Suchergebnisse

More than a quarter of century after the end of the war in 1975, the Lao leadership is still in search for a compelling nationalist narration. Its politics of culture and representation appear to be caught between the rhetoric of preservation and the desire for modernity. Meanwhile, originating from the periphery where ethnic minorities had hitherto been symbolically, politically and administratively confined, the participation of some of their members in the Indochina Wars (1945-75) exposed these individuals to socialization and politicization processes. This rigorously researched and cogently argued book is a fine-grained analysis of substantial ethnographic material, showing the politics of identity, the geographies of memory and the power of narratives of some members of ethnic minority groups who fought during the Vietnam War in the Lao People's Liberation Army and/or were educated within the revolutionary administration. No study has ever been conducted on the latter's views on the national(ist) project of the late socialist era. Their own perceptions of their membership of the nation have been overlooked. Post-War Laos is a set to be a landmark study, and an original contribution which refines established theories of nationalism, such as Anderson's 'imagined community', by addressing a common weakness: namely, their tendency to deny agency to individuals, who in fact interpret their relationship to, and place within, the nation in a variety of ways that may change according to time and circumstance

This article analyzes two key frontlines during the Cold War, border areas in the provinces of Savannakhet (central Laos) and Nakhon Phanom (northeastern Thailand), adjacent to the Lao-Vietnamese and Thai-Lao borders, respectively. We investigate the distinct transformative experiences of war and revolution on members of the same ethnic minority – the Phutai – in both locations. The wartime trajectories of these populations diverged significantly, partly because their territories experienced very different pre-Cold War histories. As a consequence, Phutai in Thailand moved through homogeneous ethnic space between Thailand and Laos. In contrast, the Phutai in Laos, hemmed in by political, topographic, and ethnic boundaries, contributed to the building of a communist proto-state. The Phutai were confronted by different communist projects, which also shaped their distinct revolutionary experiences: the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) boosted ethnic minorities' resistance against the Thai state's nationalist ideology, while the Lao revolutionary movement facilitated ethnic minorities' social mobility within the Pathet Lao apparatus. Whether through confrontation in Thailand or accommodation in Laos, Phutai in both locations played active roles in the multi-layered history of the region. (Crit Asian Stud/GIGA)

Professor Thayer cites three main areas of cooperation that have influenced US rapprochement with Laos: the Missing in Action/Prisoner of War (MIA/POW) issue, reduction of opium production and counter-terrorism. As he rightly contends, the MIA issue remains at the top of America's agenda in Laos. To date, 240 sets of remains of American service personnel have been found and identified; the search, led by US teams with Lao logistical support, for a further 355 MIAs continues. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractThis article draws on fieldwork carried out between 2004 and 2010 in the rural district of Sepon, located in the east of Savannakhet Province in southern Laos. The area was heavily bombed by U.S. forces between 1964 and 1973 in an attempt to stop North Vietnamese supplies flowing into South Vietnam from the North via the transportation network widely known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The district of Sepon constituted a strategic centre and logistics base area for the North Vietnamese Army, and was one of the most important nodes on the Trail. This paper represents an attempt to reconstruct life under aerial bombardment through the recollections of some survivors. The majority of recollections concerned aspects of day-to-day survival, including the most routine tasks of daily life that, under bombardment, became major challenges. However, some survivors dwelt on more profound issues, notably their remembrance of the period as a 'Dark Age' characterized by a loss of their humanity. Silences—untold or absent memories—are also present in the villagers' accounts, which we view not as an obstacle to the telling of their stories, but as an integral constituent of their recollections.

The narrative of the origins of the Lao people in contemporary Lao-language history books and textbooks is divided among divergent interpretations. The most popular reading is the 'Ai-Lao' version, an implicit response to Thai nationalist historiography. Marxist-Leninist-orientated historiography, by contrast, resembles the Vietnamese Communist narrative. As far as likely future trends are concerned, a journey back to the 'roots' seems ultimately to reveal the biography of a pre-modern spatial identity.