Nicola Tannenbaum
Biographic Data
| ID | 98462 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nicola Tannenbaum |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nicola |
| FAMILY NAME | Tannenbaum |
| SIGNATURE | TANNENBAUM N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lehigh University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 176 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Terwiel, Barend Jan: The “Soul” of the Tai Re-Examined. The Khwan Concept and Tham Khwan Ceremony of the Tai-Speaking Peoples. (Edited by Benjamin Baumann.)
Power Protection, Social Relationships and the Ethnographer
Thailand’s Shan people are Buddhists but their ideas of power as protection are not explained with reference to Buddhism. Juxtaposing their ideas with the cases made for Thai and Javanese helps clarify commonalities and specificities within Southeast Asia. My understanding of power in Shan terms derives from fieldwork encounters. I trace how my understandings grew with repeated fieldwork and with my increasing embedding in social networks in the …
Gender and B uddhism
Gender roles in Buddhism are debated across the religion. The emphasis of this entry is on Theravada Buddhism and the ways in which anthropologists use their understanding of Buddhism to analyze gender roles. Their analysis is traced back to earlier constructions of Buddhism as a text‐based religion that plays down Buddhism and gender as an aspect of lived religions. Most writing about gender and Theravada Buddhism is about Thailand and that is t…
Rebirth, Community and Communal Karma in Shan Communities in Northwestern Thailand
In the Shan community of Thongmakhsan, northwestern Thailand, where I have done most of my ethnographic research, children are often identified as so-and-so who was reborn. These identifications are based on appearance, personal proclivities, and dreams around the time the child was born. I begin with the account of Ay Phit and his rebirth since it is this story which piqued my interest in rebirth. I then provide some background information on Sh…
Lived Buddhism and Its Localizations: Rebirth And Sermons
I begin this essay with a brief introduction to cross-cultural comparisons and their importance for our understanding of lived Buddhism and its localization. Before examining the papers on rebirth, I first present rebirth in non-Buddhist contexts to locate our discussion within broader understandings of rebirth. I then discuss the the rebirth papers highlighting their similarities and differences
What Sermons Can Tell Us
In this I essay I analyse four sermons delivered at Shan festivals that celebrates the end of the Rains Retreat (Waa). I first argue that sermons in general are important sources of information about lived Buddhism. I next provide background information necessary to understand the sermon events and the sermons. In conclusion, I compare the sermons and discuss what laypeople can learn from sermons and what we, as academics, can learn from them
Shan Calendrical Systems: The Everyday Use of Esoteric Knowledge
In this paper I examine the Shan calendrical system as an aspect of exoteric knowledge. To do this I first place the communities I lived in and the experts I consulted in the context of Shan communities and Shan experts. Next I provide a brief account of the Shan calendrical system as I learned it from local experts. I then discuss what everyday people know about the system and age and gender variation in the extent of knowledge. In order to unde…
Gender Pluralism: Southeast Asia Since Early Modern Times by Michael G. Peletz
The changing nature of Shan political ritual and identity in Maehongson, Northwestern Thailand
In this paper I explore the ways in which Shan identities are expressed in political ritual and how these rituals have changed in response to the influx of refugees from the Shan State in Burma and the expansion of networks that link Maehongson more tightly to the Thai nation. I provide a brief introduction to Shan culture and the larger national and international contexts in which Maehongson Shan are situated. With this as background I discuss a…
Control, Change, and Suffering: The Messages of Shan Buddhist Sermons
Shan villagers are Buddhists, but their main access to Buddhist ideology is through the sermons the local monks preach. We describe the content of a number of sermons. These outline a system where lack of control causes change which causes suffering. The sermons teach about the acquisition of knowledge where the objective is not to control but to escape from the system. Power, gained through withdrawal or relationships with powerful beings, gives…
Poetics of Conduct: Oral Narrative and Moral Being in a South Indian Town by Leela Prasad
Karaoke Fascism: Burma and the Politics of Fear
Monique Skidmore, Karaoke Fascism: Burma and the Politics of Fear, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004,264 pages.Skidmore did difficult fieldwork in Burma during 1996, a period of increasing turmoil as students and others openly demonstrated against the current regime. Her research was, ostensibly, to understand the idioms of emotional and psychological distress used by various Burmese communities, and to explore the role of reli…
Founders' cults in Southeast Asia: Ancestors, polity, and identity
Friends in High Places
Friends in High Places. Directed by Lindsey Merrison. 2001. 86 minutes (56 minute version available), color. Distributed by Documentary Educational Resources, 101 Morse Street, Watertown, MA 02472, www.der.org
Through a Lens Darkly
Rosalind C. Morris. In the Place of Origins: Modernity and Its Mediums in Northern Thailand. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. + 380 pp
Protest, Tree Ordination, and the Changing Context of Political Ritual
This article discusses a successful political protest in a village in northwestern Thailand and the community's tree ordination to further protect its forest from development. The protest and tree ordination are signs of the increasingly complex relationships that are changing the community's relative political, religious, and economic autonomy and tying different actors in the community into the wider political framework in ways that were not po…
Economies and Cultures: Foundations of Economic Anthropology
Economies and Cultures: Foundations of Economic Anthropology. RICHARD R. WILK. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. xvii. 198 pp., illustrations, figures, appendix, bibliography, index
Merit and Blessing: In Mainland Southeast Asian Comparative Perspective
Merit and Blessing in Mainland Southeast Asia in Comparative Perspective
Ecology and Practical Technology: Peasant Farming Systems in Thailand
Understanding Witchcraft and Sorcery in Southeast Asia
Galactic Polities, the Asiatic Mode of Production and Peasant‐States: Southeast Asian Pre‐Modern Polities
Analytical Perspectives on Shan Agriculture and Village Economics
Analytical Perspectives on Shan Agriculture and Village Economics
Households and Villages: The Political-Ritual Structures of Tai Communities
Villages seem natural units with an internal coherence that binds their members together. This perception in anthropology comes from the earlier functional theoretical orientation that produced classic ethnographies of villages. We thus regard household clusters as villages or hamlets. The question of what these clusters may mean to the people who inhabit them remains unexamined, however. In mainland Southeast Asia there is a wide range of possib…
Participant Observation
Tattoos: Invulnerability and power in Shan cosmology
In this paper I argue that both Buddhist and animist practices are integrally related and are derived from a single axiomatic system structured on the existence of amoral power. This worldview and the political realities of state systems account for animist practices and Buddhist elements that are incorporated into the religious system. I support this argument with an analysis of Shan tattoos. [tattoos, ideology, Buddhism, Shan, Thailand
The Misuse of Chayanov: "Chayanov's Rule" and Empiricist Bias in Anthropology
Sahlins's "Chayanov's Rule"-the more consumers each worker has to support the more work each worker does-has characterized Chayanov's analysis for most anthropologists. I examine the relationship between the consumer/worker ratio and product per worker for the Shan community of Thongmakhsan in northwestern Thailand. Since there is no systematic relationship between these variables even when the population is divided into production strategy group…
Household Economy, Political Economy, and Ideology: Peasants and the State in Southeast Asia
We use Chayanov's central concept of the on-farm balance to develop descriptions of household production that provide evidence for the way households fit into the material realities of their economic, social, and political systems. This provides a theoretically, ethnographically, and historically motivated way to compare households and political-economic systems and their cultural correlates
Economies and Cultures: Foundations of Economic Anthropology
Economies and Cultures: Foundations of Economic Anthropology. RICHARD R. WILK. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. xvii. 198 pp., illustrations, figures, appendix, bibliography, index
A diachronic analysis of Shan cropping systems
Power Protection, Social Relationships and the Ethnographer
Thailand’s Shan people are Buddhists but their ideas of power as protection are not explained with reference to Buddhism. Juxtaposing their ideas with the cases made for Thai and Javanese helps clarify commonalities and specificities within Southeast Asia. My understanding of power in Shan terms derives from fieldwork encounters. I trace how my understandings grew with repeated fieldwork and with my increasing embedding in social networks in the …
Protest, Tree Ordination, and the Changing Context of Political Ritual
This article discusses a successful political protest in a village in northwestern Thailand and the community's tree ordination to further protect its forest from development. The protest and tree ordination are signs of the increasingly complex relationships that are changing the community's relative political, religious, and economic autonomy and tying different actors in the community into the wider political framework in ways that were not po…
Analytical Perspectives on Shan Agriculture and Village Economics
Merit and Blessing in Mainland Southeast Asia in Comparative Perspective
Shan Calendrical Systems: The Everyday Use of Esoteric Knowledge
In this paper I examine the Shan calendrical system as an aspect of exoteric knowledge. To do this I first place the communities I lived in and the experts I consulted in the context of Shan communities and Shan experts. Next I provide a brief account of the Shan calendrical system as I learned it from local experts. I then discuss what everyday people know about the system and age and gender variation in the extent of knowledge. In order to unde…
Control, Change, and Suffering: The Messages of Shan Buddhist Sermons
Shan villagers are Buddhists, but their main access to Buddhist ideology is through the sermons the local monks preach. We describe the content of a number of sermons. These outline a system where lack of control causes change which causes suffering. The sermons teach about the acquisition of knowledge where the objective is not to control but to escape from the system. Power, gained through withdrawal or relationships with powerful beings, gives…
Households and Villages: The Political-Ritual Structures of Tai Communities
Villages seem natural units with an internal coherence that binds their members together. This perception in anthropology comes from the earlier functional theoretical orientation that produced classic ethnographies of villages. We thus regard household clusters as villages or hamlets. The question of what these clusters may mean to the people who inhabit them remains unexamined, however. In mainland Southeast Asia there is a wide range of possib…
HaengandTakho: Power in Shan cosmology
The author discusses the nature of power in Shan society arguing that power and protection mutually imply each other and that power is morally and ethically neutral. She supports this argument with examples showing the protective and morally neutral nature of power. Within this general framework she goes on to show that religious specialists conceive power as having an ethical component not normally present. In conclusion, she describes the relat…
Participant Observation
A diachronic analysis of Shan cropping systems
The Misuse of Chayanov: "Chayanov's Rule" and Empiricist Bias in Anthropology
Sahlins's "Chayanov's Rule"-the more consumers each worker has to support the more work each worker does-has characterized Chayanov's analysis for most anthropologists. I examine the relationship between the consumer/worker ratio and product per worker for the Shan community of Thongmakhsan in northwestern Thailand. Since there is no systematic relationship between these variables even when the population is divided into production strategy group…
Tattoos: Invulnerability and power in Shan cosmology
In this paper I argue that both Buddhist and animist practices are integrally related and are derived from a single axiomatic system structured on the existence of amoral power. This worldview and the political realities of state systems account for animist practices and Buddhist elements that are incorporated into the religious system. I support this argument with an analysis of Shan tattoos. [tattoos, ideology, Buddhism, Shan, Thailand
HaengandTakho: Power in Shan cosmology
The author discusses the nature of power in Shan society arguing that power and protection mutually imply each other and that power is morally and ethically neutral. She supports this argument with examples showing the protective and morally neutral nature of power. Within this general framework she goes on to show that religious specialists conceive power as having an ethical component not normally present. In conclusion, she describes the relat…
Analytical Perspectives on Shan Agriculture and Village Economics
Households and Villages: The Political-Ritual Structures of Tai Communities
Villages seem natural units with an internal coherence that binds their members together. This perception in anthropology comes from the earlier functional theoretical orientation that produced classic ethnographies of villages. We thus regard household clusters as villages or hamlets. The question of what these clusters may mean to the people who inhabit them remains unexamined, however. In mainland Southeast Asia there is a wide range of possib…
Household Economy, Political Economy, and Ideology: Peasants and the State in Southeast Asia
We use Chayanov's central concept of the on-farm balance to develop descriptions of household production that provide evidence for the way households fit into the material realities of their economic, social, and political systems. This provides a theoretically, ethnographically, and historically motivated way to compare households and political-economic systems and their cultural correlates
Understanding Witchcraft and Sorcery in Southeast Asia
Galactic Polities, the Asiatic Mode of Production and Peasant‐States: Southeast Asian Pre‐Modern Polities
Analytical Perspectives on Shan Agriculture and Village Economics
Ecology and Practical Technology: Peasant Farming Systems in Thailand
Merit and Blessing: In Mainland Southeast Asian Comparative Perspective
Merit and Blessing in Mainland Southeast Asia in Comparative Perspective
Economies and Cultures: Foundations of Economic Anthropology
Economies and Cultures: Foundations of Economic Anthropology. RICHARD R. WILK. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. xvii. 198 pp., illustrations, figures, appendix, bibliography, index
Protest, Tree Ordination, and the Changing Context of Political Ritual
This article discusses a successful political protest in a village in northwestern Thailand and the community's tree ordination to further protect its forest from development. The protest and tree ordination are signs of the increasingly complex relationships that are changing the community's relative political, religious, and economic autonomy and tying different actors in the community into the wider political framework in ways that were not po…
Through a Lens Darkly
Rosalind C. Morris. In the Place of Origins: Modernity and Its Mediums in Northern Thailand. Durham: Duke University Press, 2000. + 380 pp
Friends in High Places
Friends in High Places. Directed by Lindsey Merrison. 2001. 86 minutes (56 minute version available), color. Distributed by Documentary Educational Resources, 101 Morse Street, Watertown, MA 02472, www.der.org
Founders' cults in Southeast Asia: Ancestors, polity, and identity
Karaoke Fascism: Burma and the Politics of Fear
Monique Skidmore, Karaoke Fascism: Burma and the Politics of Fear, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004,264 pages.Skidmore did difficult fieldwork in Burma during 1996, a period of increasing turmoil as students and others openly demonstrated against the current regime. Her research was, ostensibly, to understand the idioms of emotional and psychological distress used by various Burmese communities, and to explore the role of reli…
The changing nature of Shan political ritual and identity in Maehongson, Northwestern Thailand
In this paper I explore the ways in which Shan identities are expressed in political ritual and how these rituals have changed in response to the influx of refugees from the Shan State in Burma and the expansion of networks that link Maehongson more tightly to the Thai nation. I provide a brief introduction to Shan culture and the larger national and international contexts in which Maehongson Shan are situated. With this as background I discuss a…
Control, Change, and Suffering: The Messages of Shan Buddhist Sermons
Shan villagers are Buddhists, but their main access to Buddhist ideology is through the sermons the local monks preach. We describe the content of a number of sermons. These outline a system where lack of control causes change which causes suffering. The sermons teach about the acquisition of knowledge where the objective is not to control but to escape from the system. Power, gained through withdrawal or relationships with powerful beings, gives…
Poetics of Conduct: Oral Narrative and Moral Being in a South Indian Town by Leela Prasad
Shan Calendrical Systems: The Everyday Use of Esoteric Knowledge
In this paper I examine the Shan calendrical system as an aspect of exoteric knowledge. To do this I first place the communities I lived in and the experts I consulted in the context of Shan communities and Shan experts. Next I provide a brief account of the Shan calendrical system as I learned it from local experts. I then discuss what everyday people know about the system and age and gender variation in the extent of knowledge. In order to unde…
Gender Pluralism: Southeast Asia Since Early Modern Times by Michael G. Peletz
Sociology (19 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies (13 works) · History (12 works) · Political science (12 works) · Anthropology (10 works) · Archaeology (10 works) · Geography (10 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (9 works) · Art (9 works)