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

该项目将调查居住在东南亚的占族穆斯林，他们讲马来-波利尼西亚语言，并强调被迫流离失所的全球性和长期性。在7世纪和15世纪之间，占族占据了今天越南中部和南部的沿海平原和山区。他们从未形成一个统一的王国，而是围绕渔民、造船商、海盗、商人和跨区域贸易建立的“文化政治空间”（Taylor 1992：153）。从17世纪世纪开始，占族通过逐渐的、往往是暴力的向南扩张和殖民化成为越南政体的一部分，迫使他们在与他们长期交往的邻国政体中避难。占族祖先从越南逃到海南的痛苦记忆仍然存在，他们在中国被归类为穆斯林（回族）。在1970年代，来自湄公河三角洲的占族是柬埔寨凶残的红色高棉政权期间受迫害的群体之一;数千人作为难民逃到马来西亚，远至美国、法国、澳大利亚和加拿大。今天，在越南和中国，占族都被正式承认为民族，但与占主导地位的京族（越南人）或汉族（占主导地位的中国人）相比，占族在经济和文化上仍处于边缘地位。虽然在马来西亚，他们无法完全摆脱贫困，但州宪法承认占族拥有马来西亚公民身份和土著身份的权利。利用在官方发展援助名单上的三个国家-中国，越南和马来西亚-的民族志实地考察和博物馆展示，拟议的项目将提供第一手资料，了解由于反复的历史流离失所的持久影响而产生的多种社会和经济不平等，这些流离失所继续将占族标记为边缘，甚至几个世纪以来。关注那些参与南中国海（SCS）地区的历史上流动的文化和政治身份，我们试图阐明种族和宗教的共同点和差异是如何与“东道国”的立法和国内话语交织在一起的，以及它们如何促进或限制像占族这样的弱势群体和流离失所群体的融合。这一概念被写入了今天的民族国家秩序，建立在均匀的、有界的空间上，取代了前现代对空间和领土的无限理解。拟议的研究是创新的，重点放在海/陆和跨地方，跨区域的连接超出了行政边界和历史，通常是在民族国家的条件下，在政治和学术分析（方法民族主义）。该项目的第一个目标是批判性地研究官方话语和民族分类如何使民族国家内的少数民族本质化。第二个目标是追踪他们如何维持其数百年的流动性，包括跨越和超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激励占族（重新）定义他们的种族，宗教和民族归属。最后，第四个目标是描绘占族历史和移动的生活方式是如何在马来西亚、越南和中国的博物馆中被呈现和/或沉默的。在人类学、历史学、政治学和博物馆研究的交叉点上，这个项目将在与博物馆馆长和教育工作者围绕种族和民族代表性问题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兴亚人，他们-与占族人相反-不享有同样的马来公民权，从而加深和多样化我们对弱势群体的不同代表性的理解，这些群体不容易融入民族国家框架，其群体身份也不固定。

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.