Space and the Production of Cultural Difference among the Akha Prior to Globalization: Channeling the Flow of Life

Tooker, Deborah; Sprenger, Guido

doi:10.1355/sj30-2j

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…The egg should break and run out in all directions from the center to indicate this is the proper location. The egg running out in all directions would mean that the central area was relatively flat and “above” in relation to the areas to which the egg runs (see also Tooker ), but one on relatively level ground.…”

Section: The Steep and Level Worldmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…The Akha are one of the ethnic minority groups of the mainland Southeast Asian mountainous region that extends into Burma, Southwest China, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam (population estimated around 700,000). They are one of the less powerful groups, normally with no military of their own, and are often subject to the whims of more powerful or lowland state groups; they try to avoid subordination to such groups (see Tooker ). The community of Akha with whom I worked in the early 1980s had fled ethnic unrest and drug wars in Burma.…”

Section: The Akha Casementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The “macrocosm” is a set of patterns in the Akha universe that needed to be maintained and reconstructed to keep the life force flowing (see Tooker ). The “microcosm” is an attempt (in multiple domains, such as person, house, and village) to orient with a set of macrocosmic patterns that give access to the flow of the life force and that avoid or correct a misorientation that could drain the life force (Tooker ). They included most saliently center/periphery, upper/middle/lower, “middle way,” front/side/back, east/west, and level/sloped.…”

Section: The “Life Force” and Microcosmic/macrocosmic Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The transcription system I use here for Akha is CAW or “Common Akha Writing,” a recent indigenous script (see Tooker , 19).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rethinking Depth Metaphors with a Cosmocentric Self: The “Steep” and the “Level” in Akha Emotional Practices

Tooker

2019

Ethos

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This study critically engages two analytic constructs: western psychological individualism (with its assumed emotional interiority) and the notion of a generic sociocentric self. By looking at the emotional practices of the Akha of Northern Thailand in a nonmodern context, I aim to show the distinctiveness of a particular type of socio‐ and cosmo‐centric self, that of the “microcosmic,” “level” self, which is not a depth self. This analysis examines the semiotic ideology in which Akha emotions and self concepts are co‐constituted as part of a process of inner/outer alignment with both communal and cosmic templates that affect the flow of a life force energy. In addition, Akha social dynamics resist and deflect from the emergence of a potentially dangerous individualized depth self with emotional interiority and an inner/outer boundary, suggesting an ideological component, and, thus, the relevance of historical and political‐economic contexts in the study of emotional practices.

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Section: The Steep and Level Worldmentioning

confidence: 72%

Section: The Akha Casementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The “Life Force” and Microcosmic/macrocosmic Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The transcription system I use here for Akha is CAW or “Common Akha Writing,” a recent indigenous script (see Tooker , 19).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rethinking Depth Metaphors with a Cosmocentric Self: The “Steep” and the “Level” in Akha Emotional Practices

Tooker

2019

Ethos

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“…I provide (see also Tooker 2012). These sources contain much critical re-examination of the mandala concept in the context of Southeast Asian Studies.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Flows and Frontiers: Landscape and Cultural Dynamics on the Northeast Tibetan Plateau

Roche¹

2014

The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology

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This article investigates cultural dynamics on the northeast Tibetan Plateau with a case study of the Mangghuer people of the Sanchuan (Three Valleys) Region of Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County (Qinghai Province, China). I focus on 'models of spatialisation'-the ways in which the physical landscape is perceived, conceptualised and made meaningful. In the Mangghuer context, such models basically construe the landscape as being enlivened by flows and accumulations of positive and negative energies or entities. After providing a detailed description of this model, I attempt to locate it within a wider comparative framework of three broad models of spatialisation employed on the Tibetan Plateau: geomantic; mandalic; and itinerant. Based on this examination, I argue that the cultural dynamics of the region are not based on ethnic distinctions, but rather on the transportation of models across ethnic and other boundaries.

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Indigenous People, Organized Crime and Natural Resources: Borders, Incentives and Relations

Uhm

Grigore

2021

Crit Crim

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This article explores the relationship between the Emberá–Wounaan and Akha Indigenous people and organized crime groups vying for control over natural resources in the Darién Gap of East Panama and West Colombia and the Golden Triangle (the area where the borders of Laos, Myanmar (Burma), and Thailand meet), respectively. From a southern green criminological perspective, we consider how organized crime groups trading in natural resources value Indigenous knowledge. We also examine the continued victimization of Indigenous people in relation to environmental harm and the tension between Indigenous peoples’ ecocentric values and the economic incentives presented to them for exploiting nature. By looking at the history of the coloniality and the socioeconomic context of these Indigenous communities, this article generates a discussion about the social framing of the Indigenous people as both victims and offenders in the illegal trade in natural resources, particularly considering the types of relationships established with dominant criminal groups present in their ancestral lands.

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Space and the Production of Cultural Difference among the Akha Prior to Globalization: Channeling the Flow of Life

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

Rethinking Depth Metaphors with a Cosmocentric Self: The “Steep” and the “Level” in Akha Emotional Practices

Rethinking Depth Metaphors with a Cosmocentric Self: The “Steep” and the “Level” in Akha Emotional Practices

Flows and Frontiers: Landscape and Cultural Dynamics on the Northeast Tibetan Plateau

Indigenous People, Organized Crime and Natural Resources: Borders, Incentives and Relations

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