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Highland Christianity
Modern Transformations of the China–Southeast Asia Borderlands
Edited by Lian Xi, David Bradley, and Ralph A. Litzinger
Highland Christianity
Modern Transformations of the China–Southeast Asia Borderlands
Edited by Lian Xi, David Bradley, and Ralph A. Litzinger
“A compelling analysis of Christianity in highland Asia. It examines how their Christianity enables the Indigenous peoples of this region to creatively construct their identity and ethnicity on their own terms amid the bewildering forces of colonialism and nation-making processes. Instead of analyzing the origins of Christianity as simply a colonial encounter, the contributors demonstrate how it provides social cohesion and intellectual, cultural, and political capital.”
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Highland Christianity brings together indigenous, in-group scholars and external researchers to examine Christianity’s complex entanglement with ethnicity and modernity across Zomia. Chapters investigate mass conversions, the creation of Bible orthographies, the indigenization of Christian practice, and the tensions Christianization generated with lowland states and majority populations. Contributors highlight the dramas and ambiguities of these changes while foregrounding the creative agency of highland peoples in reworking the faith to generate cohesion, cultural capital, and renewed forms of belonging. Moving beyond colonial frameworks, this interdisciplinary volume maps the profound and ongoing transformations of communities across this borderland region. It will be an essential resource for scholars and students of world Christianity, Asian studies, and anthropology.
In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume are Aminta Arrington, Chijui Hu, Jianxiong Ma, Pum Za Mang, Lagai Zau Nan, Anh-Minh Nguyen-Dang, Yoichi Nishimoto, and Zhu Jili.
“A compelling analysis of Christianity in highland Asia. It examines how their Christianity enables the Indigenous peoples of this region to creatively construct their identity and ethnicity on their own terms amid the bewildering forces of colonialism and nation-making processes. Instead of analyzing the origins of Christianity as simply a colonial encounter, the contributors demonstrate how it provides social cohesion and intellectual, cultural, and political capital.”
Lian Xi is Professor of World Christianity at Duke University and an Associate in Research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of many books, including, most recently, Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, a Martyr in Mao’s China, and Redeemed by Fire: The Rise of Popular Christianity in Modern China.
David Bradley is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at La Trobe University. He is the author of A Grammar of Lisu and coauthor of Language Endangerment.
Ralph A. Litzinger is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology and is affiliated with the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Department and Duke Global Health Institute at Duke University. He is the author of Other Chinas: The Yao and the Politics of National Belonging and coeditor of Ghost Protocol: Development and Displacement in Global China.
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