Talk:Zomia

/* Etymology */
We need an etymology for both the moth and the geography term. How can this be worked in? [Willem van Schendel] has gone so far as to give it the dignity of a name of its own: Zomia, a term for highlander common to several related Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in the India-Bangladesh-Burma border area.28 More precisely, Zo is a relational term meaning “remote” and hence carries the connotation of living in the hills; Mi means “people.” As is the case elsewhere in Southeast Asia Mi-zo or Zo-mi designated a remote hill people, while at the same time the ethnic label applies to a geographical niche.29 _______________
 * 28. Other explicit proponents of a systematic view from the periphery include Michaud, Turbulent Times and Enduring Peoples, especially the Introduction by Michaud and John McKinnon, 1–25, and Hjorleifur Jonsson, Mien Relations: Mountain Peoples, Ethnography, and State Control (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005).
 * 29. F. K. L. Chit Hlaing [F. K. Lehman], “Some Remarks upon Ethnicity Theory and Southeast Asia, with Special Reference to the Kayah and Kachin,” in Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma, ed. Mikael Gravers (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2007), 107–22, esp. 109–10.


 * --Scott, J. (2009). The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. PP. 14-16.

--Pawyilee (talk) 12:56, 7 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Duh. The etymology is already at Zomi. --Pawyilee (talk)
 * I am from Pakistan, another country in South Asia, but I hardly went across this term in my high school years. I shall agree that what you said in the template was enough to explain the etymology. It would need some copy-editing though. This article has reached start-class status in my opinion. You may have difficulty in finding resources regarding this term. Don't try to expand the article too much because most people concerned with this topic might be looking for a 'brief' intro of Zomia itself. Farjad 0322 (talk&#124;sign&#124;contribs) 19:38, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Having found that the article "Zomi" gives its etymology as Zo, personal name of a remote ancestor, plus Mi people, I went ahead and added the etymology of "Zomia" with Zo simply meaning remote, as it would to people who aren't themselves Zomi. I also added links to the geological evolution of Zomia, but an editor more knowledge than me might argue geology should be kept to a minimum in a geography article. I think the thesis is this:


 * Geology shattered the zone before there were humans
 * Some peoples in the geographical area fled to these shatter zones when external forces shattered their lives.
 * The academic who coined Zomia focuses attention on those whose lives were shattered by the forces of civilization, of whom many were aboriginal Zomi.

Meanwhile, there's big trouble at the Zomi article as an aboriginal has written a prime political piece, albeit with sources, rather than a prim Encyclopedia-type entry derived from secondary sources. --Pawyilee (talk) 13:26, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Geography, or Economics?
I just linked this article to Economic anthropology, as I think this one's subject matter is pertinent to that one, but (geography) looks out of place on that list. --Pawyilee (talk) 13:24, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 one external links on Zomia (geography). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20111003064323/http://www.fss.ulaval.ca/cms/upload/ant/fichiers/michaudjgh2010_editorial.pdf to http://www.fss.ulaval.ca/cms/upload/ant/fichiers/michaudjgh2010_editorial.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20111003064323/http://www.fss.ulaval.ca/cms/upload/ant/fichiers/michaudjgh2010_editorial.pdf to http://www.fss.ulaval.ca/cms/upload/ant/fichiers/michaudjgh2010_editorial.pdf
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20100129184406/http://www.forcedmigration.org/events/2008/colsonlecture/ to http://www.forcedmigration.org/events/2008/colsonlecture/
 * Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20110531035623/http://www.aasianst.org:80/absts/2008abst/Interarea/I-83.htm to http://www.aasianst.org/absts/2008abst/Interarea/I-83.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 23:57, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

map deleted ?!
Why was the map of Zomia deleted? Regardless if the consensus think that Zomia is more of a ethnocultural and/or anthropological subject, '''a map allows people to better visualize the given area in question. '''

I think I found the culprit in the history (see below):

(cur | prev) 04:55, 22 August 2016‎ Paul 012 (talk | contribs)‎ m. . (19,534 bytes) (0)‎. . (Paul 012 moved page Zomia (geography) to Zomia (region): Better descriptor; the subject is mainly of anthropological/ethnocultural rather than geographical interest.)

Please locate and reinstall the previous map. thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gizziiusa (talk • contribs) 13:56, 27 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Moving a page has nothing to do with the images on that page. The image was removed by the CommonsDelinker bot in this edit, because it was deleted from Commons as a copyright violation. --Paul_012 (talk) 14:06, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

Anarchist bias
The concept of "Zomia" as put forth in this article seems to be an artificial construct, recently created by a few anarchist ideologues in an attempt to answer the common criticism that "there has never been any significant anarchic society". The name itself seems to be a newly-coined exonym by those authors. What the article describes is not a single society, but only a number of independent and unrelated tribes, each of them suffering little interference by the government of the nation in which it is located. The ideological bias seems to transpire in the use of the word "state" to mean this national government, but not any local government that the tribes may have. That situation is hardly special; "tribes" in that situation exist all over the world, from the favelas or Rio to remote villages in Alaska. The relation of those tribes and the national governments seems to be more "indifference" than "independence". It seems very likely that, if one of those tribes did something that significantly challenged the dominion of the national government -- like hosting foreign troops, or closing its border -- the government would promptly intervene. Therefore, this article may need editing to remove the implication of "Zomia" as a single society. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 03:46, 3 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Might be worth considering whether James C. Scott is, for example, a anarchist ideologues or a scholar of ... anarchism (as the lede to his article suggests). There is already plenty of criticism of this view/construction, now at Southeast Asian Massif, and it might be worth contributing there. Klbrain (talk) 08:02, 10 August 2019 (UTC)