Reconfigurations of the Past in an Ambiguous Present. Memory discourses, social change, and inter-ethnic relations in Houaphan, Lao PDR

Research Group EMSE
Ethnic Minorities and the State in Eurasia: Relations and Transformations
Oliver Tappe

The Project

Houaphan province – located in the mountainous northeast of Laos adjacent to Vietnam – is an ethnically heterogeneous region. Its population (250,000) consists of 22 ethnic groups from the four main language families in Laos (Tai-Kadai, Mon-Khmer, Hmong-Mien, and Tibeto-Burman). Their settlement in the hills and valleys of the region is an outcome of complex migration processes. While Mon-Khmer groups are regarded as the autochthonous inhabitants of present-day Laos, the Tai-speaking people migrated from South China into mainland Southeast Asia between the 7th and 11th century. Other groups such as the Hmong settled in the high mountain regions of Laos and Vietnam since the 19th century after having fled Chinese dominance. With the arrival of the French colonial power in the late 19th century, the highland population at the margins of the later nation-states of Laos and Vietnam experienced an increasing degree of external interference in local political and economic organisation. After Laos and Vietnam gained independence from France in 1954, politics of post-colonial and socialist nation-building further transformed the multi-ethnic social structures of the region. Following Leach (2004; cf. Sadan & Robinne 2007) and his seminal work on political systems of the Southeast Asian highlands and the fluctuating ethnic relations there, this project examines ethnic interactions in the heterogeneous Lao-Vietnamese border region by taking into account 120 years of state-minorities-relations in the highlands.
By linking anthropological and historical research approaches, this project tackles questions of ethnicity and inter-ethnic relations by focusing on the social and cultural shifts caused by the intrusion of modern state power into ethnically heterogeneous regions. Taking into account for example early colonial taxation schemes, recent land reform projects, changing property relations, and the evolvement of a capitalist agricultural economy, the consequences of state politics for multi-ethnic social structures shall be analysed. The projects considers ruptures and continuities of inter-ethnic relations in the Lao-Vietnamese border region in the context of colonialism (1893-1954), contested nation-building (1954-1975), orthodox socialism (1975-1986), and reformed socialism (since 1986). I will focus on two levels of inter-ethnic relations: first, the relations between lowland (Lao/Vietnamese) and highland (different ethnic groups), and second, the relation between the different ethnic groups themselves at the margins of the state. Traditional hierarchies, socialist ideas of multi-ethnic solidarity, and contemporary struggles for resources will be juxtaposed and analysed with regard to strategies of ethnic boundary‘-making and -unmaking’ (cf. Wimmer 2008).
Moreover, my research shall shed light on the multiple discourses of memory and identity in the region. Given the importance of support the Lao (and Vietnamese) communists received from the highland groups during the revolutionary struggle, these groups seek to make sense of the revolution and its aftermath as the reward for the struggle remains doubtful. Expectations of development, progress, and modernity to come have largely been left unfulfilled. Instead, the Lao state is currently shaping the social spaces in the highlands by promoting resettlement and the large-scale cultivation of industrial crops – thereby further altering traditional livelihoods and forms of village organisation. The latter is only the latest stage of a long series of disconcerting experiences among the highland populations in Houaphan province: from pre-colonial raids and colonial taxation to war, revolution, socialist collectivist experiments, forced resettlement, poverty, encounters with Western tourists, and poorly implemented land titling programs. It is evident, that an analysis of inter-ethnic relations must pay attention to the forces of the modern state and global modernity in general.

Reconfigurations of the Past in an Ambiguous Present. Memory discourses, social change, and inter-ethnic relations in Houaphan, Lao PDR

Historical Periods

In pre-colonial times, the sparsely populated highland region of present-day Laos used to be in a symbiotic relationship with the Tai-Buddhist polities located in the river basins. Flows of goods, ideas, and people connected different regions and groups. However, the Mon-Khmer speaking highland groups – pejoratively called kha (servant) – resumed the lowest position in the traditional political hierarchy of the Tai-Lao principalities as reflected in many local myths and royal chronicles (Photisane 1996). Under French colonial administration (1893-1954), the flexible exchange relation between lowlands and highlands was turned into a state-minority-relation according to European concepts of the nation-state introducing forms of centralised authority and taxation systems. Lowland Lao political, economic and cultural domination over the highland people increased at the end of the colonial period and after Laos’ national independence in 1954. The Lao communist movement translated these developments into a discourse of suppression and exploitation, thereby mobilising many minority groups for the revolutionary cause. During the two Indochina Wars (1946-54, 1964-1973), the Lao communists – as well as their Vietnamese comrades – relied heavily on the support of the marginalised highland population. Ethnic groups such as the Khmu or the Hmong carried the burden of the war, many of them becoming victims of the American bombing raids, and joined the communists as guerrillas.
From the 1950s onwards, the so-called ‘liberated zone’ along the Lao-Vietnamese border was established. During the continuous American air bombing in the 2nd Indochina War (1964-73), the leaders of the Lao communist movement and thousands of civilians hid inside large caves near the town of Viengsay in Houaphan province. The region is thus regarded as the cradle of the Lao revolution. Here, the revolutionaries created a model version of the later socialist state of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, which was to be declared in 1975. Communism arose as a specific form of modernity that was meant to develop the ‘backward’ highlands, and consequently Houaphan was one of the first regions that faced immense transformations concerning political organisation and agricultural production. Concurrently, the heterogeneous population was moulded into the ‘Lao multi-ethnic people’ (pasason lao banda phao), a key phrase in the revolutionary discourse propagating ethnic equality and solidarity. Traditional ethnic hierarchies that characterised the relations between lowland Lao and the highland population as well as between the minority groups themselves were condemned as ‘feudal’. A society of new socialist man beyond ethnic boundaries was supposed to substitute these relations.
Transformations of the political and socio-economic domains in the highlands were further aggravated in the Lao context by war-induced displacement and resettlement programms. Sedentary villages consisting of different ethnic groups became the rule. More recently, the shift to a capitalist market economy entailing agricultural commercialisation and land reform projects marks a clear break with both traditional and socialist patterns of land tenure and property relations. By taking other development schemes into account – e.g. projects encouraged by international actors such as the World Bank or Asian Development Bank – it becomes evident that the ideology of market capitalism and economic growth currently sweeps away the legacy of the Lao socialist project of creating an egalitarian multi-ethnic society. Despite its significance as a revolutionary lieu de mémoire and its prominent role in official Lao historiography, Houaphan has economically and politically a rather marginal position. While cross-border trade with nearby Vietnam is growing, the connection to the prospering Mekong region and therefore integration into the Lao national economy is still insufficient. Yet, tourism is picking up, and together with the gradual commercialisation of agriculture these developments are emblematic for the arrival of globalised modernity and a new dynamic of social change in the region.

Reconfigurations of the Past in an Ambiguous Present. Memory discourses, social change, and inter-ethnic relations in Houaphan, Lao PDR

Methodology and research questions

The longue durée of processes of inter-ethnic relationships in the Lao highlands will be explored by linking the research of oral history and local myths with textual research in French colonial archives and Lao libraries. One major challenge will be the study of local history beyond the focus on empires and states (cf. Scott forthc.). Field research will be conducted in a multi-ethnic village community in Houaphan province. The Tai Deng (Red Tai) are one of the dominant groups in the region and shall be considered as a linkage between lowland Lao social structures and the manifold highland socio-cultures. Since they settle on both sides of the Lao-Vietnamese border, it will be useful to do additional research in a Vietnamese Tai village (e.g. in Thanh Hoa province). Central research issues are the transformations of property and exchange relations within the multi-ethnic societies of the Lao-Vietnamese highlands. Moreover, the project considers the nexus of past, present and future in local collective memory, i.e. the constant and contingent interaction processes of present experiences, future expectations, and reconfigurations of the past. Local representations of the past and visions of the future have to be examined vis-à-vis official history politics and socio-political roadmaps that, for example, influence discourses on the ‘Lao multi-ethnic people’ among the different ethnic groups with their diverse experiences of contact with state and global forces.
The following questions arise here: how did the multi-faceted socio-cultural changes of the last century affect the systems of ideas and values among the ethnically heterogeneous population of the Lao highlands? Which transformations occurred within the complex social and economic exchange relations between the different ethnic groups under the impact of colonial and post-colonial state power? How far are socio-cultural changes internalised and now taken for granted? How far do the hardships and solidarity experienced during the years of the ‘anti-imperialist’ struggle constitute a core element of the people’s identity in the region and transcend ethnic boundaries? How do the highlanders make sense of their struggle with regard to the forces of globalised modernity now perceptible even in the remote provinces? By capturing the voices of different groups in the often ethnically heterogeneous villages of Houaphan, this project shall explore the dynamics of constantly re-envisaged and negotiated inter-ethnic constellations between the nation-state and a globalised world. The region is an ideal arena for this research since it represents a number of important tendencies and contradictions of late-socialist Laos (and Vietnam): strict political and ideological control by the ruling Party, emerging counter-discourses of memory, collaboration with Western development and tourism experts, and striving for socio-economic development. Adopting a perspective from the margins shall reveal the rupture lines of state-minorities-relations and the permanent re-negotiations of a multi-ethnic society within the different contexts of colonialism, socialism, and capitalist developmentalism.

References:

Abu Talib, Ahmad & Tan Liok Ee (eds. 2003): New Terrains in Southeast Asian History. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Boutin, André (1937): Monographie de la Province des Houa-Phan. Bulletin des Amis du Laos 1: 69-119.
Evans, Grant (2002): A Short History of Laos. Chiang Mai: Silkworm.
Hann, Chris (2003): The post-socialist agrarian question: property relations and the rural condition. Münster: Lit.
Leach, Edmund (2004 [1959]): Political Systems of Highland Burma. A Study of Kachin Social Structure. London: Berg.
Michaud, Jean (2009): Handling mountain minorities in China, Vietnam and Laos: from history to current concerns. Asian Ethnicity, 10, 1: 25-49.
Pelley, Patricia M. (2002): Postcolonial Vietnam. New Histories of the National Past. Durham: Duke University Press.
Pholsena, Vatthana (2006): Post-war Laos: The Politics of Culture, History, and Identity. Singapore: ISEAS.
Photisane, Souneth (1996): The Nidan Khun Borom: annotated translation and analysis. PhD dissertation, University of Queensland.
Sadan, Mandy & Robinne, Francois (eds. 2007): Social Dynamics in the Highlands of South East Asia: Reconsidering 'Political Systems of Highland Burma' by E. R. Leach. Leiden: Brill.
Scott, James G. (forthc.): The Art of Not Being Governed. An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. London: Yale University Press.
Tagliacozzo, Eric (2002): Amphora, Whisper, Text: Ways of Writing Southeast Asian History. Crossroads, 16,1: 128-158.
Tappe, Oliver (2008): Geschichte, Nationsbildung und Legitimationspolitik in Laos. Münster: Lit.
Wimmer, Andreas (2008): The Making and Unmaking of Ethnic Boundaries: A Multilevel Process Theory. American Journal of Sociology, 113, 4: 970-1022.

Reconfigurations of the Past in an Ambiguous Present. Memory discourses, social change, and inter-ethnic relations in Houaphan, Lao PDR

Go to Editor View