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Article Dans Une Revue Ethnic and Racial Studies Année : 2017

State formation, social hierarchies, and ethnic dynamics: a case from upland Laos

Vatthana Pholsena

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.
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halshs-01870681 , version 1 (08-09-2018)

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Vatthana Pholsena. State formation, social hierarchies, and ethnic dynamics: a case from upland Laos. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2017, 41 (7), pp.1294 - 1311. ⟨10.1080/01419870.2017.1290263⟩. ⟨halshs-01870681⟩
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