Christianity has become one of the most powerful markers of identity in the mountainous borderlands of China and Southeast Asia, also known as Zomia. This region is home to tens of millions of people—including the Ahmao, the Kachin, the Lisu, and many other highlanders—all living at a far remove from the population centers of the lowlands. This volume explores how their creative engagement with Christianity has transformed their communities and reshaped their relationships with nation-states and dominant cultures.
Highland Christianity brings together indigenous, in-group scholars and external researchers to examine Christianity’s complex entanglement with ethnicity and modernity across eastern Zomia. Chapters investigate mass conversions, the creation of Bible orthographies, the indigenization of Christian practice, and the tensions Christianization generated with lowland states and majority populations. Contributors highlight the dramas and ambiguities of these changes while foregrounding the creative agency of highland peoples in reworking the faith to generate cohesion, cultural capital, and renewed forms of belonging. Moving beyond colonial frameworks, this interdisciplinary volume maps the profound and ongoing transformations of communities across this borderland region. It will be an essential resource for scholars and students of world Christianity, Asian studies, and anthropology.
In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume are Aminta Arrington, Chijui Hu, Jianxiong Ma, Pum Za Mang, Lagai Zau Nan, Anh-Minh Nguyen-Dang, Yoichi Nishimoto, and Zhu Jili.
Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Lian Xi
Part 1: The Beginnings of Highland Christianity
chapter 1 Christianity, Modernity, and the
Karen in Burma
Pum Za Mang
chapter 2 Baptist Christianity in the Making of
Modern Kachin Identity in Burma
Lagai Zau Nan
chapter 3 Beyond Belief: Conversion to Christianity
Among the Highlanders in Kon
Tum, Vietnam, 1850–1945
Anh-Minh Nguyen-Dang
chapter 4 The Family of William Young Among
the Lahu: Baptist Mission on the Border
Between China and Burma
Jianxiong Ma
chapter 5 The Making of a Modern Ahmao Intellectual: Han
Jie and A Brief History of the Flowery Miao
Zh u Jili
Part 2: Ethnic Christianity on the
Margins of Nation-States
chapter 6 Eschatological Beliefs in the Christianity of the
Miao in Southwestern China, 1950–1960
Chijui Hu
chapter 7 The Baptist Church’s Civilizing Project and the
Lahu’s Appropriation of Christianity: A Case
Study of the Christian and the Traditionalist
Lahu of Northern Thailand
Yoichi Nishimoto
chapter 8 Performing Expressive Culture,
Performing Governance, and Performing
Togetherness: The Church as a Stage for
the Display of Lisu Identity
Aminta Arrington
Part 3: Borderland Christianity in
Comparative Perspective 201
chapter 9 Christianity and Writing on the China–
Southeast Asia Border
David Bradley
chapter 10 Productions of Knowledge About Highland
Christianity on China’s Southeast Asia
Frontier: A Historical Review
Lian Xi
Selected Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index
