Research Methods

During the spring break in March 2015 before I started my doctoral study, I had a chance to visit Mae Sariang town, Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand. The exhibitions in Mae Sariang Museum displayed the history and the multiethnic locality of this Thailand-Myanmar border area. However, compared to other ethnic groups who migrated recently to

this area, i.e. Karen, Tai Yai (Shan),²⁴ Tai Yuan (Northern Thai), and Pakistani, I rather wondered who the Lua were and why they were admired as the native people. Therefore, I spent the first semester of my doctoral course in Japan to review literature about Lua people from available books and online articles.

I have gradually realized the contextual usages of the term “Lua” in historical and academic records. I accessed several pieces of ethnographical research from the Journal of the Siam Society (JSS) website.²⁵ Based on the JSS articles’ references, I searched for further readings especially the studies by Peter Kunstadter, an American anthropologist who conducted fieldwork in Pa Pae village (my study village) and nearby Karen villages in Mae Sariang. He had contributed many insightful data and discussions for Lua studies (1967a, 1967b, 1968, 1978, and 1984).

I was fortunate to be introduced by my Thai professor in Chiang Mai University to a Lua (Laveue) graduate student who was taking her master’s course at the Faculty of Social Sciences. I am really grateful for her family support in letting me stay with them during the fieldworks. I made the first visit to my study village in September 2015, accompanied by my Japanese supervisor, a Thai and a Japanese student, and a Thai driver.

It took more than an hour from Mae Sariang town to the village along the 40 km, partially under construction, mountain road. During the few days in my first staying, I got to know my host family’s members and their close relatives. I visited the village headman to introduce myself and my purpose to visit the village. I also had a chance to observe a dam hua ritual²⁶ performed for a sick old man by his family members and the villagers.

Afterward, I had traveled several times to the village by Pa Pae villagers’ pick up cars from Mae Sariang town or sometimes from Chiang Mai city. I usually took the Chiang Mai – Mae Sariang shuttle van which took about three hours.

I conducted a preliminary survey in the village in October 2015 with the assistance of my host younger sister. I tried to visit every household in order to know the villagers and introduce myself. Because the villagers including my host family were busy in rice

24 Tai Yai (also known as Shan people) is a Tai-speaking group living in Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and China. The people are prominently Buddhists, as well known for the Buddhist novice ordination ceremony (Poy Sang Long).

25 Online source: http://www.siam-society.org/pub_JSS/jss_index.html

26 Dam hua (v.) is to wash head in northern Thai language. The term is often prefixed by rod nam (v.) which means to water. In terms of ritual, dam hua is practiced to wash bad luck away from oneself and another. The water is usually mixed with scents and flowers. In Thailand, originally in northern and northeastern regions, Rod nam dam hua is a main activity on Thai New Year’s festival (Songkran, 13-15 April) to show respect to and ask for forgiveness from elders. Buddhist Thais also practice this ritual for Buddha statues and Buddhist monks.

harvesting, I mainly surveyed in the evening of the days. This time some villagers could recognize me from the earlier dam hua ritual. I drew kinship charts and plotted the locations of the village households based on the map given by the village headman, in order to understand the general proportions of constituent villages and religions in Pa Pae village. After returning to Japan and organizing the collected data, I recognized the high rates of inter-ethnic marriages between Laveue—Sgaw Karen and Laveue—Tai Yuan.

I spent the second semester of the first doctoral year to review documents I had collected from my preliminary fieldwork and Chiang Mai University’s libraries. I conducted the supplementary fieldwork during the spring break in February and March 2016. This time I interviewed several married couples in the village about their marriage ceremonies and had an opportunity to participate in a Catholic Laveue—animist-Buddhist Tai Yuan marriage ceremony which was held twice at the Laveue bride’s house in Pa Pae village and at the Tai Yuan groom’s house in Chiang Mai.

I conducted the main fieldwork from August 2016 to January 2017 in the second year of my doctoral course. I spent about two or three weeks a month in the village and returned to Chiang Mai city to classify the data and review further literature in Chiang Mai University’s libraries. In August 2016, my host family was in grief and busy in hosting the funeral ceremony for my host grandmother (the mother of the household head). After the funeral ceremony was done, the villagers had visited my host family’s house regularly and some teenagers had come to stay overnight at the house for a month. In September 2016, I conducted interviews with the religious specialists, both villagers and non-villagers, about the spread of Protestantism, Catholicism, and Buddhism in Pa Pae village and Mae Sariang.

In addition, I had the opportunity to present about Laveue marriage and its dynamic changes based on my fieldwork data at the 13th International Conference of Asia Pacific Sociological Association (APSA) hosted by the Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. In October 2016, I surveyed the education of the villagers and interviewed some villagers about research and developmental projects in the village including language, agriculture, weaving, and tourism. In November 2016, I accompanied my host family for threshing rice at their rice fields and interviewed the elderly villagers about spirit propitiations based on agricultural activities. In December 2016, I participated in the propitiation ritual of the village spirits (as a symbol for animist-Buddhist villagers’ New Year), Protestant Christmas and Catholic Christmas (as a symbol for Christian villagers’

New Year), the special memorial ceremony of rice bank to commemorate the King Rama

IX’s death,²⁷ and three inter-ethnic marriage ceremonies in the village. In January 2017, I visited a Thai professor who has been researching about Laveue language in Pa Pae village and gathered necessary materials for writing before travelling back to Japan. In summary, in addition to following and participating in local activities during fieldworks, I set the major topic for each monthly interview such as religions, development, annual ceremonies, and so on, to encompass all aspects of the villagers’ way of life.

After the intensive fieldwork, I updated and arranged the numeric data in several cross tables for further descriptive analysis. I categorized observation and interview data from my field notes into the particular topic and subtopic cards. I took several hundred photos of marriage ceremonies and other events in the village, which can illustrate the current situations of Laveue traditions in this highland area. Based on these sources of data, I began writing about the study setting (study subject and study area), the religious context, the marriage context, and the analysis of intermarriage in terms of ceremonial and kinship practices.

In July 2017, I had an opportunity to conduct an additional fieldwork during the time I went to Thailand to join the 13th International Conference on Thai Studies (ICTS) hosted by Chiang Mai University. I double checked the data in my study village, about Laveue kinship terminologies and the finer detail of Laveue rituals and ceremonies. The international conference that I participated in was not only the second opportunity for me to present the issue of inter-ethnic marriage and its religious determinant but I also learned from other scholars’ distinguished presentations. After the additional fieldwork in Thailand, I returned to Japan to revise all the chapters and write the analysis parts while reading concepts and theories about marriage and kinship.

In summary, this research is an ethnic village study to understand the ways (methods/processes) that people use in managing their everyday life. I conducted ethnographic fieldworks to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. In the initial fieldwork, I surveyed the kinship chart in each household and the current situations of the village. I organized the collected kinship charts by using the spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel. It is a systematic application to manage information in the units of individuals, couples, and households, which allowed me to realize the high rate of inter-ethnic marriages. Then, I explored how these intermarriages are rising and correlate with religious

27 The King Rama IX (Bhumibol Adulyadej, reigned 1946-2016) passed away on 13 October 2016 at aged 88 years old. His 70 years in royal authority is the longest reign in Thai history. Thai people highly respect the king as their father.

conversion and post-marital residence patterns. I did participatory observations in four marriage ceremonies hosted in February and December 2016. Besides, I accounted from the interviews with some key informants and typical married couples in order to discuss marriage ceremony changes and kinship as open-ended processes.