#$%&'()*+,-./.*0123456)7829*09: ;<=>/?@ABCDEFG*HIJKL1MN5)OPQ?CRST1 UVW: XYZW: [T\&]^_`ab	cd&ef"g"=hij?*0W2 UV	*5]^klm&no&: XYZ*5[T&p?qRST1&: [T5rstu	'qvwxy/.OW2  !z{\tu|}~&(T\Bf@T1(C? PPP]UV|}Mikael Gravers, ed. Exploring Ethnic Diver-sity in Burma. Copenhagen: Nordic Instituteof Asian Studies, , xx p., maps,tables, photos.A well-informed academic volume such as thison ethnicity in Burma has been much needed,and any audience will find the chapters richlyinformative and many of them stimulating. Mostof the papers probe the process through whichethnonyms and ethnic categories have been for-mulated, especially since colonial times, thoughfor some groups from the period immediatelypreceding British entry and for others more re-cently. Originating in a conference held inSweden in , the book overall provides well-contextualized information on the historical for-mation of ethnic categories and classifications.The volume leads us to question some taken-for-granted and essentialized ethnic categories, andreaders will be prompted to consider alternativepossibilities for negotiating the diversity thatcharacterizes Burma.There will be two, no doubt overlapping,types of audience for this book: the academicaudience interested in politics and ethnicity, es-pecially in Burma, and the audience concernedmainly with the current political situation inBurma. The editor certainly has both types ofreader in mind, a policy I think is admirable for avolume on such a topic. However, it is possiblethat the use of terms specific to academic theo-rizing on ethnicity may put off some in the latteraudience, while a few among the former mightfind some of the politically situated assertionstoo forward and partial. An exercise of probinginto ethnic category formation in Burma cannever be apolitical, and there is inevitable varie-ty in the tone adopted by each author regardingthe regime.As editor, Gravers sets the academic tone inthe introduction chapter   On the one hand,he asserts the importance of contextualizing andhistoricizing ethnic categories and ethnonyms,including how they have become instruments ofidentity politics, and of recognizing how primo-rdialism, which supports the apparent givennessof ethnic categories, is itself historically con-structed. On the other hand, Gravers recognizesthat ethnic categories are an essential part of theway people imagine their place in the world andthe way they reflect upon their position, as in a“modernist cosmology.” In other words, ethnicityis a tool of the ruling hegemonic power, but atthe same time a tool for those who must positionthemselves within the system founded by thatpower. The volume, as set out in this introduc-tion, is an attempt to look at these two aspectsin interaction. Most papers accomplish thisthrough examining the interplay of various ac-tors and relationships, including on-the-groundpractices of those who bear the ethnonyms them-selves.Unfortunately, there is one important gap.While there are papers dealing with the Chin,Kachin, Karen, Kayah/Karenni, Mon, and Shanas large categories, and while nationalism inBurma constitutes the implicit background of! 471most discussion, the editor has left out the issueof the ethnic term “Burman,” the ethnonym ofthe majority. If ethnonyms of the minority arehistorical constructions formulated in relationalsituations, then their emergence should be ana-lysed and understood in relation to the consoli-dation of the category “Burman.”Mandy Sadan’s chapter  is a cogent andarticulate paper on the formation of the Kachincategory. Sadan is strongly aware that such ana-lytical probing and de-essentializing of ethniccategories might undermine the nationalist in-tentions of Kachin elites. Analytical emphasis ondiversity among what is considered a solidethnic group may even be of use to the regime,giving support to its efforts to divide and rule.While this could be a dilemma in dealing withethnic politics anywhere, the problem could notbe more acute than in the case of Burma. Yet,Sadan correctly points out that abandoning theeffort would give free rein to the essentializing ofethnic categories by all parties. Conscious of thepositioning of research and writing in the midstof ongoing political negotiations regarding eth-nicity, Sadan emphasizes the primary impor-tance of decolonizing ethnic diversity. The papertherefore attempts to construct a model for un-derstanding ethnicity that falls between ethni-city as political mobilization and ethnicity asprimordialism. The question isand this ques-tion applies to and is posed by many otherpapers in the volumewhere minority elderstake the lead in consolidating ethnic categoriesand their contents, how can we acknowledgediversity in a way that does not simply mimickand repeat the hegemonic essentializing of top-down categories?Sandra Dudley’s chapter  is a study of thefar more recent construction of the category ofKarenni and Karenni-ness in the setting ofborder refugee camps. Here, the effects of notonly displacement, but generational differenceand contacts with international agencies come tothe fore. The border provides access to socialspace outside the territorial nation-state and to atransnational situation of displacement; at thesame time it offers an opportunity to relativizeone’s experience inside the border. This is a situ-ation shared by many of the ethnic groups ana-lysed in this volume.In chapter , Chit Hlaing F. K. Lehmanreflects on the origins of the Kayah category,while providing a cognitive solution to the ques-tion of why, despite generalized awareness ofethnicity as a political construct, some scholarsand social actors still associate ethnicity withculture. Another issue taken up by this andGravers’ chapter is the relationship betweenstate-hegemony and native agents, in which pri-mordialism is implanted by the state and takenup by minority agents.Using the term Burmanization defined asthe process whereby the Bamar have politicallyand culturally influenced the Shan and Shaniza-tion referring to processes of preservation andrevitalization of their own culture and the forma-tion of a collective identity under the pressuresof Burmanization Takatani chapter   pointsout that Shan efforts to research and preservetheir own culture has resulted in the crystalliza-tion of “culture” and “Shan-ness.” Both Takataniand Chit Hlaing refer to ways in which culture ismobilized and stabilized in the process of mark-ing difference under hegemonic rule. It is notonly the regime that essentializes but the minor-ities themselves, by constructing their own cul-ture in response to the regime’s policy.As Gravers states in his own chapter ,Christianity in Burma has always been associ-ated with the non-Buddhist minorities, such asthe Kachin and Karen, as part of the process ofopposition and confrontation with the Burmese.Focusing on the Karen, this chapter discussesthe much politicized historical relationship be-	  472tween ethnicity, religion, and nationalism.Through a well-informed analysis of the Bud-dhist and millennialist tendencies among theKaren, Gravers demonstrates that the question isnever as simple as the generally propagated op-position between minority Christians and major-ity Buddhists. Lian Sakhong chapter   him-self a Christian Chin in exile, examines ChinChristianity in relation to identity, Chin nation-alism, and the ongoing conflict. After examiningthe Chin ethnonym using historical and oralsources, the author discusses how Christianitywas indigenized among the Chin and how itsindigenization and growth provided a means ofpreserving Chin identity and promoting Chininterests in the face of powerful forces of change.Of all the minorities among whom Christiansconstitute a significant portion, the degree ofinseparability between ethnic identity and Chris-tianity is undoubtedly the strongest among theChin.In chapter , Karin Dean discusses the phys-ical as well as symbolic and social space of theKachin, a topic that resonates with Gravers’paper on the Karen. Both Kachin-land and theKaren’s Kawthoolei are disconnected spaces thatdo not refer to a distinct, contiguous geographi-cal area but rather to a symbolic space. Deanpoints out how social spaces cut across territorialboundaries, while the territorialities themselvesallow no coherent locale in which Kachin consti-tute a majority. It is doubtful that the Kachin canin fact “contest” the state’s territorial boundariesas Dean claims, but it must also be true that thedemonstrated cross-cutting relationships andpractices indeed undermine and weaken stateboundaries.Ashley South’s chapter , with its un-resolved mixture of hope and despair, addressesthe possibilities of opening space towards a civilsociety in Burma in the context of the Monethnic movement, which the author character-izes as just as power-ridden and hierarchical asthe regime. South claims to explore new forms ofstate-society relationships, but aside from pass-ing reference to international NGO work, it is notclear what is meant by the re-emergence of civilsociety networks in ethnic minority areas, whichshe suggests might contribute to political transi-tion in Burma. Whether this is overly optimisticor there is indeed foundation for hope, we cannotfathom from the chapter.Other chapters, too, such as those by Dudleyand Gravers, refer to the current involvement oftransnational communities, information net-works, international agencies, and a turn amongethnic leaders away from the discourse of ethnicrights and towards a discourse of democracy andfederalism. Yet since , the regime has re-sorted to claiming the existence of  ethnicgroups as a basis for asserting nationalism andcultural Myanmarization and undermining thepolitical power of the seven larger ethnic cate-gories p.   What indeed would be the imageof a democratic state and true recognition ofdiversity? What is the viable alternative? This isthe crucial question that, through the weavingtogether of hope and despair, this volume poses,providing its readers with well-informed descrip-tion and analysis as food for thought.There are many points that resonate amongthe chapters. Gravers lays out the questions inthe introduction, and many of the points raisedin his own chapter are shared by others. How-ever, since each chapter delves into the richthickets of ethnic history, the volume would befar more readable to a diverse audience if therewere a clearer mapping out of the issues andlinkages between the chapters and a summingup some of their common threads. There are alsoa distracting number of typographical errors,which is unfortunate in a volume that deserveswide attention.Hayami Yoko 	CSEAS 473

<Book Reviews>Mikael Gravers, ed. Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma. 2007.

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<Book Reviews>Mikael Gravers, ed. Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma. 2007.

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