老挝北部山地阿卡人刀耕火种的生计与文化

Slash-and-Burn Agriculture Livelihoods and Culture of the Akha People in the Uplands of Northern Laos

长期以来,学界围绕东南亚高地族群刀耕火种这一生态议题展开了多维度的讨论,推出了丰硕的研究成果。老挝北部山地的阿卡人以刀耕火种为基本生计方式,在特定的时空秩序之间展演着他们的农耕礼仪与集体行动逻辑。本文基于对当地人生产生活实践的描述,从“人、事、时、空”的多维视角出发,阐释老挝北部山地阿卡人在人地互动中围绕刀耕火种衍生的轮歇耕作制度、农耕礼仪以及村落建制秩序,分析阿卡人在岁时与空间的轮转中坚持在流动的土地上供奉祖先、寄望祖灵荫庇后人的深层实践逻辑和社会文化内涵,为进一步思考刀耕火种的传统农耕文明在现代社会中的遭遇以及东南亚山地族群发展等问题提供鲜活的民族志个案。

The studies on the ecological issue of slash-and-burn agriculture among the upland communities in Southeast Asia have long been carried out from multi-dimensions and produced numerous research findings.The Akha people in the uplands of northern Laos also live on slash-and-burn farming,performing their cultivation rites and collective action logic in a specific spatial and temporal context.Based on thorough investigation on the life and labor practice of local people in their natural environment,the authors,from the multidimensional perspectives of "people,events,time and space",try to illustrate the Akha people’s slash-and-burn cultivation system,cultivation rites and village order derived from slash-and-burn agriculture in the interaction between people and land in the uplands of northern Laos,and analyze the underlying logic and socio-cultural connotations of the Akha people’s insistence on worshipping their ancestors while shifting the land and their expectation that the ancestral spirits will shelter their descendants.This paper provides a vivid ethnographic case for further reflection on the encounter of the traditional slash-andburn farming civilization in modern society and the development of the upland communities in Southeast Asia.