Between Tibetanization and Tribalization: Towards a New Anthropology of Tibeto-Burman Highlanders in Arunachal Pradesh

该项目解决了藏缅语社会人类学中最严重和最持久的缺陷之一，即缺乏对居住在青藏高原东南边缘的高原人口的研究。具体的研究目标是通过对以前未被记录在案的藏缅高地社会进行人种学和民族史研究，贡献新的人类学知识。这些结果将首次对阿鲁纳恰尔邦苏班西里地区的Mr-Na部族群进行科学描述(见地图)，这是整个地区名列亚洲最不为人所知的社会之一的各种族群之一。S项目的总体目标是开始建立一个可靠的人种学基础，用于分析居住在不丹东部和缅甸北部之间未经研究的山区的高原人口的社会和文化地位。这项研究摒弃了这种社会被孤立的概念，而是试图将它们理解为青藏高原和低山区之间的关键中间人，以及过渡参与者，他们不仅在非常不同的社会、文化和自然环境之间进行谈判，而且也被这些环境所改变。这些结果将扩大对青藏高原居民与其高原邻居之间互动和交流性质的批判性分析，这一过程被称为藏化，到目前为止，藏化仅限于尼泊尔人类学。这项研究还将调查该地区最近的部落化进程，即外部产生的许多高地社会的分类和并入现代印度邦的所谓预定部落，以及这产生的社会后果。

This project addresses one of the most significant and enduring deficits in the anthropology of Tibeto-Burman speaking societies, namely the lack of research on highland populations dwelling along the southeastern margins of the Tibetan Plateau. The specific research goal is a contribution of new anthropological knowledge by way of an ethnographic and ethno-historical study of a previously undocumented Tibeto-Burman highland society. The results will yield the first scientific description of the Mra-Na clan cluster of the Subansiri district in Arunachal Pradesh (see map), one of various groups throughout this region who rank among the least known societies in Asia. The project¿s general goal is to begin building a reliable ethnographic basis for analysis of the social and cultural status of highland populations dwelling in the unresearched mountain zone between eastern Bhutan and northern Burma (Myanmar). Rejecting the notion of such societies being isolated, this research seeks instead to understand them as key intermediaries between the Tibetan plateau and lower hill regions, and as transitional actors who not only negotiate between very different social, cultural and physical environments, but who have also been transformed by them. The results will broaden critical analysis of the nature of interactions and exchanges between Tibetan plateau dwellers and their highland neighbours in terms of the process known as Tibetanization, which has so far been limited to the anthropology of Nepal. The research will also investigate very recent processes of ¿tribalization¿ in this region, that is, the externally generated classification and incorporation of many such highland societies as so-called Scheduled Tribes within the modern Indian state, and the social consequences this has had.