E-Books →Enchanted Modernities Ancestral Vitalizations in the Upper Mekong

Free Download Micah F. Morton, "Enchanted Modernities: Ancestral Vitalizations in the Upper Mekong "
English | ISBN: 0299350908 | 2025 | 278 pages | PDF | 3 MB
Enchanted Modernities tells the story of an Indigenous community's work to decolonize and reclaim its collective ancestral identity. In this rich, theoretically informed ethnography, Micah F. Morton follows a transregional network of Indigenous Akha people from Thailand, Myanmar (Burma), China, and Laos as they spearhead a new movement for a pan-Akha identity. In the face of enormous historical and present-day colonialist pressures, this neo-traditionalist movement has focused on revitalizing (or "vitalizing," in Morton's suggestive term) Akha ancestral ways, preventing ongoing conversion to Christianity, and facilitating return conversion to the ways of the Ancestors. Morton focuses especially on the community's work to ensure their Ancestors live on and thus remain a dynamic part of their, and their descendants', lives.