Course Description and Policies
The Southeast Asian Massif is one of the most culturally and linguistically variegated regions in the world. Hmong are one of the more populous upland ethnic minority groups in Southeast Asia and China and comprise a variety of ethnolinguistic subgroups. The Hmong diaspora provides an interesting social context to address many key social scientific questions. Although there are now significant populations of Hmong on five continents, the epicenter of the Hmong diaspora is southwestern China. From here Hmong began to emigrate in large numbers to the Southeast Asian peninsula during the nineteenth century. This diaspora was further globalized after the Second Indochina war (which ended in 1975), which displaced hundreds of thousands of Hmong refugees from Laos to camps in Thailand. Most of these Hmong refugees would eventually resettle in third-party countries such as the United States or France. Some of them, however, would resettle permanently in the Thai countryside in preexisting Hmong communities. As a result of these divergent migration patterns, some families became transnational families almost overnight, as some members of the family stayed in Southeast Asia, while other relatives were resettled in places like Minnesota and California. These disparate resettlement circumstances provide a unique context for examining theoretical understandings of how people deal with dramatic social change, and the innovative strategies they develop to deal with some of the most dramatically changing circumstances that humans have faced.
Key themes that we will investigate will include Hmong history (including the folk history of the ancient Hmong kingdom); politics in which Hmong were embroiled in China, Southeast Asia, and Western countries where they have resettled; religious frameworks, ranging from shamanism and ancestral practices to conversion to Christianity to new religious movements; refugee resettlement and adaptation to new ways of life in places like the United States and France; Hmong philosophy and ideas of self and personhood; Hmong-specific concepts that are encoded in Hmong language(s); linguistic structure and function and phylogeny; moral values in Hmong society; gender relations; and other dimensions of Hmong life around the globe. There will be ample opportunity to engage with Hmong ritual practice and original texts, and students will learn to analyze and contextualize these.
While this course will focus on the Hmong diaspora in particular, its reach will extend to fundamental questions about what it means to be human. We will thus engage with a variety of social science theories that seek to provide understanding to these questions. By diving deeply into one group's culture, history, and language, we will be able to parse out some of the nuance of scholarly attempts to answer these difficult questions. We will ask how these theoretical frameworks help us understand the vast and complex cultural landscape of Southeast Asia, but reach far beyond the confines of the region to ask what the Hmong story can teach us about ourselves. How do ethnographic data from Southeast Asia challenge predominant notions in social science understandings of the human condition or force us to reformulate the way we understand our own life experience? Thus, this course will be as much theoretically driven and focused as it will geographically, but the point is to create a direct dialogue between a set of theoretical ideas and ethnographic perspectives on groups that lend particular insight into understanding the social processes at hand. In sum, this course is not just for those who care deeply about Hmong issues or the Asia-Pacific region more broadly, but rather it is designed to use this case study to ask fundamental anthropological questions about what it means to be human.
This course will be a seminar style. The instructor may wax in and out of lecture mode as he shares ethnographic examples from his own research or tries to situate or explicate particular theoretical points, but student participation and rich discussion is critical. As a result, your participation in the seminar will constitute an important part of the final grade. The syllabus will include an array of reading and multi-media materials, and it is critical that you come prepared each session to discuss your take on the materials for each seminar discussion.​
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Course and University Policies
Honor Code
In keeping with the principles of the BYU Honor Code, students are expected to be honest in all of their academic work. Academic honesty means, most fundamentally, that any work you present as your own must in fact be your own work and not that of another. Violations of this principle may result in a failing grade in the course and additional disciplinary action by the university. Students are also expected to adhere to the Dress and Grooming Standards. Adherence demonstrates respect for yourself and others and ensures an effective learning and working environment. It is the university's expectation, and my own expectation in class, that each student will abide by all Honor Code standards. Please call the Honor Code Office at 422-2847 if you have questions about those standards.
Sexual Harassment
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits sex discrimination against any participant in an educational program or activity that receives federal funds. The act is intended to eliminate sex discrimination in education and pertains to admissions, academic and athletic programs, and university-sponsored activities. Title IX also prohibits sexual harassment of students by university employees, other students, and visitors to campus. If you encounter sexual harassment or gender-based discrimination, please talk to your professor or contact one of the following: the Title IX Coordinator at 801-422-2130; the Honor Code Office at 801-422-2847; the Equal Employment Office at 801-422-5895; or Ethics Point at http://www.ethicspoint.com, or 1-888-238-1062 (24-hours).
Student Disability
Brigham Young University is committed to providing a working and learning atmosphere that reasonably accommodates qualified persons with disabilities. If you have any disability which may impair your ability to complete this course successfully, please contact the University Accessibility Center (UAC), 2170 WSC or 422-2767. Reasonable academic accommodations are reviewed for all students who have qualified, documented disabilities. The UAC can also assess students for learning, attention, and emotional concerns. Services are coordinated with the student and instructor by the UAC. If you need assistance or if you feel you have been unlawfully discriminated against on the basis of disability, you may seek resolution through established grievance policy and procedures by contacting the Equal Employment Office at 422-5895, D-285 ASB.
Academic Honesty
The first injunction of the Honor Code is the call to "be honest." Students come to the university not only to improve their minds, gain knowledge, and develop skills that will assist them in their life's work, but also to build character. "President David O. McKay taught that character is the highest aim of education" (The Aims of a BYU Education, p.6). It is the purpose of the BYU Academic Honesty Policy to assist in fulfilling that aim. BYU students should seek to be totally honest in their dealings with others. They should complete their own work and be evaluated based upon that work. They should avoid academic dishonesty and misconduct in all its forms, including but not limited to plagiarism, fabrication or falsification, cheating, and other academic misconduct.
Plagiarism
Intentional plagiarism is a form of intellectual theft that violates widely recognized principles of academic integrity as well as the Honor Code. Such plagiarism may subject the student to appropriate disciplinary action administered through the university Honor Code Office, in addition to academic sanctions that may be applied by an instructor. Inadvertent plagiarism, which may not be a violation of the Honor Code, is nevertheless a form of intellectual carelessness that is unacceptable in the academic community. Plagiarism of any kind is completely contrary to the established practices of higher education where all members of the university are expected to acknowledge the original intellectual work of others that is included in their own work. In some cases, plagiarism may also involve violations of copyright law. Intentional Plagiarism-Intentional plagiarism is the deliberate act of representing the words, ideas, or data of another as one's own without providing proper attribution to the author through quotation, reference, or footnote. Inadvertent Plagiarism-Inadvertent plagiarism involves the inappropriate, but non-deliberate, use of another's words, ideas, or data without proper attribution. Inadvertent plagiarism usually results from an ignorant failure to follow established rules for documenting sources or from simply not being sufficiently careful in research and writing. Although not a violation of the Honor Code, inadvertent plagiarism is a form of academic misconduct for which an instructor can impose appropriate academic sanctions. Students who are in doubt as to whether they are providing proper attribution have the responsibility to consult with their instructor and obtain guidance. Examples of plagiarism include: Direct Plagiarism-The verbatim copying of an original source without acknowledging the source. Paraphrased Plagiarism-The paraphrasing, without acknowledgement, of ideas from another that the reader might mistake for the author's own. Plagiarism Mosaic-The borrowing of words, ideas, or data from an original source and blending this original material with one's own without acknowledging the source. Insufficient Acknowledgement-The partial or incomplete attribution of words, ideas, or data from an original source. Plagiarism may occur with respect to unpublished as well as published material. Copying another student's work and submitting it as one's own individual work without proper attribution is a serious form of plagiarism.
Use of Generative AI in this course
Generative artificial intelligence platforms are useful for many problem solving and general data analysis and management tasks. However, anywhere where the production of prose is required in this course, students are not, per this course policy, allowed to use generative AI at any stage to produce prose that will be turned in for credit, including papers, book reviews, miscellaneous assignments, and the final project. This includes a prohibition on generative AI tools for outlining, developing your argument, and figuring out how to ground your argument in academic sources. Using generative AI in any of these ways will constitute a violation of this course policy and written assignments based on generative AI - produced prose will not be given credit. Serious cases will be reported to the Honor Code Office.
Please also consult the University statement about generative AI and academic integrity.
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It is also important for you to understand what generative AI models do, and what they do not do. We will talk about this and what it means for understanding Hmong culture in particular. But for a more general background of the current state of these types of models, consider this summary at the end of 2025: From prophet to product: How AI came back down to earth in 2025 (Ars Technica)