Who's Counting? Ethnicity, Belonging, and the National Census in Burma/Myanmar
Date
2015
Authors
Ferguson, Jane
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Brill
Abstract
Partially rooted in British colonial ethnology and administration, the ethnic categories of the 2014 Myanmar census have attracted controversy, particularly from representatives of non-Burman political organizations. The categories themselves, as well as the bureaucratic exercise of the census, have a complex genealogy which offers considerable insight into understanding the contemporary situation. Drawing from Hirschman�s theory that the study of measurements of ethnicity is a unique resource for understanding the meaning of ethnicity in a society, this article discusses the controversy surrounding the 2014 census, and how some census-related issues have been crucially framed by bureaucratic structures that came before.
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Keywords: bureaucracy; Burma; census; colonialism; ethnicity; Myanmar
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Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia and Oceania)
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Journal article
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