Rebecca M. Empson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197264737
- eISBN:
- 9780191753992
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264737.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This introductory chapter begins with a description of a small district called Ashinga, in Hentii Province along the Mongolian-Russian border, where the author conducted her PhD fieldwork between ...
More
This introductory chapter begins with a description of a small district called Ashinga, in Hentii Province along the Mongolian-Russian border, where the author conducted her PhD fieldwork between 1999 and 2000. It describes the area, its people, and how they go about their daily lives. The chapter then sets out the book's purpose, which is to address a set of seemingly paradoxical questions that emerged out of the author's placement in a family and extends to wider spheres of social life for the Buriad: How do people who traverse the border zone between two countries and have no private land or state of their own accumulate possessions and grow things? How can people who have lived under intense persecution during the socialist period, when most of their male relatives were either killed or taken away, harness such loss and absence to generate a proliferation of relations? Why is it that when these people display wealth in a stationary form, they destroy these exhibits through acts of arson that separate them from such accumulation? An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This introductory chapter begins with a description of a small district called Ashinga, in Hentii Province along the Mongolian-Russian border, where the author conducted her PhD fieldwork between 1999 and 2000. It describes the area, its people, and how they go about their daily lives. The chapter then sets out the book's purpose, which is to address a set of seemingly paradoxical questions that emerged out of the author's placement in a family and extends to wider spheres of social life for the Buriad: How do people who traverse the border zone between two countries and have no private land or state of their own accumulate possessions and grow things? How can people who have lived under intense persecution during the socialist period, when most of their male relatives were either killed or taken away, harness such loss and absence to generate a proliferation of relations? Why is it that when these people display wealth in a stationary form, they destroy these exhibits through acts of arson that separate them from such accumulation? An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Rebecca M. Empson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197264737
- eISBN:
- 9780191753992
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264737.003.0009
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
In Ashinga's district centre, wealth is increasingly visible in the form of people's elaborately constructed wooden houses. This chapter shows that these static displays have, over the past decade, ...
More
In Ashinga's district centre, wealth is increasingly visible in the form of people's elaborately constructed wooden houses. This chapter shows that these static displays have, over the past decade, become the target of serious arson attacks. Such attacks bring to the fore memories of past terrors where people's property was confiscated in the dead of night. But the threat of arson should not be viewed simply as an extension of a previous terror. Instead, through a focus on Mongolian ideas about fire, arson appears as a form of purification, as people question the morality of their new means of accumulating wealth and power.Less
In Ashinga's district centre, wealth is increasingly visible in the form of people's elaborately constructed wooden houses. This chapter shows that these static displays have, over the past decade, become the target of serious arson attacks. Such attacks bring to the fore memories of past terrors where people's property was confiscated in the dead of night. But the threat of arson should not be viewed simply as an extension of a previous terror. Instead, through a focus on Mongolian ideas about fire, arson appears as a form of purification, as people question the morality of their new means of accumulating wealth and power.
