CSEAS > Archives > About Staff: FY2008 > HAYAMI, Yoko (Professor)

HAYAMI, Yoko

Professor
Division of Socio-Cultural Dynamics
B. A. in Liberal Arts, International Christian University, 1981
Ph. D. in Anthropology, Brown University, 1992

Current Research Interests

The historical development of ethnic relationships and mobility in mainland Southeast Asia, rethinking the upland-lowland axis
Family in Southeast Asia
Gender and ethnicity among minority ethnic groups
Religious movements and Buddhist practice in Burma

A newly-married couple making their marital oath in Paan, Karen State

My research interests have evolved since I began research among the Karen in Northern Thai hills two decades ago on religion, ethnicity, and gender. Changes in my orientation, in anthropology, and in the area have constantly demanded me to rethink my understanding. My focus has widened spatially and temporally. From the time of Thailand’s modern nation building to national policies under the Cold War, and subsequently in the age of globalization, how have the foundations of life for the people transformed? Representations of the hill minorities, both by others and by themselves, have gone through processes of negotiation. Rather than remain at the level of discourse analysis, I have pursued the taken-for-granted categories of ethnicity on the ground and in history. In the past several years, I have also been conducting research in Myanmar, looking at the everyday practices of the Karen since colonial times. I am pursuing two major topics across the Thailand-Myanmar border: the ethno-religious movements among the Karen; and the domestic sphere as a locus of cultural reproduction amid experiences of ethnic conflict as well as cross-border mobility for labor and refuge. Through these topics, I aim to reconsider modernist frameworks of “family,” “ethnicity,” and “religion.”

Research Activities in 2008 Fiscal Year

Publications

Hayami, Yoko　Book Review. Mikael Gravers, ed. Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma. Copenhagen:Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2007. xx plus 283 pp. maps tables,photos.Southeast Asian Studies. Vol.46 No.3. December 2008. 471-473.

Hayami, Yoko Pagodas and Wedding Vows: Buddhist and Sectarian Practices in Karen State. Kyoto Working Papers on Area Studies No.8, G-COE Series 6. October, 2008.

▲To top of research activities

Seminars/Symposia

Title:“Informal Human Flows between Thailand and Its Neighboring Countries”
Date:March 15, 2009
Place:Bangkok Liaison Office
Commentator: HAYAMI, Yoko
Organizers: Joint Research Program of Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University and The Asian Research Center for Migration, Chulalongkorn University

Title:GCOE The 2nd International Workshop on "Biosphere as Global Force of Change"
Date:March 9-11, 2009
Place:Inamori Foundation Memorial Building
Commentator: HAYAMI, Yoko

Title:Final Symposium of the JSPS-NRCT Core University Program "The Making of East Asia: from both macro and micro perspectives"
Date:February 23-24, 2009
Place:Inamori Foundation Memorial Building
Topic:"Relatedness and Reproduction across Time and Space"
Presenter & Coordinator: HAYAMI, Yoko

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