1 - Introduction: From Padi States to Commercial States

Summary

Preliminary Remarks

Each of the contributions presented here results from the work of anthropologists1 who have conducted research on the adaptation strategies of border populations. Certain conceptual liberties were taken in response to James C. Scott's ideas on the contemporary realities of ethnic minorities and social groups in Asia. Such peoples are all too often thought of as suffering from ‘radical mutations’ or ‘disappearances’. The reader may encounter familiar terms such as ‘Zomians’. Here, we have ‘de-territorialized’ this concept by moving away from the inhabitants of Scott's Zomia in order to focus on Inner Zomians: cast‑out and widely dispersed migrants, modern resisters residing within ethno-national borders. Jonsson's interesting and critical comment on Scott's proposal for a historical signification of a vast hinterland area in terms of state avoidance maintains that the term Zomia is a concept-metaphor with a significant interdisciplinary potential (Jonsson 2010: 191). The anthropologist nevertheless assumes that such a conceptual construction, in spite of being ambiguous and sometimes misleading, mostly because it can be misinterpreted, not only defines the relevant historical and social dynamics: it also determines what peoples come into view as characteristics of a place and time (ibid.: 208). Of course, the expression Zomia does not seek to encompass all existing fluctuating situations and neither Scott nor a single precursor or commentator of his thesis ever dare to affirm such exclusiveness. Michaud (2010) worked on that question a few years ago already when he traced the concept of Zomia and introduced other works that critique it. Most importantly, Michaud's main concern consists in seeking ‘to contribute to disembedding minority studies from the national straitjackets that have been imposed by academic research bound by the historical, ideological and political limits of the nation-state’ (Michaud 2010: 187). We will not come back to his remarkable enterprise. What remains important for us in our book is the extended notion of inner Zomians as an element of reflection for our complementary understanding of a socio-cultural landscape that cannot be restricted to a geographical landscape.

Furthermore, we offer a caveat against taking the term ‘commercial states’ too literally. In this text, the term is used to highlight a transition from systems of statehood where rice farming constitutes the basis of power structures (a system in which borders move according to allegiance) to postcolonial nation-states.