Suchergebnisse

The existence of Laos today is taken for granted. But the crystallization of a Lao national idea and ultimate independence for the country was a long and uncertain process. This book examines the process through which Laos came into existence under French colonial rule through to the end of World War II. Rather than assuming that the Laos we see today was an historical given, the book looks at how Laos's position at the intersection of two conflicting spatial layouts of 'Thailand' and 'Indochina' made its national form a particularly contested process. This, however, is not an analysis of nation-building from the perspec-tive of administrative and political structures. Rather, the book charts the emergence of a notion of a specifically Lao cultural identity that served to buttress Laos as a separate 'Lao space', both in relation to Siam/Thailand and within French Indochina.

AbstractThe administrative (Chakri) reforms in Siam which took place around the turn of the twentieth century are probably one of the most studied topics in the history of Thailand. This period is usually described as the time when the royal elite worked to create a Siamese nation-state under the guidance of the absolute monarchy. This transformation encompassed both territorial integration and administrative centralization. Here we offer a new perspective on this transformative period through an analysis of changing documentary and spatial practices in Siam from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries, which were one of the most crucial, intrinsic dynamics of state formation. The emphasis is on the mundane practices of documentation—among other spatial-material practices and processes—that produce the effect that the state exists. We show how this new paper regime articulated a standardization of written official documents, the birth of the file as a technology to deal with the avalanche of documents circulating between sections of the burgeoning administration, and the spatial organization that created the office—fields where officials produced and stored documents according to specific regulations. We exemplify this new regime of documentary practices in Bangkok and beyond, with special reference to the paper and spatial works of the provincial gendarmerie.

A biography of Prince Phetsarath highlights how a specific idea about Laos and its culture was formed under French colonial rule and nurtured under the Japanese occupation and its aftermath. During these periods, Phetsarath's understanding of Lao cultural nationalism was transformed into a political and anticolonial nationalism. While ultimately a study of failure, Phetsarath's activities show that anticolonial nationalism did not always have to be linked to Communist movements to be 'revolutionary', and suggests the importance of taking into account non-revolutionary and non-Communist actors – even members of royal blood – in order to better understand the complexity that went into the making of modern postcolonial states.