State formation, social hierarchies, and ethnic dynamics: a case from upland Laos
Résumé
State formation below the national scale remains under-researched. In this
article, the reconstitution of the local history of an upland region of Laos –
Sepon – reveals a process of state formation from a territorial margin.
Contrary to James C. Scott’s thesis on state-evading peoples, members of a
local ethnic minority population – the Phuthai – have been part of the
making of the state over centuries. In addition to the material aspects of
state-making, this article explores its intangible components that are often
neglected in analyses of state formation. This wider lens is particularly applied
to the Communist state-making efforts in Sepon during the American-
Vietnam War. These have had the unintended consequence of producing a
new class that replicates age-old social hierarchies and have resulted in
Sepon, and probably other upland areas of contemporary Laos, being more
socially inequitable than the Communist Revolution intended.