The British anthropologist Edmund. R. Leach got published in 1954 his book titled Political System of Highland Burma:A Study of Kachin Society, after which the Kachin (also called the Jingpo on China side) became an immediate popularity and a classic example of study in the academic circle.Different from the previous studies by such renown scholars as Edmund Leach, Wang Zhusheng and Ho Ts'ui-p'ing, this thesis focuses on the conflict and development of the Jingpo society in the course of its social changes over a hundred years between late 19th century and early 21st century.The dissertation mainly covers the following seven points.1. The dissertation discusses dynamic political changes in the three periods of political movements famous as Tribal Chieftain Society before 1950s, Political Reform Movement between 1950and 1980 as well as Self-governing System after 1980. With different aims, these influenced dynamically the Jingpo society in rather different ways.2. The thesis presents a new insight into the long-discussed political system called Tribal Chieftain System. Other scholars hold the idea that the Jingpo society under this system had advanced into a slavery system before it was finally abandoned in the mid-1950s. However, the author's view differs from that popular idea and holds an opposite opinion. It was because the once practiced system was not a slave system that the whole Jingpo community didn't have to experience the same procedures which were a must in other slave societies when the system was forced to be abandoned in late 1950s,.3. The paper makes a detailed analysis on the movements notorious as Big Leap, Communization Movements and Defensing Frontiers through Political Movement. The paper deals in details with the harm from, reasons of and lessons about these crazy movements, arriving at the conclusion that a government should respect people and cannot force them to do anything just to achieve its temporary benefits.4. The paper attaches great importance to the presently practiced Self-governing System. Based on the research work, the author points out that actually the system is not appropriate for the Jingpo people who were welcomed into the new socialist society while they were still in a far less developed primitive society even in the late 1950s.5. Importance is also attached to a series of social problems resulted from some elements in our modern society such as drug-taking, HIV/AIDS and unsafe human mobility. Jingpo people are confronted with all these crises and social problems.6. The dissertation also tries to have a discussion on the evolution of the traditional marriage system of Jingpo people in the decades having just passed. Such a traditional marriage system is rarely practiced nowadays; instead, inter-ethnic marriages, trans-provincial marriages and China-Burma marriages are more becoming more and more popular have shown some disadvantages and brought about some problems together with some happy prospects.7. The last point of the dissertation is that Jingpo people have developed in the long course of history a strong sense that they, among other 55 ethnic groups, are an integrated part of the Chinese. More important is that, living in a far less advanced community, Jingpo people can still enjoy the progress, unity and prosperity in the stable state. |