7 - From Inclusion to Re-marginalization

Summary

According to the accepted wisdom, political, economic, social and cultural globalization in the late twentieth century brought about structural changes, most visibly, the decrease in the nation–state' capacity to fulfil its missions (for instance, the diminution of welfare in the case of Western European countries) and the erosion of national cultures once perceived as homogenous — that has in turn led to the fragmentation of identities (Tambini 2002). In essence, some analysts proclaim, national identity is in a state of crisis. In so-called postmodern societies, as McCrone advises, one should no longer assume “that there is much fixed, essential or immutable about identity, but that individuals assume different identities at different times which may not even be centred around a coherent self” (McCrone 1998, p. 32). Hence, from the proclaimed death of the idea of a “stable” identity has emerged the notion of “dislocation or de-centring of the subject” (Hall 1994, p. 275).

In this chapter, I would like to explore not so much the processes of globalization as this idea of fluidity and plurality of identities within the context of ideological, cultural and economic change in today' Lao society. I have tried in the previous chapter to show the political mechanisms by which the Lao authorities attempt to forge an orderly and bounded representation of the country' culturally and linguistically diverse population with the support of state-controlled ethnographic research and the census. I intend now to discuss the notion of different coexisting (and perhaps conflicting) identities among the members of ethnic minorities whom I encountered in the course of my fieldwork, by examining their own perceptions of their ethnicity, national identity and citizenship in post-communist Laos. More specifically, how do these people take on a national identity that is increasingly essentialized? Likewise, how do they handle an ethnic labelling over which they have little, if any, control? It is paradoxically in the rural areas of southern Laos that I met veterans of the “Vietnam Wars” for whom the notion of citizenship was still quite compelling. The ties that bound them to the state anchored their identities to a larger community than their village or ethnic group. They felt a sense of belonging to, and being active participants in, a political community that, however, seemed no longer to recognize them.