In case studies from members of the Southeast Asia CRN, state identifications in many cases have been a matter of putting people in place through projects to impose state-defined property rights, land uses, and landscapes. In both China and Thailand, these state projects have divided peoples into hill and valley. Related to hill and valley, state definitions have also divided landscapes (often determined by slope or elevation) into those where certain land uses are appropriate and those where they are not. Sites that are upland, forested, and steeply sloping are often equated, in the official view, with peoples who are backward, poor, and ignorant, with increases in elevation correlated with degrees of backwardness. By contrast, flat lowlands carpeted with wet rice fields are officially synonymous with peoples who are progressive, prospering, and cultured. Unsurprisingly, "backward" peoples in the uplands have become, in official terms, ethnic minorities, while lowlanders usually constitute the dominant, mainstream ethnicity.

In exploring cases from the SEA/CRN, what’s striking is the extent to which, in both China and Thailand, official identifications of ethnic minorities have been drawn only in relation to the mainstream ethnic group, whether Thai or Han Chinese. Identifications of minority groups, in other words, show no consideration of relations among various ethnic minority peoples. Even though in both Yunnan and northern Thailand administrators have informal rankings for the various hill ethnic minorities, implying some comparison among them, each ranking is ultimately based on a comparison with the mainstream group. Additionally, as policies of placement and identification are implemented, as shown in the cases discussed below, enactment on the ground has taken no account of existing relationships among ethnic groups in relation to land use, trade, or ritual exchanges. Official identifications are dyadic relationships between the center and each group on the periphery, putting each one in its place.

Reviewing a number of cases also highlights the extent to which official identifications are a-historical, taking little account of lived experience for each group in each place. Implementing state projects for property rights, land use development, or environmental conservation are all oriented to progress, modernity, and the future, with little acknowledgment of how peoples and places have shaped each other in the time leading up to the present.

State definitions of peoples and landscapes in relation to the dominant majority and its development plans are both state simplifications (Scott 1998) and anti-political moves (Ferguson 1994). Identifications make populations and places "legible" for state administration, and at the same time depoliticize state acts of defining who is backward, poor, and generally lacking in the wherewithal to progress. While these definitions are in fact profoundly political, their implementation takes place as bureaucratic procedures necessary for modernization and development. At the same time, however, the clarity or simplification inherent in identifications opens up room for manipulation, adaptation, and resistance from ethnic minority peoples. Changing practices within ethnic groups, as well as complex relations among minority peoples, serve to complicate and vernacularize identifications in ways both intended and unintended. In the cases explored here, official identifications of peoples and places are hegemonic but not determining of how events spin out.

The cases examined include four from China—those of He Jianhua, Wang Jieru, Wang Dongxin, and Janet Sturgeon, and one from Thailand, from Chusak Wittayapak. The Chinese case studies are all from the cluster looking at cultural diversity and identity, while the Thai case also considers changing identities for two ethnic minority groups. Some of the themes emerging from these studies include the nature of legal property rights and authorized land uses, including the state propensity to claim (and reclaim) the forest; the state’s role in defining poverty; state divisions into hill and valley (peoples and landscapes); and the role of commodification of natural resources in changing identities, gender roles, and relations between ethnic groups.

He Jianhua looks at changing grassland and forest use in a township in northwestern Yunnan where Lisu, Malimasa (Naxi), and Kona peoples have lived for centuries in neighboring watersheds. He chose this site because of its reputed excellence in environmental management. What he found was that the three groups have similar but not identical practices of resource access and management for agricultural land, grasslands, and forests. Each group has had, for a long time, a resource management association that decides on allocation and use, and resolves conflicts within and between groups. Until 1949 (the Chinese Revolution), the state had no role in designating ownership or appropriate use of forests or grasslands. Since 1981, during the period of economic reforms, the state has drawn clear boundaries around the forest, and in the 1990s began to plant pine trees in the grassland, claiming that forest cover needed to increase. Villagers complain that the state is "acting like the owner" of the forest, which they regard as their own through long use and protection. Mr. He found that the most serious conflicts in this site were between villagers and the government, especially since the 1998 timber ban when the state "reclaimed" the forest earlier allocated to villages and households. His analysis shows that state claims on the forest followed national policies, without reference to long-standing and complex resource use patterns, negotiated among three different ethnic minority peoples. In this case, the state ignored both history and inter-ethnic relationships in implementing forest claims.

The second case is from Wang Dongxin, who researched Lisu farmers in the upper reaches of the Nujiang (Salween) River. These people have herded livestock, managed forests, and practiced limited agriculture on steep slopes for a long time. In the early 1980s, as part of economic reforms, state agents tried to get farmers to change their land uses to make them more "productive". Shifts to increased cash crop production brought about soil erosion and degradation. By the late 1980s, there were two thrusts to Chinese policies for upland areas—poverty alleviation and environmental conservation. State agents then moved many Lisu to lowland areas in southern Yunnan, distant from the Nujiang. These new sites were already inhabited by farmers unwilling to allocate land to the Lisu. Some Lisu moved back to the Nujiang, attempting to return to land uses from before state intervention. Mr. Wang argues that the unfortunate outcomes in this case resulted from state definitions of "poverty" that arbitrarily designated certain landscapes (upland, steeply sloping) as "poor," and certain land uses (growing cash crops) and the means to alleviate poverty. Mr. Wang’s argument shows official identifications and development schemes that ignore the history of Lisu in the Nujiang area, the state elision of certain land uses with poverty, and the ways that people and place were constitutive of Lisu identity.

Ms. Wang Jieru’s study analyzes the changing use and meaning of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) that Jinuo people in Xishuangbanna have historically exchanged with lowland Dai for cotton fabric and other goods. These exchanges of upland for lowland products have knitted together Dai and Jinuo in strong ritual relationships as "brothers" and "sisters". Additionally, in the past the NTFPs were harvested primarily by women, while men hunted wild game. Three factors have changed both the collection of NTFPs and Jinuo/Dai relationships. One is the state-promoted tourism in Xishuangbanna emphasizing ethnic minority products, including NTFPs. The second is the more general commoditization of NTFPs for growing lowland markets. And the third is the national timber ban, which came hand in hand with a state prohibition on hunting. As a result of these three changes, both men and women are now collecting NTFPs and selling them to Dai in the lowlands. Women have lost their customary role as the sole providers of NTFPs for household consumption as well as ritual exchange. Moreover, ritual relations between Jinuo and Dai now involve the purchase of gifts rather that the exchange of NTFPs for cotton fabric. In Ms. Wang’s case, the state identification of Xishuangbanna as a tourist site based on cultural diversity is leading to increased sale of NTFPs, an increasingly commoditized relationship between Dai and Jinuo, and altered roles for women and men within the household and village. A sweeping state policy to encourage tourism is changing relationships among and within ethnic groups in unintended ways.

Janet Sturgeon’s case looks at the relationship between newly implemented local village elections and resource access in the Akha (Hani) village of her earlier research. What she found was that elections had brought into office men who were younger and better educated than earlier village leaders, based on a national initiative to promote officials of higher "quality." In practice, the new village officials are much more amenable to township and county instruction about land use than the older cohort of village leaders. The older leaders used to argue with state officials at the township, county and prefecture levels about how policies should be implemented. The younger crew are much more likely to implement new policies without question. In addition, the timber ban has brought about numerous changes in land use, including reductions in herding and loss of shifting cultivation land. The timber ban, a response to flooding along the Yangtze that was interpreted as a national environmental crisis, brought to the surface an essentialized narrative of hill minorities as those who "eat the mountains." As of February 2002, this village was designated by the state as a "poor village," a condition largely brought about by the timber ban.

The case study from Thailand, done by Chusak Wittayapak, involves two ethnic groups, Lao Puan and Khamu, both of which migrated to their current sites. The Lao Puan, a Buddhist group from Laos, were captured in the 19th century and brought as forced laborers to what was then the Nan kingdom, now part of northern Thailand. As of their inclusion in Thailand, the Lao Puan became citizens, but their Lao origins cast them as "hillbillies." The Khamu fled from the lowlands to their current upland site in the 18th century, also before the creation of modern Thailand. Once enclosed within the Thai nation-state, Khamu have become one of the so-called hill tribes, who are not citizens. In the 1990s, two shifts have brought about changes in identity for the two groups. Increasing tourism in northern Thailand, largely generated by interest in ethnic minorities, has allowed the Lao Puan to discover new salience in their Lao origins, and increase their sales of Lao products. The major change affecting the Khamu, however, is increased Thai state concern about forest conservation. As of 1989, Thailand, like China, implemented a timber ban. As a result, Khamu have been forced to plant trees in their agricultural fields. Additionally, a proposed dam would flood the entire Khamu locale. As "hill tribe" peoples, Khamu have no legal recourse against this possibility, but Khamu have organized and mobilized to resist this state development project. Dr. Chusak’s study captures the state production of "hill and valley," as well as outcomes from state promotion of cultural diversity for tourist purposes. His research also echoes results from China in showing the unfortunate effects of state efforts to claim or reclaim the forest, moving resources out of the hands of those who have managed them for centuries.

These studies underscore a number of themes. One is the overriding tendency of states to identify forests as state resources, in some cases reclaiming woods that had earlier been allocated to local peoples (He Jianhua, Wang Jieru, Janet Sturgeon). The cases also show states putting people in place through state-allocated property rights and land use regulations (He Jianhua, Wang Jieru, Janet Sturgeon). Cases by Wang Dongxin and Janet Sturgeon also reveal the state role in defining poverty. In these two cases, state designation of "poor areas" has either increased poverty locally (Wang Dongxin), or another state action (the timber ban) has brought about the poverty that results in a "poor village" label (Janet Sturgeon). The cases of Wang Jieru and Chusak both explore the hill/valley dichotomy. Wang Jieru’s study looks at Jinuo and Dai peoples whose ritual and exchange relationship has changed as a result of state tourism policies and more general commodification of resources. In Chusak’s study, Lao Puan and Khamu exemplify the process of becoming hill and valley peoples through state identifications. Wang Jieru’s case also adds gender to the mix of identifications that are in transition as a result of changing political economies.

Common to all these studies are the two observations stated in the beginning of this paper: that official identifications are relationships between the center and one peripheral group, without consideration of ties among various ethnic minority peoples; and that official identifications are profoundly a-historical. Logging bans, state property designations for forests, and officially designated "poor areas" have all been defined and implemented as though there had been no useful lived experience in what are often ethnic minority locales. National plans for environmental conservation and poverty alleviation have obscured complex interactions between peoples and places. The outcomes in the cases discussed here have been varied. In He Jianhua’s case, Tibetan, Lisu, and Naxi peoples have united to resist state-authorized increases in forest cover in northwestern Yunnan. In Wang Dongxin’s study, Lisu farmers returned to their previous upland homes along the Nujiang, resisting state efforts to make them into lowland farmers. In Chusak’s study, state plans for a dam that would inundate their lands have roused opposition and organized resistance among Khamu farmers. In Wang Jieru’s study, as a result of the timber and hunting bans, men have jointed women in collecting NTFPs, a practice that alters roles for both genders, and may change the availability of NTFPs in the future. In Janet Sturgeon’s case, while the election has produced local leaders less likely to resist state policies, the timber ban has in fact caused increased local poverty.

Taken together, these studies present the cost of state simplifications in identifying people and places. In most of the cases here, local peoples’ response has been mobilized resistance, sometimes in politically overt forms. In place of everyday forms of resistance (Scott 1985), which are anonymous and hidden, here organized groups of ethnic peoples are either protesting or arguing with officials about state definitions and claims. Their own histories and complex livelihoods are enabling these groups to assert themselves to reclaim landscapes, land uses, and identities based on long-held management of upland areas, often situated within the forest.

One final observation is that in individual case studies, each of which is more complicated and nuanced than presented here, there are instances of ethnic minority groups negotiating or taking advantage of imposed identifications. By looking at several cases together, however, what comes to the surface is the arbitrary, simplified, a-historical nature of many state identifications, and local people’s organized opposition to state claims, especially in relation to forests on which their lives depend.


References

James Ferguson, 1994. The Anti-Politics Machine: "Development," Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

James C. Scott, 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.