4 - The “Interstices”: A History of Migration andEthnicity

Summary

Anthropologists and historians now find themselves within ‘new fields of research’ (Abu Talib Ahmad & Tan Liok Ee 2003), within the ‘margins’ and the ‘interstices’, among those who have refused to become part of the nation-state. Anthropologists have long been studying these cultural areas and their ‘forgotten’ populations that historians are now discovering, resulting in the validity of the work of anthropologists finally being recognized. The figureheads of this movement are James Scott (2009) and Thongchai Winichakul (2003).

These ‘interstices’ could reveal the movement of a ‘global’ history, in other words, the history of the centre, with increasingly dynamic objectives and through the narratives and histories of the ‘others’ who are inscribed in the sidelines of a homogenized history aimed at building national identity. The history of the ‘others’, which considers the state's peripheries as being just as valid in terms of historiography as the histories written by the dominant population of the centre, has strong connections to the anthropology of borders, especially since the latter field of study reveals a game of smoke and mirrors that enables the margins and the centre to develop themselves in relation to each other (Ivanoff 2010). The importance of the study of interstices in the field of history was revealed through Winichakul's groundbreaking work in Siam Mapped (2005 [1994]) on the ancient systems of multi-vassalities and the modern historical adjustments that came with the construction of a ‘homogenous’ national territory. Winichakul's work was instrumental in awakening an entire generation of historians to their personal limits regarding their position and nationality (Pavin Chachavalpongpun 2004), and it paved the way for those who rewrote the history of colonialism.

In describing a territory he calls ‘Zomia’, a region stretching from Afghanistan to Vietnam and encompassing populations who refuse to live according to state norms, Scott has put forward a history of national constructions that includes those who were once excluded from it. Winichakul reinforces this position by discussing the ‘history of the interstices’ as being more valid than the state-orchestrated national history, the latter of which is imprinted with ideology and errors.