Faces and Facets of the<i>Kantosou Kou Xat</i>– The Lao “National Liberation Struggle” in State Commemoration and Historiography

Tappe, Oliver

doi:10.1080/10357823.2013.770448

Cited by 12 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…One approach to identifying influential political concepts and values, an approach used by Anderson (1990) and Hanks (1962) but also many others, is careful readings of local language sources. In Lao studies, important contributions along these lines have been made by historians Vatthana Pholsena (2006) on the revolutionary's concept of 'entering the people', Olivier Tappe (2013) on the importance on the concept of 'struggle', and Bruce Lockhart on the narrative of a 'heroic nation fighting to preserve its independence and unity ' (2006, 372). In Fields of Desire (High 2014) I analysed several policy documents as well as a public seminar presented in response to a reactionary border incursion, and in Projectland (2021) I again analysed policy documents as well as a book-length history of Sekong Province.…”

Section: Lao Socialism: a Creative Endeavourmentioning

confidence: 99%

It was not the Government that did it: it was us! Water Supply in Kandon as an Example of Living Lao Socialism

High

2022

Anthropological Forum

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The core argument of this paper is that English-language scholarly understandings of socialism in Laos have been hampered by implicit ethnocentrism and denial of coevalness. Lingering but pervasive legacies of the Cold War include an equation of 'true' socialism with models of socialism that were practised in Europe, and a triumphalist tone that equates socialism with the past, the fake and the crumbling, even when it is (as with Laos) so evidently a tangible part of the lived present and the imagined future. Better understanding of socialism in Laos requires the kind of work that was done by an earlier generation of scholars on power in Southeast Asia, where concepts were translated across difference by rooting them in local terminology, contextualisations and usage. Following this inspiration, I approach socialism in Laos through the example of how the problem of water supply was addressed in a resettled, ethnic Kantu village in Sekong Province, Lao PDR. Why was the village resettled? Why was water a problem? What strategies did people use to obtain safe water? Answering these questions reveals some of what socialism means in lives as lived in this self-identified socialist state.

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Section: Lao Socialism: a Creative Endeavourmentioning

confidence: 99%

It was not the Government that did it: it was us! Water Supply in Kandon as an Example of Living Lao Socialism

High

2022

Anthropological Forum

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“…Anknüpfend an Forschungen aus Indonesien (Bubandt 2014), Thailand (Jackson 2016(Jackson , 2009Pasuk und Baker 2008), Burma (Schober 2005;Min 2001) oder Laos (Ladwig 2013;Tappe 2013)…”

Section: Machtunclassified

Geister in Kambodscha

Christensen¹

2020

Göttingen Series in Social and Cultural Anthropology

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“…hey declared that they were not given a choice, that their rights were violated, that they did not have any more rice ields to cultivate, and that the Vietnamese had polluted and depleted the forests and rivers upon which they had previously relied for their livelihoods. Two women who lost their ields spoke with me in 2012 in a small shop, complaining that the village chief had been unable to preserve the rights of his fellows; they said there had been no real resistance (dtaan), in contrast with how locals had bravely fought (dtoosuu) against the French in the past; they thus adopted the rhetoric of patriotic resistance, which is still very popular today in Laos (Tappe, 2013).…”

Section: Hidden Transcriptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land, State, and Society in Laos: Ethnographies of Land Policies

Petit¹

2017

World Food Policy

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Land policies are a contentious topic in Laos. he banning of swidden agriculture in the 1990s prompted widespread resettlements, while land allocation was implemented during the same period; the following decade saw massive land grabs. Unfavorable to small farmers, these processes transformed everyday social relations with land, which used to be managed at the village level but presently fall more and more within the administration's domain. However, State employees are not alone in using a new lexicon to refer to land issues; those impacted by such measures are also adopting it to protect themselves, sometimes with relative success. Gossip and rumor can afect the authorities' decisions. And land policies can never be implemented without vernacularization, which ends up constructing a practical order on land negotiated-in uneven terms-by the local administration and the local actors. Ethnographic case studies throughout Laos illustrate how the state has become an inescapable mediator between people and land, transforming the social fabric and reshaping people's agency.

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Faces and Facets of theKantosou Kou Xat– The Lao “National Liberation Struggle” in State Commemoration and Historiography

Cited by 12 publications

References 16 publications

It was not the Government that did it: it was us! Water Supply in Kandon as an Example of Living Lao Socialism

It was not the Government that did it: it was us! Water Supply in Kandon as an Example of Living Lao Socialism

Geister in Kambodscha

Land, State, and Society in Laos: Ethnographies of Land Policies

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