Upland Peoples and Changing Frontiers
In South, East, and Southeast Asia, the category of 'forest' or 'mountain' peoples has historically implied 'savage' populations, peoples outside effective state control and socially and culturally distinct from the state's subjects. The developmentalist rhetoric of the modern state in Thailand proclaims that the so-called 'mountain people' ('hill tribes') are finally receiving some official attention that will undo their previous isolation and bring an end to environmentally destructive agricultural methods. These efforts are fairly typical of governmental attentions in the region. They indicate a shift in the frontiers of the state: the previous lack of interest in and effective control of most hinterland regions is being replaced by the current interventions in farming and other everyday practices.
By HJORLEIFUR JONSSON
When anthropology started to pay attention to these groups in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was through notions of races that were either autochthonous or had migrated from an assumed homeland somewhere else. Any people ('race,' 'nation,' and so on) were assumed to be connected to a particular place and to be at a particular stage of evolution. A common thread of these western writings on difference in the Orient was that the position of peoples was held as a measure of strength, namely that stronger races had pushed weaker races into marginal areas. This descriptive framework made the colonial processes that few if any of these works ever addressed, appear natural necessities. Administrations of the colonial era engaged in various projects of social engineering transforming the social landscape to fit their imagination, and mapped distinct peoples onto demarcated territories. These dynamics of documentation and intervention are much clearer than what preceded them.
The fundamental pre-historical distinction between upland and lowland populations concerns livelihood. Certain anthropology, presents this distinction as the outcome of individual adaptations to the environment. Shifting cultivation, characteristic of upland peoples, was a different strategy from wet-rice farming, and each correlated to particular forms of social organization. I contend that this adaptationist framework misses the impact of state schemes on the social landscape, in particular the division between intensive (wet-rice) farming populations and shifting cultivators (slash-and-burn farmers). The pre-modern state created itself by constructing boundaries, which in turn created the notion of forests as wilderness and defined 'forest people' as savages. The state's endorsement of and control over intensive farming practices then made this civilizational frontier into a natural one. The people of the wet-rice lands were subject to tribute and taxation, while farmers practicing swidden, fell outside this scheme, by definition.
This bifurcation of farming practices and ecology provided a map of two kinds of relations to the state, subject relations and those of non-subjects who were sometimes clients of the state. The frontiers of the pre-modern state were frontiers of control and subject duties. In many cases upland peoples were involved with states through arrangements of tribute and trade, particularly regarding forest products. The main reason mid-twentieth century anthropology failed to notice such relations was historical. Colonial-era administrations undid tributary frameworks, and political economic changes during that period dissolved the large, international markets for forest products. A further important change in that period was the rise of logging, which contributed to the definition of forest peoples as detrimental to valuable resources through their farming practices. These varied factors effectively disconnected states and upland peoples; something that subsequent anthropology was to take for a natural fact.
Multiple frontiers
During the twentieth century, the frontiers of the state changed from the previously common upland-lowland divide to national spaces that included the forests and the now-marginalized people living there. Equally important, the state gained a firmer grip on households and individuals, while still continuing previous dealings with subjects as members of villages or larger units. Control over land-use, compulsory education, and a growing spread of national media were aspects of this shift. At the same time, the state established agencies to define and license national and ethnic identities. In northern Thailand, six ethnic groups were officially labelled 'mountain people'. This definition did not include the Lua', who were the only recognized upland group prior to the nineteenth century. The definition of 'mountain people' was motivated by government pathologizing, and since Lua' did not relate to either settlement migration or opium cultivation they were not acknowledged.
In Thailand, between the 1950s and 1980s, 'mountain people' were stereotyped as culturally backwards, ecologically destructive, and politically subversive. These stereotypes imply a def inition of the state and its frontiers through control over culture, livelihood, and political expression. From the 1980s onwards, the state has taken a less confrontational view of upland people's identities and practices, which is visible for instance in museum displays of uplanders' dress and material culture. But the endorsement of the markers of difference is independent of the definition of cultural and agricultural practices of difference, which continue to be considered unacceptable in many respects, or are even actively suppressed.
The last frontier
The frontiers of the state have always involved some control over culture, livelihood, and political expression, while the criteria for control have varied over time. This explains how the pre-colonial definition placed upland people beyond the state, while the post-colonial definition considered the very same peoples minorities. Both definitions have implied terms of engagement. During pre-modern times, upland leaders could construct their prominence through deals with lowland states. In modern times, with highland areas already inside the state, upland populations compete among themselves for official recognition, schools, roads, electricity, and other development projects. The quest for recognition activates the state in the village. Also, the state creates itself through the recognition of people and settlements. In one of the households that I lodged during research in Thailand, there was a plaque from the Provincial Health Authorities. It was granted to the headman because each household in the subdistrict had a toilet. The commemoration of such an achievement is indicative of political culture in the hinterlands. It suggests that processes of state making and membership in the modern nation now reach down the drain. *
Dr Hjorleifur Jonsson is Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Arizona State University, USA
E-mail: HJonsson@asu.edu
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