Space and the Production of Cultural Difference among the Akha of Northern Thailand

FAIN: FT-54165-06

Deborah Ellen Tooker
Le Moyne College (Syracuse, NY 13214-1300)

I propose to complete a book manuscript on concepts and practices relating to space among the Akha, a minority upland group found in Northern Thailand. This study foregrounds the role of space in the production of identity and cultural difference, as opposed to treating space as setting. It addresses questions concerning space and holism, and space and power. By considering the nonmodern and nonwestern case of Akha society prior to nation-state integration, this study critically examines the literature on the relationships among space, power, and the politics of identity, a literature that has mainly focused on western modern and post-modern contexts.

Media Coverage

(Review)
Publication: 3 journals
Date: 7/28/2016

Associated Products

Space and the Production of Cultural Difference Among the Akha Prior to Globalization: Channeling the Flow of Life (Book)
Title: Space and the Production of Cultural Difference Among the Akha Prior to Globalization: Channeling the Flow of Life
Author: Deborah E. Tooker
Editor: Paul van der Velde
Abstract: This book investigates the meaning of spatial practices in a non-state society, and their significance in the formation of a distinctive collective identity that developed in a regional context. The society is that of the AKHA (phone.`Aja'), a minority upland group found in Northern Thailand and surrounding countries with whom I have conducted long-term, participant-observational fieldwork between the years 1982 and 2010. This book focuses on the time period 1982-1985.
Year: 2012
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9789089643254
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

---