ThitiwutBoonyawongwiwatThe ethno‐narcotic politics of the Shan people: Fighting with drugs, fighting for the nation on the Thai–Burmese border,Lexington Books2017, 186 pp., £60 (HBK), £60 (ebook).

Abstract

How can a shift in opinion, such as a move from supporting to opposing what was once a core part of daily life, become a defining aspect of ethnic identity? Taking the Shan as an example, Boonyawongwiwat sets out to explore how, what was formerly the primary source of funding for their insurgency, drug production, has become something that they now oppose, to the extent that it has become part of the ideology of Shan nationalism. Based on the author's study of life in a Shan village in Thailand, which was once the informal capital of one of the Shan's biggest armed groups (and drug producers), this book rejects the mainstream notion of self-determination as the cause of ethnic conflict and instead seeks to create an alternative explanation looking at economic causes such as transnational criminal organisations. A key era in this conceptualisation is the Cold War, where parts of Burma (or Myanmar) were occupied by the defeated Kuomintang (KMT), who turned to drug production and trafficking to fund their operations, something that, following their withdrawal under American, Thai and Burmese pressure, was carried on by some of the local forces that had associated with them. A notable figure in this is Khun Sa, who originally trained with the KMT, but re-established his forces as auxiliaries of the Burmese state in their long-running battle with ethnic insurgents, in exchange for permission to cultivate and traffic opium. The profits from the drug trade were meant to make him a self-supporting government ally; however, the vast income enabled him to buy better equipment than the government forces and set himself up as an independent actor. Despite this narcotic-funded start, the recent developments in his former capital of Ban Hin Taek have resulted in the development of an antinarcotic ideology, which has become part of the ideology of Shan nationalism. The author explores this topic by interviewing a range of figures including Khun Sa's successor, civilians, Shan youth and former soldiers as well as analysing speeches, documents and policies from Thai, Burmese and Shan sources.It is in this analysis that the strength of the book is most clearly seen, with the author creating a timeline of changing opinions within the Shan leadership with regard to drugs, as well as an outline of the ethnic issues with Burma and the antinarcotics policies of the Thai government. The small scope of this study, interviewing 55 people and focusing on just one village and one Shan faction, the Shan State Army-South (SSA-S), means that a detailed picture and understanding can be generated from this approach. However, this is also a major weakness, and as by focusing on just one village that is on the Thai side of the border from the majority of the Shan population, many of the findings seem limited in their application to the Shan people as a whole. A key example of this is the chapter on Thai state policy, which the author claims leads directly to the antinarcotic stance held by the Shan people, but it is not made clear quite how this a...

Corrigendum

“…In the book review entitled ‘Boonyawongwiwat, Thitiwut The ethno‐narcotic politics of the Shan people: Fighting with drugs, fighting for the nation on the Thai–Burmese border, Lexington Books 2017, 186 pp., £60 (HBK), £60 (ebook).’ by Thomas Edward Kingston, published in Nations and Nationalism 2020; 26: 1127–1128 (Kingston, 2020), we found that the author's name was incorrect.…”