Description:
"Colonial Rangoon society embraced vast floating populations, constantly entering and
leaving the territory of Burma, a province of British India until 1937. This situation made it
difficult for the authorities to undertake police activities in the capital city of the province.
Dealing with undesirable ?outsiders” in Rangoon was an issue related to both the
governance of the city and the border control of the province. By the 1910s, the
Government of Burma and Rangoon Town Police discovered that expulsion of undesirable
?outsiders” was helpful for preventing crime in the city. At first, this policy targeted Chinese
riot ringleaders, but, during the 1920s, its scope was dramatically widened and the policy
changed qualitatively. This paper deals with the early phase of this process.
From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, overseas Chinese were present in
large numbers in the South China Sea region. For the emerging modern states in that region,
it was common to utilize the economic resources of the Chinese network as well as to
incorporate autonomous local Chinese communities into one unified, ruling state. As
previous studies correctly point out, the government of Burma constructed its policy
regarding the local Chinese population, especially in Rangoon, by referring to the early
experiences of the Straits Settlements. However, the similarity between the two colonies should not be overemphasized. Despite frequent cross-references, each emerging state
developed a different system of governing the Chinese to meet its own needs and
conditions. Because of a lack of primary sources, previous studies have not explained
concretely how the policy was introduced and practiced in Burma. As a result, the
chronology and the characteristics of the process remain obscure. Therefore, this paper aims
to clarify these by analyzing previously unexamined documents and to locate the process in
the wider context of urban governance in colonial Rangoon..."
Source/publisher:
The Journal of Sophia Asian Studies, No. 32, 2014... 上智アジア学 第32 号2014 年 目次 ...Burma Studies in Japan: History, Culture and Religion
Date of Publication:
2014-12-27
Date of entry:
2015-09-23
Grouping:
- Individual Documents
Category:
Language:
English
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Format:
pdf
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706.1 KB