Paper Short Abstract:

Blang communities in the uplands of the China-Myanmar border, trace their origins to waves of people escaping catastrophes and conquest in the lowlands. An analysis of social organisation in these post-catastrophe societies, suggests that a new world can be born from the ashes of the old.

Paper Abstract:

In the Zomian uplands of the China-Myanmar border live several "minority ethnic groups" who trace their origins to maroons and migrants who escaped slavery, epidemics, war, and conquest to establish new societies on the margins of states. Among them are Mon-Khmer speaking communities who call themselves Blang. My presentation will analyse what Blang communities can teach us about post-catastrophe social organisation.

All Blang communities with oral or written histories maintain that they originally lived in lowland kingdoms, which they for varying reasons abandoned to escape into the mountains. Rather than (re)establishing their own kingdoms in the mountains, these communities are founded on the basis of consensus democracy. Each village is autonomous and social organisation differs somewhat from village to village, but they share some basic premises. Firstly, any issue that affects the entire village must be decided by the village general assembly (pom yung) which must reach consensus (pom bing). Without consensus there is no option but to keep deliberating. Secondly, specialists and office holders are selected by either committee, sortition, or primogeniture, but must ultimately be appointed by consensus of the village general assembly. Majority elections were only introduced by the Communist Party. In fact the biggest issue facing Blang communities is not climate change, but the state which since 1953 impinges on the village's self-governance.

The social organisation of Blang communities thus suggest that catastrophe is not necessarily a simply destructive process, but that the ends of the world can also represent the birth of new possibilities.