Space and the Production of Cultural Difference among the Akha Prior to Globalization : : Channeling the Flow of Life / / Deborah E. Tooker.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter AUP eBook Package Backfile 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Tooker, Deborah E.,
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam : : Amsterdam University Press, , [2012]; ©2012
• Year of Publication: 2012
• Language: English
• Series: ICAS Publications ; 6
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (343 p.)

Based on the author's extensive fieldwork among the Akha people prior to full nation-state integration, this illuminating study critically reexamines assumptions about space, power, and the politics of identity, so often based on modern, western contexts. Tooker explores the active role that spatial practices have played in maintaining cultural autonomy. The book 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.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- List of Maps, Tables, Figures and Illustrations -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Note on Akha Transcription -- 1. Bearings -- 2. Moving Through History -- 3. Space and the Flow of Life -- 4. Spatializing the Upland Village Polity and its Alter, the Lowland Muang -- 5. Space and Fertility in House and Field -- 6. Chanting to Produce the Inside and Outside -- 7. Rethinking the Cosmic Polity -- 8. Space, Life, and Identity -- Appendix A: Spirit Chanting of the Inside: Types of Ceremonies -- Appendix B: Spirit Chanting of the Outside: Types of Ceremonies -- Akha Glossary -- Notes -- List of References -- English Language Index -- Akha Language Index -- Biographical Note about the Author