Journal Articles & Book Chapters by P. Kerim Friedman
International Journal of Taiwan Studies, 2022
Olic is one of the only members of her generation to be raised speaking Pangcah (Amis) as her fir... more Olic is one of the only members of her generation to be raised speaking Pangcah (Amis) as her first language. Through an exploration of how one family is fighting to save this endangered Austronesian language, we analyse the challenges facing Indigenous language revitalisation in Taiwan. Particular attention is paid to the child’s transition from the home to formal—Mandarin-medium—schooling. In doing so, we draw on recent work that emphasises the agency of children in shaping family language policy (also referred to as ‘family language planning’). How do children’s experiences at school shape their—and other family members’—linguistic behaviour at home? After comparing Taiwan’s current family language policy to similar efforts elsewhere, we conclude by arguing that taking children’s agency seriously means that family language policy must be combined with changes in formal schooling as well—changes that are best implemented by the Indigenous communities themselves.
活出語言來: 語言人類學導論, 2020
Introduction to Chinese translation of Laura Ahearn's book, Living Language: An Introduction to L... more Introduction to Chinese translation of Laura Ahearn's book, Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology.
Taiwan’s Contemporary Indigenous Peoples, 2021
This paper explores the shifting representations of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples in films by indig... more This paper explores the shifting representations of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples in films by indigenous and non-indigenous directors alike. Drawn from over sixty films in the archives of the Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival (TIEFF), these films offer a snapshot of the changes in how indigenous personhood has been constructed in Taiwanese documentary films going back to the end of the martial law era. The films are grouped into three overarching Bakhtinian chronotopes, each of which uses indigenous identities to highlight different relations between Taiwan’s past, present, and future, as well as different spatial relations following from those choices. The first chronotope highlights the Japanese colonial encounter with indigenous peoples. The second the continuity between ancient Austronesian culture and the present. And the third focuses on encounters between indigenous people and the modern Taiwanese state. Films are compared within and across these chronotopes to reflect on the shifting nature of indigenous personhood in Taiwan, tracing the way these chronotopes have adapted to shifts in Taiwan’s wider political economic framework. Finally, the paper turns to the work of two young indigenous filmmakers whose films draw on oral histories to transcend all three chronotopes. Salone Ishahavut’s “Alis’s Dreams” (2011) and Su Hung-En’s “The Mountain” (2015), each formulates a unique indigenous “voice” to call for indigenous sovereignty over their own destiny.
The Routledge International Handbook of Ethnographic Film and Video, 2020
What is an ethnographic film? An overview of previous attempts to answer that question is provide... more What is an ethnographic film? An overview of previous attempts to answer that question is provided in the first section of this chapter. These are grouped according to the normative goals by which each approach has sought to frame the issue. Four such normative “frames” are identified: ethnographic film as record, ethnographic film as text, ethnographic film as sense impression, and ethnographic film as relational practice. The second section seeks to move beyond such normative approaches by looking at how ethnographic films are actually used in practice (e.g. in the programming of ethnographic film festivals). Drawing on Wittgenstein’s “family of resemblances” approach to definitions, four descriptive attributes, or “dimensions,” of ethnographic film are proposed. They are: disciplinary dialog, anthropological subjects, ethnographic styles, and methodological norms. Because Wittgenstein’s approach does not rank such attributes hierarchically or require any film to contain elements of all four attributes, the result is a multidimensional approach which allows for greater flexibility in defining the genre while still delineating what makes a film ethnographic.
Boundary 2, 2018
For most of its post-war history Taiwan’s government promoted a perception of the nation as a bas... more For most of its post-war history Taiwan’s government promoted a perception of the nation as a bastion of authentic Chinese culture. This changed in the 1990s when Taiwan began to embrace its multicultural heritage, including the languages and cultures of the indigenous population. What does Taiwanese multiculturalism look like? How does the uncertain status of Taiwanese sovereignty shape local identity politics? And what are the effects of these policies on indigenous groups? To answer these questions this paper combines a historical and ethnographic analysis of Taiwanese hegemony with an investigation into the shifting ideologies of scale underlying the chronotopes of Taiwanese identity politics. It argues that indigenous Taiwanese were not the intended beneficiaries of this new multiculturalism, which was primarily designed to head-off the rise of ethnic nationalism by the Han Chinese majority. As a result, Taiwanese multiculturalism emphasizes local differences over questions of sovereignty, including indigenous sovereignty.
Media, Engagement, and Anthropological Practice: Contemporary Scholarship
Critique of Anthropology, Dec 2013
What happens when a commitment to collaborative ethnographic filmmaking runs up against a communi... more What happens when a commitment to collaborative ethnographic filmmaking runs up against a community’s ambivalence towards its own history? This paper provides an ethnohistorical account of the making of the film Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir!, exploring how colonial-era “police ethnographies” and contemporary communal politics shape the collaborative endeavor. The film was made in collaboration with Budhan Theatre, an activist theater troupe from the Chhara community in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The Chhara are one of more than 198 communities labeled as “Criminal Tribes” by the British, a colonial legacy that still informs their interactions with the police. Inspired by the work of Jean Rouch, the film makes use of experimental ethnographic and cinematic techniques. These participation frameworks allowed the members of Budhan Theatre and their families to shape the structure and content of the film itself, a process sometimes at odds with the film’s ethnographic intent.
Visual Anthropology, Jan 1, 2011
The documentary films of Indian filmmaker Dakxin Bajrange Chhara focus, not on his own community,... more The documentary films of Indian filmmaker Dakxin Bajrange Chhara focus, not on his own community, but on marginalized nomadic communities within his home state of Gujarat. In order to understand these films I draw on Partha Chatterjee's theory of "political society" to argue that Bajrange's portrayal of the social injustices directed against these other communities serves also to challenge the historical stigma his own community feels as a result of having been labeled a "Criminal Tribe" by the British. By highlighting the victimhood of India’s Denotified and Nomadic Tribes (DNTs), Bajrange seeks to embue them with the “moral attributes of a community.”
Becoming Taiwan: From Colonialism to …, Jan 1, 2010
Just as Native American education policy in post-Civil War United States was shaped by the thirst... more Just as Native American education policy in post-Civil War United States was shaped by the thirst for land during a period of rapid westward expansion, so too was Aborigine education policy in Taiwan shaped by the forces which drew first the Qing, and later the Japanese into the rugged terrain of the high Central Mountain Range and the remote plains of the East Coast. Education policy was central to U.S. territorial expansion because "the willingness of Indians to sell their land" was assumed to be "directly proportionate to their ability to acquire civilized ways" (Adams 1988: 16). Whereas in the U.S. case these "civilized ways" were defined in terms Protestant ideology and an agricultural lifestyle, during the late Qing dynasty Confucianism and wet paddy rice farming served a similar purpose. The civilizing mission was no less central during Japanese rule, although loyalty to the Emperor replaced Confucianism. While the civilizing mission remained constant throughout the entire period, spanning from 1874 to 1945, there were important differences in implementation which had profound effects on the incorporation of Aborigines into the state. The arrival of the Colonial Japanese Government in 1895 marked an important turning point, bringing a new urgency to the task of occupying the mountain territories. And the start of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937 crated a need for loyal subjects willing to die for the Emperor. Taiwan's unique geography mattered too, with education policies in the Central Range differing from those on the East Coast. Accordingly, this chapter is organized around three time periods: late Qing (1874-1945), prewar (1895-1937) and wartime Japanese rule (1937-1945), with differences in education policy between the Mountains and the East Coast highlighted whenever possible.
Rethinking Marxism, Jan 1, 2009
Drawing upon Peter Ives’s book Gramsci’s Politics of Language, this article examines the linguist... more Drawing upon Peter Ives’s book Gramsci’s Politics of Language, this article examines the linguistic origins of Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony. This is then compared with Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of the habitus, with a particular focus on how the two theories conceptualize social change. Ives shows that Gramsci understood language standardization as either democratic or repressive, depending on the nature of the standardization process. Ives uses this to argue that the opposite of repressive hegemony is not the absence of hegemony but a progressive hegemony grounded in democratic processes. While Bourdieu’s emphasis on social reproduction over social change makes his work less useful for conceptualizing such a progressive hegemony, this paper argues that his theory of symbolic capital (including linguistic capital) offers us a unique insight into the obstacles faced by agents of progressive social change and, in so doing, sheds light on the limitations of Gramsci’s approach.
當代印度民主政治, 2007
八，然而他們卻被視而不見；儘管印度高科技產業蓬勃發展，但是他們卻未從 中獲益，而是做為農民、森林遊牧、移動勞工以努力奮鬥求生。在簡要回顧印 度原住民的處境後，本文將探討一段致力於保存印度原住民語... more 八，然而他們卻被視而不見；儘管印度高科技產業蓬勃發展，但是他們卻未從 中獲益，而是做為農民、森林遊牧、移動勞工以努力奮鬥求生。在簡要回顧印 度原住民的處境後，本文將探討一段致力於保存印度原住民語言、文化與歷史 的努力。Dhol的意思是鼓，這是位在Gujarat的一個NGO團體-Bhasha所出版 的一套「口述雜誌」的名稱。《Dhol》以十一種部落方言印製發行，內容取材 自口語敘述，並在每個村落的團體聚會中大聲朗誦來傳佈。本文來自與出版者 的訪談，文中除了將描述《Dhol》的歷史外，還包括這份刊物是如何準備與傳 佈的。本文結論將分析此類口述雜誌對印度原住民人權的重要性與影響。
Documentary Films by P. Kerim Friedman
Over sixty million Indians belong to communities imprisoned by the British as "criminals by birth... more Over sixty million Indians belong to communities imprisoned by the British as "criminals by birth." The Chhara of Ahmedabad, in Western India, are one of 198 such "Criminal Tribes." Declaring that they are "born actors," not "born criminals," a group of Chhara youth have turned to street theater in their fight against police brutality, corruption, and the stigma of criminality — a stigma internalized by their own grandparents. Please Don't Beat Me, Sir! follows the lives of these young actors and their families as they take their struggle to the streets, hoping their plays will spark a revolution.
Not only does the film show the power of art as a tool for resistance and social change, it also takes us inside Chhara society to reveal a community in transition. Made over a five year period, during which the filmmakers worked in close collaboration with their subjects, Please Don't Beat Me, Sir! exposes the tensions that exist between an older generation who did whatever it took to make ends meet and young people for whom theater offers a new world of opportunity.
In making the film we worked in close collaboration with the community. We returned year after year to show rough cuts and solicit feedback. We filmed these discussions, and some of the film's most intense moments come out of the community tensions revealed at those meetings. Collaboration was essential because of the marginalized nature of the community, but it was also possible because of the talent and insight of the young actors. We tapped into that talent by having them write short skits about topics we couldn't film directly and integrated the best of these skits into the film. In one scene Chhara women reenact their protestations when the police come to collect their bribes (in exchange for allowing the women to brew illicit liquor). Much of the film's energy comes from the unique nature of this collaboration, and the trust that was built up over five years of filming.
Acting Like a Thief is a short film about the Budhan Theatre of Chharanagar. Starting with playwr... more Acting Like a Thief is a short film about the Budhan Theatre of Chharanagar. Starting with playwright Dakxin Bajrange discussing his arrest , the film brings us inside the lives of a dedicated group of young actors and their families as they discuss what it means to be a “born criminal” and how theater changed their lives.
Reviews by P. Kerim Friedman
American Anthropologist, Dec 2011
Museum Anthropology Review, 2012
Les Maîtres du Désordre. Musée du quai Branly. April 11, 2012 through July 29, 2012.
Capital & Class, Feb 2011
Language in Society, 2005
Conference Presentations by P. Kerim Friedman
112th American Anthropological Association (AAA) Annual meeting
Language standardization can be usefully understood as a “scale-making project” (Tsing 2000). Sta... more Language standardization can be usefully understood as a “scale-making project” (Tsing 2000). Standardization and linguistic differentiation (Irvine and Gal 2000) can solidify existing sociolinguistic hierarchies at the level of the nation-state, or they can challenge them, redrawing the map so as to link the local with the global in new ways. The metaphor of “sociolinguistic scale” (Blommaert 2007), based on the notion of “indexical order” (Silverstein 2003), rejects the simplistic micro-macro dichotomy, instead measuring processes of typification and framing through linguistic practices. This allows scholars to talk about the role of language in social as well as geographic mobility. Also, by treating scale as a “project,” it becomes possible to articulate its contested, ideological nature. Doing so opens up new possibilities for productive exchange between work on “language ideology” (Woolard and Schieffelin 1994) and “language and political economy” (Irvine 1989), as well as for interdisciplinary exchange around issues of heteroglossia, mobility, and indigeneity. In situations of linguistic “superdiversity” (Blommaert and Rampton 2011), scale accomplishes a lot of the work done by ecological approaches (Mühlhäusler 1996) without the burden of biological metaphors. Viewing language standardization as a scale-making project also helps to focus discussion of “linguistic fields” (Bourdieu 1977) onto processes by which official and “alternative linguistic markets” (Woolard 1985) are created. Finally scale has a temporal dimension, bringing together language trees and language maps to create vertical linkages that can either reinforce or transcend horizontal boundaries. Whether working with minorities, migrants, vernacular or endangered language communities, the papers on this panel treat language standardization as a scale-making project to explore contestations and debates surrounding language ideologies, interdiscursive processes, code-switching, and acts of sociolinguistic boundary-making. Through their attention to various scalar dimensions, metaphors, and processes, each of these papers breaks away from teleological views of language standardization that envision the authoring and institutionalization of dictionaries, religious texts and pedagogical materials as unilinear processes whose end results are a foregone conclusion. Some highlight how orthographic standards index competing language ideologies at different scales (Falconi), or how similar ideologies of scale index contradictory language ideologies pertaining to standards (Friedman). Others destabilize ideologies of diglossia (Fenigsen) and challenge simplistic notions of code-switching (Spreng) by revealing actors’ ability to negotiate evaluations of standards at multiple levels of scale. Another highlights temporal dimensions of scale by exploring how standardization naturalizes globalized pasts and futures (Das). In doing so, each of these papers raises important questions about the role of language standardization in social reproduction and social change: How do linguistic boundaries map onto geographic and temporal boundaries at different scales? How do language practices deploy scalar metaphors to index local, global, primordial, modern, and other identities? How do official language ideologies shape and, in turn, get shaped by scaling processes? How does one characterize standardization projects that cross multiple dimensions of time and space? Such questions relate scale to standardization by demonstrating the contested ideological natures of both.
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Journal Articles & Book Chapters by P. Kerim Friedman
Documentary Films by P. Kerim Friedman
Not only does the film show the power of art as a tool for resistance and social change, it also takes us inside Chhara society to reveal a community in transition. Made over a five year period, during which the filmmakers worked in close collaboration with their subjects, Please Don't Beat Me, Sir! exposes the tensions that exist between an older generation who did whatever it took to make ends meet and young people for whom theater offers a new world of opportunity.
In making the film we worked in close collaboration with the community. We returned year after year to show rough cuts and solicit feedback. We filmed these discussions, and some of the film's most intense moments come out of the community tensions revealed at those meetings. Collaboration was essential because of the marginalized nature of the community, but it was also possible because of the talent and insight of the young actors. We tapped into that talent by having them write short skits about topics we couldn't film directly and integrated the best of these skits into the film. In one scene Chhara women reenact their protestations when the police come to collect their bribes (in exchange for allowing the women to brew illicit liquor). Much of the film's energy comes from the unique nature of this collaboration, and the trust that was built up over five years of filming.
Reviews by P. Kerim Friedman
Conference Presentations by P. Kerim Friedman
Not only does the film show the power of art as a tool for resistance and social change, it also takes us inside Chhara society to reveal a community in transition. Made over a five year period, during which the filmmakers worked in close collaboration with their subjects, Please Don't Beat Me, Sir! exposes the tensions that exist between an older generation who did whatever it took to make ends meet and young people for whom theater offers a new world of opportunity.
In making the film we worked in close collaboration with the community. We returned year after year to show rough cuts and solicit feedback. We filmed these discussions, and some of the film's most intense moments come out of the community tensions revealed at those meetings. Collaboration was essential because of the marginalized nature of the community, but it was also possible because of the talent and insight of the young actors. We tapped into that talent by having them write short skits about topics we couldn't film directly and integrated the best of these skits into the film. In one scene Chhara women reenact their protestations when the police come to collect their bribes (in exchange for allowing the women to brew illicit liquor). Much of the film's energy comes from the unique nature of this collaboration, and the trust that was built up over five years of filming.
Accordingly, with language policy always in the background, the dissertation touches on several interrelated issues, including (a) the impact of each ruling historical bloc on Taiwan’s linguistic nationalism, focusing on continuities and discontinuities in language and education policies; (b) the formation of Taiwanese identity as a series of nested concentric circles radiating out from local communities to encompass the nation, the larger Chinese community, and eventually the world; ( c) the differential processes of incorporating mountains and plains Aborigines into the state and the resultant differences in their implementation of state policies; (d) the alternative paths taken by local intellectuals in implementing state policies; and (e) the contradictions between ideology and practice that often besets nationalist projects and the role of “cultural corruption” in bridging the gap.
The findings reveal, among others, that, while Bourdieu’s theory of linguistic markets is useful in understanding the language hierarchy in Taiwan, the historiography of the linguistic markets is critical to an understanding of the political processes underlying their construction. It is here that Gramsci’s theory of hegemony enters the picture. Gramsci’s emphasis on the political process of alliance formation between elite and subaltern groups and the cross-class alliance involved in a “passive revolution” implies that the dominant ideology cannot easily be equated with the class interests of the ruling elite. This questions Bourdieu’s theory that assumes a direct correlation between the linguistic capital possessed by the ruling elite and that valued by the linguistic marketplace. In Taiwan’s case, the value accorded to languages in the marketplace has been a product of political negotiation and competition over control of the Taiwanese nation-state.