2017 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
From Frontiers to Boundaries: How was the borderline drawn between British Burma and China (1886-1941)?
| Project/Area Number |
15K03317
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| Research Institution | Yamagata University |
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Principal Investigator |
今村 真央 山形大学, 人文社会科学部, 准教授 (60748135)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
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| Keywords | border / China / Myanmar / boundary |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The third and final year of this project proved to be fruitful. The project made progress in two ways. First, the project expanded the spatial scope of its empirical inquiry. Building upon the findings from the second year, I realized that in order to investigate the history of the China-Myanmar boundary it is necessary to understand that of the China-India boundary. The evidences collected reveal that for China, settling the boundary dispute with India was the priority; Beijing sought to settle the boundary issue with Myanmar quickly. I assessed the current state of the scholarship and found out that the empirical studies by Eric Vanden Bussche and Berenice Guyot-Rechard; their studies need to be compared and synthesized.
Second, it is necessary to build and present a more general theoretical/conceptual framework for border/boundary studies, which enables comparison and synthesis. Reading several introductory studies on border studies made me realize this. Border studies currently suffers from excessive Eurocentrism and it is not adequately able to incorporate insights from non-West. Unless we come up with a better framework, insights from Asia will always be marginal. Recent advancement in Eurasia-wide studies are particularly promising in this regard.
The relationship between the state in the center and the locals residing in a marginalized borderland is a topic that particularly deserves more attention; therefore, my own research in the third year has focused largely on cultural and religious dynamics in the politically contested borderland.
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