Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Anthropological Analysis of Political and Legal Reform in a Context of Democratization

博士论文研究：民主化背景下政治和法律改革的人类学分析

• 批准号: 1459757
• 负责人: Erik Harms
• 金额: $ 1.73万
• 依托单位: Yale University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-07-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1459757&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Anthropological; Analysis

American national interests and our economic competitiveness are served best when the free flow of information, ideas, goods, and services are permitted between nations. The success or failure of political and legal reform in new democracies depends on how well such developments calibrate with the local understandings about what constitute rights and obligations. This project, which trains a graduate student in conducting rigorous, empirically grounded scientific fieldwork, asks how such rights and obligations are being negotiated in a newly democratizing context. The results will be useful to policy and development practitioners who analyze the preconditions that are necessary for democratization and political stability. Elliott Prasse-Freeman, under the supervision of Dr. Erik Harms of Yale University, explores how rights are invoked and technologies of rule are engaged in a context of democratization. The research takes place in Burma (Myanmar), which appears to be transitioning to a democratic system after a half-century of military rule. The researcher's unique access to this site gives us an opportunity to explore how rights discourse and democratic transition happens in real time. As former military leaders of Burma have formed a tense pact with opposition politicians to forge reforms, rights have been subject to debate. Reformers and international partners endorse the political liberal idea of rights as reflecting absolute standards that individuals have by the mere fact of being members of a polity or which are fundamentally afforded to humanity; some Burmese, on the other hand, appear to find a concept of rights (in which rights are thought to exist outside of a specific context) as not reflecting their realities. They instead look at rights as synonymous with 'opportunities' (the words are interchangeable in Burmese language). Attaining a right is subject to social position, negotiation skill, resources, and to some extent, randomness. The project hypothesizes that in Burma 'rights' often have meaning only to the extent that actors have the opportunities to realize them. In this perspective, rather than delivering formal rights through reformed laws and policies, Burmese may demand structural transformations of the existing distribution of power and resources in their society. The project would advances scientific debates in anthropology about the state and politics, discussions of political organizations and power that earlier anthropologists had situated in Burma and Southeast Asia, and rights and law. The project connects historic anthropological debates about nonwestern political systems with contemporary discussions of governmentality. The research will use a number of methods, including: documentation and analysis of social movements and legal strategies; semi-structured interviews (of lawyers and movement members); analysis of social movement tactics; and, most importantly, ethnographic participant observation with movement members and lawyers.

当允许国家之间的信息，想法，商品和服务自由流动时，美国国家利益和我们的经济竞争力是最好的。政治和法律改革在新民主国家的成功或失败取决于这种发展对当地对什么构成权利和义务的理解的校准。该项目培训了一名研究生进行严格，经验扎根的科学野外工作，询问如何在新民主化的背景下谈判这些权利和义务。结果将对分析民主化和政治稳定所必需的前提条件的政策和发展从业人员有用。在耶鲁大学的埃里克·哈姆斯（Erik Harms）的监督下，埃利奥特·普拉斯·弗里曼（Elliott Prasse-Freeman）探讨了如何援引权利，并在民主化的背景下参与了统治技术。 这项研究发生在缅甸（缅甸），在半个世纪的军事统治之后，该研究似乎正在过渡到民主制度。研究人员对本网站的独特访问使我们有机会探索权利话语和民主过渡如何实时发生。正如前缅甸的前军事领导人与反对派政客建立改革的紧张契约，权利受到辩论。改革者和国际合伙人认可政治自由主义权利的观念，以反映个人仅仅是成为政体成员或从根本上提供对人类的事实所拥有的绝对标准；另一方面，一些缅甸似乎发现了一种权利概念（在特定环境之外存在权利的概念）没有反映其现实。相反，他们将权利视为“机会”的代名词（这些单词在缅甸语言中可以互换）。获得权利应遵守社会地位，谈判技巧，资源以及在某种程度上随机性。该项目假设在缅甸，“权利”通常只有在演员有机会实现它们的范围内才有意义。从这个角度来看，缅甸不是通过改革的法律和政策赋予正式权利，而是要求其社会中现有权力和资源分配的结构性转变。该项目将在人类学上进行有关国家和政治的科学辩论，对政治组织和权力的讨论以及早期人类学家位于缅甸和东南亚以及权利与法律的讨论。该项目将有关非西方政治体系的历史性人类学辩论与当代有关政府性的讨论联系起来。该研究将使用多种方法，包括：对社会运动和法律策略的文档和分析；半结构化访谈（律师和运动成员）；分析社会运动策略；而且，最重要的是，民族志参与者与运动成员和律师的观察。