Reframing centuries of Cham forced displacement: Connections, interactions and networks across the South China Sea

该项目将调查生活在东南亚各地、说马来亚-波利尼西亚语的湛族穆斯林，并举例说明强迫流离失所的全球性和长期性。在公元7世纪和15世纪之间，湛族占领了今天越南中部和南部的沿海平原和山区。它们从未形成一个统一的王国，而是一个围绕渔民、造船工人、海盗、商人和跨区域贸易建立的“文化-政治空间”(Taylor 1992：153)。从17世纪开始，湛族通过逐渐且往往是暴力的向南扩张和殖民，成为越南政体的一部分，迫使他们在与他们长期互动的邻国政体中避难。他们的祖先从越南逃到海南的痛苦记忆在湛族人中仍然存在，他们在中国被归类为穆斯林(回族)。20世纪70年代，在柬埔寨残暴的红色高棉政权期间，湄公河三角洲的湛族是众多受到迫害的群体之一；数以千计的人作为难民逃往马来西亚，远至美国、法国、澳大利亚和加拿大。今天，在越南和中国，湛族都被正式承认为少数民族，但与占主导地位的金族(越南族)或汉族(占主导地位的华人)相比，他们在经济和文化上仍然处于边缘地位。尽管在马来西亚，他们无法完全摆脱贫困，但州宪法承认湛族人有权获得马来西亚公民身份和他们的Bumiputera身份。这个拟议的项目利用了官方发展援助名单上的三个国家--中国、越南和马来西亚--的民族田野调查和博物馆展示，将为人们提供第一手资料，了解反复发生的历史流离失所所产生的持久影响所产生的多重社会和经济不平等，这些流离失所仍然将使湛江处于边缘地位，甚至是几个世纪后的水平。聚焦于那些在南中国海地区从事工作的人历史上不稳定的文化和政治身份，我们试图阐明种族和宗教的共性和差异是如何与‘东道国’的立法和国内话语交织在一起的，以及它们如何可能促进或限制像查韦斯这样的弱势群体和流离失所群体的融合。查姆已经被融入到今天的民族国家秩序中，其前提是同质的、有限的空间，取代了前现代的、对空间和领土的无限理解。拟议的研究在关注海洋/陆地和跨地区、跨区域联系方面具有创新性，这些联系超越了通常以民族国家为框架的政治和学术分析(方法论民族主义)中的行政边界和历史。该项目的第一个目标是批判性地检查官方话语和种族分类如何使民族国家中的少数民族变得必要。第二个目标是追踪他们如何维持其数百年的流动性，包括跨越民族国家边界的政治、宗教和贸易活动。第三个目标探讨了与全球伊斯兰社区的联系如何促使Cham继续(重新)定义他们的种族、宗教和民族财产。最后，第四个目标是绘制马来西亚、越南和中国博物馆如何呈现和/或沉默湛族历史和流动生活方式的图表。在人类学、历史学、政治学和博物馆研究的交汇点上，这个项目将在围绕民族和国家代表性问题与博物馆馆长和教育工作者建立对话和知识交流方面发挥重要作用。它将为其他流离失所群体提供一个新的视角，例如在缅甸受到迫害的穆斯林罗辛亚人--与Cham相反--他们不享有马来公民身份的同等权利，从而加深和多样化我们对弱势群体的不同代表的理解，这些弱势群体不容易融入民族国家的框架，其群体身份并不固定。

This project will investigate Cham Muslims who live across Southeast Asia, speak a Malayo-Polynesian language and exemplify the global and protracted nature of forced displacement. Between the 7th and 15th centuries the Cham occupied coastal plains and mountain zones in today's central and southern Vietnam. They never formed a unified kingdom but rather "a cultural-political space" built around fishermen, shipbuilders, pirates, traders and transregional trade (Taylor 1992: 153). From the 17th century the Cham became part of the Viet polity through gradual and often violent southward expansion and colonization that forced them to take refuge in the neighbouring polities with which they had long interacted. The painful memory of their ancestors' flight to Hainan from Vietnam is still alive among the Cham, who in China are classified as Muslim (Hui). In the 1970s, Cham from the Mekong Delta were among the many persecuted groups during Cambodia's murderous Khmer Rouge regime; thousands fled as refugees to Malaysia and as far as the United States, France, Australia and Canada. Today, both in Vietnam and China the Cham are officially recognized as ethnic groups, but remain economically and culturally marginalized compared to the dominant Kinh (ethnic Vietnamese) or Han (dominant Chinese). Although in Malaysia they could not fully escape poverty, the state constitution recognizes Cham rights to Malaysian citizenship and their Bumiputera status. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and museum representations across three countries on the ODA list-China, Vietnam and Malaysia-the proposed project will offer first hand insights into the multiple social and economic inequalities arising from the lasting repercussions of repeated historical displacements that continue to mark the Cham out as marginal, even centuries on. Focusing on the historically fluid cultural and political identities of those engaged in the South China Sea (SCS) region, we seek to illuminate how perceived ethnic and religious commonalities and differences are interwoven with legislation and domestic discourses in 'host countries' and how they might facilitate or constrain the integration of vulnerable and displaced groups like the Cham.The Cham have been inscribed into the present day nation-state order premised on homogeneous, bounded space that replaced pre-modern, unbounded understandings of space and territory. The proposed research is innovative in focusing on sea/land and translocal, transregional connections beyond the administrative boundaries and histories that are usually framed in nation-state terms, both politically and in scholarly analysis (methodological nationalism). The project's first objective is to critically examine how official discourse and ethnic categorization essentialise the ethnic minorities within the nation-state. The second objective is to trace how they sustain their centuries-old mobility, including political, religious and trade activities that straddle and transgress nation-state borders. The third objective explores how the connection to the global Islamic community spurs the Cham on to (re)define their ethnic, religious and national belongings. Finally, the fourth objective is to chart how the Cham history and mobile way of life is represented and/or silenced in Malaysian, Vietnamese and Chinese museums.At the intersection of anthropology, history, political science and museum studies, this project will play a vital role in building dialogue and knowledge exchange with museum curators and educators around the issue of ethnic and national representation. It will offer a fresh perspective on other displaced groups, such as Muslim Rohingya persecuted in Myanmar who - contrary to Cham - do not enjoy the same rights to Malay citizenship, thereby deepening and diversifying our understanding of different representations of vulnerable groups who do not easily fit into the nation-state frame and whose group identities are not fixed.