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JOSEBA ESTÉVEZ 周思博
PhD in Social Anthropology, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität-Münster (University of Münster), Germany.
Post-doctoral Fellow, Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Dr Joseba Estévez is a social anthropologist working as a Post-doctoral Fellow at the “Asian Religious Connections (ASIAR)” cluster, Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HKIHSS), The University of Hong Kong. His research Conquering Demons, Taming the Forest: The Ritual Roles of the Lanten Yao Priests and Masters, defended at the Institute of Ethnology of the University of Münster, Germany, earned him the prestigious 2024 Frobenius Research Award for the best anthropological research in the German-speaking countries (namely, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland).
His academic interests include rituals, cosmology, exchange, social morphology and social transformation, the comparison of ideologies, animism, Buddhism, Chinese popular religion, and Daoism. His regional specialisation is mainland Southeast Asia, with a focus on the uplands of the Borderlands of China, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, and especially Laos, where he conducted long-term social anthropological fieldwork from 2010 to 2020 on the roles of the Lanten (Yao Mun) rituals experts in Luang Namtha Province; since 2023, his fieldwork has continued on his current research topics.
He is the initiator and director of the projects “A Digital Library of the Lanten Textual Heritage”, funded by the British Library’s Endangered Archive Programme (2015 – 2020); “The Lanten Oral Stories”, funded by BEQUAL-Laos, the European Union and Australian Aid (2017 – 2020), and the Lanten Digital Archive, including several films and clips co-produced with Creative Seven Arts, directed by Peter Livermore, and funded by the European Union and HKU.
Currently, he leads the YAO DAO Project and is part of the academic endeavour Global China Local Cultures (a new phase of BRINFAITH) of the Asian Religious Connections Cluster (ASIAR), with his projects on the local impact of the Laos-China Railway and of various international cooperation agencies in Laos.
In addition, in cooperation with the University of Hamburg, he participates in the Cluster of Excellence “Understanding Written Artefacts” (2019-2025) with the mapping of the Daoist manuscripts exchange networks in the Southeast Asian Massif during the 19th century. Together with the Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS), Heidelberg University, he is completing the digitisation of the Yao Manuscript Collections in Heidelberg (Germany) and Leiden (The Netherlands), funded by the project Chinese Folklore Resources Overseas. In cooperation with the National University of Singapore, within the framework “Singapore Smart City and ASEAN Smart City Network” (2023-2025), he is studying the Smart Cities in Nateuy and Namor in North Laos, promoted by the Thai-Japanese AMATA Group, and the Songkhla-Chana Smart City project in South Thailand.
Contact
Room 112, May Hall, The University of Hong Kong
Tel: (852) 3917-8112
Fax: (852) 2559-6143
Email: joseba@hku.hk
(co-author with Michael Friedrich) German scholars in China and Japan in the 19th and 20th Centuries and their contribution to the Yao Studies (with selected translations). Berlin: de Gruyter. Forthcoming
(co-editor with Agnieszka Helman-Wazny and Charles Ramble) Manuscript flows in Highland Asia: Social Networks and Material Culture. Berlin: de Gruyter. Forthcoming
‘Mapping caravan networks and the flow of Daoist manuscripts in the Upper Mekong Region during the 19th and 20th Centuries: The Lanten Yao case’, in Agnieszka Helman-Wazny, Joseba Estevez, and Charles Ramble (eds.) Manuscript flows in Highland Asia: Social Networks and Material Culture. Berlin: de Gruyter. Forthcoming
(with Helman-Wazny and Charles Ramble) ‘Introduction to Manuscript flows in Highland Asia’, in Agnieszka Helman-Wazny, Joseba Estevez, and Charles Ramble (eds.) Manuscript flows in Highland Asia: Social Networks and Material Culture. Berlin: de Gruyter. Forthcoming
Conquering Demons, Taming the Forest: The ritual roles of the Lanten Priests and Masters. PhD. Diss., social anthropology. Frobenius Prize 2024 to the best anthropological research in the German-speaking countries, namely Germany, Austria, Switzerland. Forthcoming.
‘The Manuscripts of the Lanten Yao: Ritual objects in the production and transmission of ritual knowledge’, in Manuscript Cultures. Hamburg: Universität Hamburg, forthcoming.
“On the Lanten Methods to Fetch the Hon or Living Force of the Original Rice”, in David Holm (ed.) Vernacular Character Manuscripts and Scripts from East and Southeast Asia. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2024.
(with Palmer, David A.) “Ritual, war, opium: Infrastructural sedimentations in the ethnography of the Mun (Lanten Yao) of Laos”, in Proceedings of the BRINFAITH Workshop on The Sacred Dimensions of the BRI’s Infrastructural Commons. Special Issue in Modern Asia Studies (MAS), 2024.
老撾藍靛瑤文庫:探討文本收集、編目、分類和評估的方法與相關問題∗郭慧雯、周思博 (Joseba Estévez)、安蔚、孫嘉玥、宗樹人(David A. Palmer). 華人宗教研究 第十九期 2022 年 1 月 頁 1~56 The Lanten Yao Library in Laos: Exploring the Methods and Related Issues of the Text Collection, Cataloguing, Classification and Evaluation, by Guo Huiwen, Zhou Sibo (Joseba Estévez), An Wei, Sun Jiayue, Zong Shuren (David A. Palmer), special Issue, Chinese Religious Studies, 2022.
藍靛瑤手抄本:儀式知識傳承中的法器, 周思博 (Joseba Estévez). 華人宗教研究 第十九期 2022 年 1 月 頁 1~56 (The Manuscripts of the Lanten Yao: Ritual objects in the production and transmission of ritual knowledge), special Issue, Chinese Religious Studies, 2022.
(with Yangnouvong, Khantamaly, eds.) The Lanten Stories [13 volumes]. Vientiane: Phankam Jampa, 2020.
“On Becoming a Ritual Expert among the Lanten (Yao Mun) of Laos”, in Jos Platenkamp and Almut Schneider (eds.) Integrating Strangers in Society: Perspectives from Elsewhere. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
“Learning Shamanistic Healing among the Lanten (Yao Mun) of Laos”, in Global Modernities and the (Re-)Emergence of Ghosts, special issue in Voices From Around the World. Köln: Global South Studies Center Cologne, Universität Köln, 2016.
“Healing Rituals and Sorcery among the Lanten (Yao Mun) of Laos”, in Laila Prager, Michael Prager, and Guido Sprenger (eds) Parts and Wholes: Essays on Social Morphology, Cosmology, and Exchange in Honour of J.D.M. Platenkamp. Münster: Lit Verlag, 2016.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL Documentaries
(produced with Peter Livermore) “The Lanten”, a 25-minute-long anthropological film, directed by Peter Livermore. Forthcoming.
(produced with Peter Livermore) The Yao Dao Project: A Pathway for Cultural Heritage Research, Preservation, and Promotion, a 20-minute-long documentary, directed by Peter Livermore, about the various projects implemented in Laos by the Yao Dao Project. Produced as part of the Yao Dao Impact Case for the HKU RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) 2026. Forthcoming
(produced with Peter Livermore) “The Lanten”, a 10-minute-long anthropological, directed by Peter Livermore, accompanying the exhibition on the Lanten society curated by Joseba Estevez at the Ethnological Museum of Luang Namtha, Laos. Forthcoming
