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Magnus Fiskesjö

Bio: Magnus Fiskesjö is an academic researcher from Cornell University. The author has contributed to research in topics: China & Civilization. The author has an hindex of 8, co-authored 30 publications receiving 251 citations.

Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the history of mining in the political history of the Wa area is discussed with reference to larger debates over agency, autonomy, and state formation, with particular attention to mining resources and their relation to Wa politics before the mid twentieth century.
Abstract: Historically autonomous and fiercely egalitarian, yet far from isolated and extensively implicated in regional, and global, economies of trade and exchange, the Wa people on the Burma–China frontier stand out in the history of marginal peoples refusing to be marginalized. This article addresses the place of mining in the political history of the Wa area – a key part of what has recently been called the Zomia region, but one which differs from many other cases because of its activist statelessness. The history of the Wa areas is outlined and discussed with reference to larger debates over agency, autonomy, and state formation, with particular attention to mining resources and their relation to Wa politics before the mid twentieth century.

36 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors take modern China's dilemma of how to deal with the legacy of its imperial past as the starting point for a discussion of the drawn-out re-creation of China in the twentieth century.
Abstract: This paper takes modern China's dilemma of how to deal with the legacy of its imperial past as the starting point for a discussion of the drawn-out re-creation of China in the twentieth century. The particular focus is on the important role of non-Han ethnic minorities in this process. It is pointed out that the non-recognition and forced assimilation of all such minorities, in favour of a unified citizenship on an imagined European, American or Japanese model, was actually considered as a serious alternative and favoured by many Chinese nation-builders in the wake of the overthrow of the last imperial dynasty in 1911. The article then proceeds to a discussion of why, on the contrary, ethnic minorities should instead have been formally identified and in some cases even actively organised as official minorities, recognised and incorporated into the state structure, as happened after 1949. Based on the formal and symbolic qualities of the constitution of these minorities, it is argued that new China is also a new formulation of the imperial Chinese model, which resurrects the corollary idea of civilisation as a transformative force that requires a primitive, backward periphery as its object.

33 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The formation of Wa identity and xenology through rice beer drinking, a key arena of social interaction governed by intricate rules, is discussed in this article, where the shared drinking of home-made beer not only shapes Wa sociality and invites the "participant intoxication" of anyone who would submit to Wa mores, but also defines as outsiders those who would refuse to share, including those appalled by the beer's uncleanliness, real or imagined.
Abstract: Self–other distinctions are always made in a dynamic process of incorporation and exclusion, based on locally produced sociocultural rules constantly redefined in practice. In the present paper, I discuss the formation of Wa identity and xenology through rice beer drinking, a key arena of social interaction governed by intricate rules. The shared drinking of home-made beer not only shapes Wa sociality and invites the ‘participant intoxication’ of anyone who would submit to Wa mores (including foreign ethnographers), but also defines as outsiders those who would refuse to share, including those appalled by the beer's uncleanliness, real or imagined. Rice beer drinking is briefly compared with betel chewing and smoking tobacco, and is also contrasted with commodified Chinese liquor in terms of their use and effect in social interaction and ethnic distinction in the Wa lands at the China–Burma frontier, with special attention to the problem of Wa autonomy.

33 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
08 Aug 2015-Ethnos
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss mainly China, and how the "wild" Wa headhunting paraphernalia prohibited by the Chinese in the 1950s now reappear as kitsch.
Abstract: The Wa people have long occupied a special place in the state-directed political spectacle of minority nationalities, in both China and Burma. This fascination builds on older views of the Wa as dangerous barbarians, and closely evokes other primitivisms from around the world. In China and in neighbouring countries, state policy has recently combined with commercial entrepreneurism to cultivate a new, selective nostalgia for ‘primitive-exotic’ peoples like the Wa. In this paper, I discuss mainly China, and how the ‘wild’ Wa headhunting paraphernalia prohibited by the Chinese in the 1950s now reappear as kitsch. Some Wa of older generations see such revivals as dangerous, but younger people may embrace the revival. I discuss the new Chinese repackaging of primitive violence and the different Wa understandings of these staged exoticizations of their culture, including ways the staged representations are taken up in Wa attempts to revive aspects of their cultural past.

22 citations


Cited by
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01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: Thematiche [38].
Abstract: accademiche [38]. Ada [45]. Adrian [45]. African [56]. Age [39, 49, 61]. Al [23]. Al-Rawi [23]. Aldous [68]. Alex [15]. Allure [46]. America [60, 66]. American [49, 69, 61, 52]. ancienne [25]. Andreas [28]. Angela [42]. Animals [16]. Ann [26]. Anna [19, 47]. Annotated [46]. Annotations [28]. Anti [37]. Anti-Copernican [37]. Antibiotic [64]. Anxiety [51]. Apocalyptic [61]. Archaeology [26]. Ark [36]. Artisan [32]. Asylum [48]. Atri [54]. Audra [65]. Australia [41]. Authorship [15]. Axelle [29].

978 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Mar 2007

282 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article present a synthesis of zooarchaeological research published since the early 1990s that addresses political economy, status distinctions, and the ideological and ritual roles of animals in complex cultures.
Abstract: The zooarchaeology of complex societies provides insights into the interrelated social and economic relationships that people and animals created. I present a synthesis of zooarchaeological research published since the early 1990s that addresses political economy, status distinctions, and the ideological and ritual roles of animals in complex cultures. I address current approaches and applications as well as theoretical shifts in zooarchaeological practice. Research indicates there is great variability across space and time in how past peoples used animals to generate economic surplus, to establish status differentiation within societies, and to create symbolic meaning through sacrifices, offerings, and in feasts. The study of human/animal interactions in complex societies can contribute to fundamental questions of broad relevance regarding political and social life.

178 citations