Traditional culture as a vehicle for Christian future-making: ethnic minority elites pioneering self-representations in northern Myanmar

Abstract

This paper explores the pioneering work for future-making by one of Myanmar’s non-dominant ethnic groups. Specifically, it examines how the Christian Lisu elite strategically, and somewhat opportunistically, use ‘traditional culture’ to perform ethnicity against the background of their ‘double-minority’ status vis-à-vis the dominant populations of the (Kachin) state and (Myanmar) nation. It analyses heterogeneous social actors and conditions that have influenced a Christian elite’s renewed interest in their pre-Christian litpix traditions, as well as the challenges involved in translating the singularity of its abstraction into various embodied forms. Central to this process is the selection, revision and standardisation of previously marginalised artefacts and practices, placing them in the litpix domain independent of religion (Christianity). These embodied forms are readily tagged as ethnically Lisu whenever assertion of difference is needed. I argue that the emerging litpix space has become a significant discursive site relating to Lisu self-representations of modern selves and relations. It is also crucial in the Christian elite’s efforts to gain competitive political, economic and cultural resources for the future development of the Burmese Lisu (especially the younger generation) while maintaining the church’s important influence on public and private life in the Lisu Christian community.