Laos: Culture and Society

327 Pages·1999·32.727 MB·English

by  Grant Evans

L A O S
CULTURE AND SOCIETY

L A O S
CULTURE AND SOCIETY
EDITED BY
GRANT EVANS
SILKWORM BOOKS
© 1999 by Grant Evans
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
ISBN 974-87090-4-3
First published in 1999 by
Silkworm Books
54/1 Sridonchai Road, Chiang Mai 50100, Thailand
E-mail: [email protected]
Internet address: www.silkwormbooks.com
Design by T. Jittidejarak
Cover photograph by Chaleonxay
Set in 10 pt. Garamond
Printed by O.S. Printing House, Bangkok
CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION: What is Lao Culture and Society?
Grant Evans .......................................................................................... 1
Geography & History
2. FROM BUFFER STATE TO CROSSROADS STATE:
Spaces of Human Activity and Integration in the Lao PDR
Randi Jerndal & Jonathan Rigg ......................................................... 35
3. TOWARDS A NEW LAOS: Lao Nhay and the
Campaign for National “Reawakening” in Laos, 1941—45
Soren Ivarsson ...................................................................................... 61
4. WOMEN, SPACE, AND HISTORY: Long-Distance
Trading in Northwestern Laos
Andrew Walker ...................................................................................... 79
Diasporic Lao & Ethnicity
5. ELITES IN EXILE: Transnational Lao Culture
Si-ambhaivan Sisombat Souvannavong .............................................. 100
6. ETHNIC CHANGE IN HIGHLAND LAOS
Grant Evans ........................................................................................... 125
7. THE LUE OF MUANG SING
Khampheng Thipmuntali ..................................................................... 148
8. APPRENTICE ETHNOGRAPHERS: Vietnam and
the Study of Lao Minorities
Grant Evans ........................................................................................... 161
VI
Religion & Ritual
9. ROYAL RELICS: Ritual and Social Memory in
Louang Prabang
Ing-Britt Trankell ................................................................................ 191
10. WOMEN’S POWER AND THERAVADA BUDDHISM:
A Paradox from Xieng Khouang
H. Leedom Lefferts, Jr. ........................................................................... 214
Language & Literature
11. BOOKS OF SEARCH: The Invention of Traditional Lao
Literature as a Subject of Study
Peter Koret ........................................................................................... 226
12. LAO AS A NATIONAL LANGUAGE
N. J. Enfield ........................................................................................... 258
Literature Cited ...................................................................................... 291
EDITOR’S FOREWORD
This is the first book in forty years which sets out to study the culture and
society of Laos. Presence du Royaume Lao edited by Rene de Berval in 1956
as a special issue of France-Asie, was the last text that provided many and
varied essays on Laos and its people. 1 In 1970 a group of intellectuals in
Vientiane began the irregular publication of the Bulletin des Amis du
Royaume Lao which lasted until the collapse of the Royal Lao Government
in 1975. This journal contained many excellent essays on Laos, and its
special issue on Lao Buddhism (no. 9, 1973) remains a benchmark for the
study of Buddhism in Laos. The revolution, whose final coup de grace
occurred on 2 December 1975, ruined this fledgling intelligentsia. More
than twenty years on, intellectual life in Laos has still not recovered.
Much of what has been written on Laos has, understandably, focused on
political developments, firstly as the Lao people were caught up in the
maelstrom of the “Vietnam” war, in which Cambodia and Laos were
unfortunate “sideshows.” And then after 1975, all attention was on the
political, economic and social changes introduced by the victorious
communists throughout Indochina. The bamboo curtain descended and
access to all of these countries by outside researchers became difficult,
particularly for in-depth research of the sort that anthropologists like to do.
Pure luck enabled me to slip under the bamboo curtain in the early 1980s
and produce a case study of the failure of state-directed social and economic
change among Lao peasants (Evans 1990). All other studies, however, such
as the indispensable ones encouraged or executed by Martin Stuart-Fox
were, of necessity, largely accomplished at a distance.
In the late 1980s the curtain began to lift, and aid workers, academics, and
other outsiders began to gain unprecedented access to all regions of Laos.
Having operated under the highly restrictive and controlled conditions of
Laos during its period of “high communism” I was flabbergasted by the ease
with which I was able to travel to Houaphan in 1988 to begin the research
that is reported in chapter 6 of this book. Many other researchers have
streamed into Laos since then and been able to conduct proper research on
VIII EDITOR’S FOREWORD
social and cultural changes taking place in the country. This book is the
result.
Of course, the questions which interest academic enquiry move with the
times, and the essays in this volume reflect a much greater circumspection
vis-a-vis essentialist ideas of “culture” and “nation” compared with the
1950s volume, or even with writings produced ten years ago. My opening
essay “What is Lao Culture and Society?” is indicative of this new mood, as
are Soren Ivarsson’s, Ing-Britt Trankell’s, Peter Koret’s, and Nick Enfield’s
essays stressing the way cultures are created and produced rather than
existing as ahistorical essences. In a sense, these essays are “post-nationalist,”
something which makes me acutely aware of the fact that Laos has hardly
even produced a coherent nationalist ouevre. Yet, the comfortable
assumptions of such an oeuvre are already being taken apart by intellectual
developments beyond Laos. But here, once again, the Lao arc suffering the
consequences of the repression of genuine intellectual life in the country
during the past two decades.
None of the following chapters are complacent. How could they be,
given the complex regional environment in which Laos finds itself, as
shown by Jonathan Rigg and Randi Jerndal? Significantly, it is women
traders who are engaged in these wider networks, as explored here by
Andrew Walker, who challenges some conventional assumptions
concerning gender relations in Laos.2 A larger world is also the stage for Si-
ambhaivan Sisombat Souvannavong’s unique essay on Lao elites in exile,
their return to Laos, and their engagement in a diasporic business culture.
The essays on ethnic minorities by myself, and Khampheng Thipmuntali,
raise perplexing questions about the nature of social and cultural change in
“multiethnic” Laos, while my essay on Lao ethnography examines the ways
minorities have been studied. Ing-Britt Trankell provides a fascinating
account of the negotiation of old and new meanings in the rituals enacted
in Louang Prabang, while Leedom Lefferts focuses on the ambiguous role of
women in Lao Buddhist ritual. The essays on literature and language by
Peter Koret and Nick Enfield are excellent studies of cultural change, but
neither of them come to simple conclusions about the future of either the
Lao language or its literature.
This book is the first crop of the new scholarship on Lao culture and
society. We can only hope that political, social, and cultural change inside
Laos itself will create an atmosphere that will produce more Lao
intellectuals who can contribute to the second crop, and subsequent studies.
Out of this a genuine dialogue may then occur between those born in Laos
and those of us who are wedded to the place.
I would like to thank Craig Reynolds who scrutinized the text on behalf
of the publisher and whose critical comments helped improve it. Finally, I
EDITOR’S FOREWORD IX
would like to thank our publisher, Trasvin Jittidejarak, a Thai who is
committed to promoting studies of Laos.
Grant Evans
Hong Kong
May 1998
1. This was later published in English as the Kingdom ofLaos in 1959.
2. See also Ireson (1996).