Description:
"The dialectical relationship between the nation state and zones of relative autonomy isn?t unique to mainland Southeast Asia, but it is of particular salience there,
demarcating the social cleavage that shapes much of the region?s history: that between hill peoples and valley peoples. It led to a process of state formation in valleys
and peopling of hills, and left the latter largely absent from the historical record...Non-state spaces? are where the state has
difficulty establishing its authority: mountains,
swamps, mangrove coasts, deserts,
river deltas. Such places have often served
as havens of refuge for peoples resisting
or fleeing the state. Only the modern state
possesses the resources to bring non-state
spaces and people to heel; in Southeast
Asia it represents the last great effort to
integrate people, land and resources of the
periphery and make them contributors to
the gross national product. The state might
dub it development?, economic progress?,
literacy?, social integration?, but the real
objective is to make the economic activity
of peripheral societies taxable and assessable
? to make it serve the state ? by, for
example, obliging nomads or swidden
cultivators to settle in permanent villages,
concentrating manpower and foodstuffs.
Thus the padi-state was an enclosure? of
previously stateless peoples: irrigated rice
agriculture on permanent fields helped
create the state?s strategic and military
advantage. In fact, the permanent association
of the state and sedentary agriculture
is at the centre of this story (a story by no
means confined to Southeast Asia, which
this article targets). The vast barbarian?
periphery became a vital resource: human
captives formed a successful state?s working
capital. Avoiding the state used to be a
real option. Today it is quickly vanishing..."
Source/publisher:
International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) (Newsletter 49)
Date of Publication:
2008-11-00
Date of entry:
2009-03-07
Grouping:
- Individual Documents
Category:
Language:
English