KPU history instructor challenges research norms through new book

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Shortly before British forces invaded the lands of the Mizo peoples in Northeast India in the 19th century, they were considered to be headhunters by British officials. However, many British officials themselves were involved in headhunting. 

This concept is the beginning of Kwantlen Polytechnic University history instructor Kyle Jackson’s new book, The Mizo Discovery of the British Raj: Empire and Religion in Northeast India, 1890-1920, where he dives into the modern-day state of Mizoram, India, with a decolonial approach. 

“When I started to find these references of British forces digging up bodies and cutting the skull off, I was like wait a second, ‘Who was doing the headhunting here?’” Jackson says. 

In his archive research, Jackson found that the British forces were digging up bodies for craniometry collections, which is the study of measuring bones of the skull. 

“Certainly, sometimes, Mizo forces did return from war with heads (sometimes of even their own war-dead!), for a whole variety of reasons, many connected to afterlife,” Jackson wrote in a follow up email to The Runner. 

Jackson’s new book showcases the history of Mizoram in Northeast India told from Indigenous perspectives detailing their encounters with the British Empire from the 1890s to the 1920s, according to Cambridge University Press’ website. Each chapter deflates common stereotypes or misconceptions made about Mizo peoples, Jackson says. Mizo diaries, rare newspaper articles, and letters or certificates from private collections are the materials he used to complete his book, according to a KPU press release. 

The book builds upon his PhD thesis, Colonial Conquest and Religious Entanglement: A Mizo History from Northeast India (c. 1890-1920), at the University of Warwick in 2017. The time period Jackson’s studies underwent a fundamental refashioning. 

“Wrenching change with the arrival of colonialism, and essentially the invasion of the region by colonial forces. Very quickly, people navigated through this transition, often on their own terms, but also within these constraints of colonial violence, and Christian missionization.” 

Mizoram is a borderland region located in the northeastern part of India where it shares borders with Myanmar and Bangladesh. People often live in high altitudes near the Himalayan mountains. 

Since the beginning of his research career, Jackson has dedicated his time researching Mizoram. He first started visiting Mizoram in 2004, and for two decades, has talked to people in the community and collected material for the book. 

A lot of what Jackson learned during his time researching and visiting went against his training as a historian, which helped him engage in new approaches and perspectives of Mizoram. 

“[I thought] ramhuai spirits, that’s religion, like a historian of religion should study that,” Jackson says. “A decolonial approach would argue that both historians are only seeing half the picture.” 

In historical Mizo realities, spirits, called ramhuai, were just as real and physical as a tiger, Jackson says. Instead of separating religious concepts into another chapter, Jackson treated it as another historical forest species. 

“In that approach, you can start to see that the arrival of colonialism is like a profoundly transformative ecological event,” he says. “It doesn’t just affect tigers and wild dogs, but also in Mizo realities affects the spirits too.” 

KPU students in Jackson’s animal history class helped bat around ideas about decolonizing animal studies and the idea of spirits, which he gave credit to in his book. 

Jackson says he wanted to focus on Mizoram specifically as the region is often overlooked, especially in North America and Europe. 

“There’s so many other wider world stories that get ignored, and where lots of people have lived in the past and today,” he says. “I think it’s important for historians [to] especially research wider world histories and global history.” 

Jackson hopes people from the KPU community take away the importance of decolonial approaches to historical work and getting involved during their undergraduate studies. 

“This gave me new relationships, connections and in the end, new ways of seeing the world,” he says. “It’s surreal, it was a long time in the making, and it’s a pleasure and a joy that it’s out in the world.” 

The book is available to physically borrow at the KPU Library or can be purchased from Cambridge University Press.