Centering The Margin
Subtitle: Agency And Narrative In Southeast Asian Borderlands (Asian Anthropologies)
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Published: June 6, 2006
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 238
ISBN-13: 9781845450199
Subjects: Asian / Middle Eastern history; Geopolitics; World history; Nomads; History; Sociology; History: World; South East Asia; Southeast Asia; Sociology - General; Ethnicity; Asia - Southeast Asia; Congresses; Minorities
First sentence: ALTHOUGH BORDERS AND BORDER CROSSING are by now familiar terms in anthropology, few ethnographic projects take up the crucial development of research questions.
Description: "In a completely new approach to borders and border crossing, this volume suggests a re-conceptualization of the nation in Southeast Asia. Choosing an actor approach, the individual chapters in this volume capture the narratives of minorities, migrants and refugees who inhabit and cross borders as part of their everyday life. They show that people are not only constrained by borders; the crossing of borders also opens up new options of agency. Making active use of these, border-crossing actors construct their own live projects on the border in multiple ways against the original intention of the nation-state. Based on their intimate knowledge of the interaction of communities, anthropologists from Europe, the USA, Japan and Southeast Asia provide a vivid picture of the effects of state policies at the borders on these communities."--Publisher's website.

In a new approach to borders and border crossing, this volume suggests a re-conceptualization of the nation in Southeast Asia.