Anthropological Study of Dynamics of Ethnicity of the Shan in Myanmar

这项研究项目是对生活在缅甸的掸族人进行人类学分析的一种尝试。巴马族在政治和文化上对掸邦产生影响的过程将被称为掸邦的Burman化(缅甸化)。今天，我们可以看到缅甸化的几个不同阶段。与这一现象并行的是，掸族人一定经历了一种对他们自己的人的“山化”，这可能提高了他们自己的自我意识，构建了他们自己的知识。因此，“山化”并不意味着他们在前现代时期对山地邻居的同化，而是指在缅甸化的政治和文化压力下，他们自身文化的保存和复兴，以及集体认同的形成等各种文化动态现象。“山化”话语与掸族的双向建构有关：对内，通过一些共同的获得、维持和扩展族群知识的模式；对外，通过政治谈判，努力与巴马族共存。提交人于1997年至2003年在掸邦和克钦邦断断续续地进行了关于这一研究项目的实地调研。今天居住在克钦邦的大多数掸族人已经忘记了掸语，他们把巴马语作为自己的母语，土化和香化似乎像硬币的两面一样密切相关。从某种意义上说，掸族人被迫主要通过保护他们的文学传统来保护他们的“正宗”文化，否则它将只能在书面记录中看到。这可以被称为文化的结晶，因为这样的过程往往是追溯的，创造了传统。掸邦的掸族，特别是北部的掸邦承担了大部分的责任。

This research project is an attempt to present an anthropological analysis of the Shan people living in Burma (Myanmar). The process whereby the Bamar have politically and culturally influenced the Shan will be referred to as the Burmanization (Myanmarization) of the Shan. Today we can see several different stages of Burmanization. In parallel with this phenomenon, the Shan must have experienced a kind of "Shanization" of their own people that may have raised their own self-consciousness and constructed their own knowledge. So "Shanization" does not signify the assimilation of their hill neighbors in the pre-modern period but various phenomena of cultural dynamics such as the preservation and revitalization of their own culture and the formation of a collective identity under the political and cultural pressure of Burmanization The discourse of "Shanization" relates with two-way construction of Shan ethnicity : internally by some common modes of acquiring, maintaining, and extending knowledge of ethnicity ; externally by political negotiation in an effort to coexist with the Bamar. The author's field research concerning this research project was conducted intermittently from 1997 to 2003 in Shan State and Kachin State. Today most of the Shan people residing in Kachin State have forgotten the Shan language, and they use the Bamar language as their native tongue.Burmanization and Shanization seem to be closely related to each other like the two sides of a coin. In a sense the Shan have been forced to preserve their "authentic" culture mainly through preservation of their literary tradition, otherwise it will be seen only in written records. This may be called a crystallization of culture, for such a process tends to be done retrospectively and invent traditions. The Shan in Shan State, especially Northern Shan State where have shouldered most of the responsibility.