Neither Kha, Tai, nor Lao: Language, Myth, Histories, and the Position of the Phong in Houaphan

In this paper we explore the intersections between oral and colonial history to re-examine the formation and interethnic relations in the uplands of Northern Laos. We unpack the historical and contemporary dynamics between “majority” Tai, “minority” Kha groups and the imagined cultural influence of “Lao” to draw out a more nuanced set of narratives about ethnicity, linguistic diversity, cultural contact, historical intimacy, and regional imaginings to inform our understanding of upland society. The paper brings together fieldwork and archival research, drawing on previous theoretical and areal analysis of both authors

Nachbarschaftsstreit am Mekong: König Anuvong und die Geschichte der prekären Lao-Thai-Beziehung

"Die wechselvolle gemeinsame Geschichte von Laos und Thailand kann an einer zentralen historischen Episode festgemacht werden: das Aufbegehren des Königs von Vientiane, Chao Anuvong, gegen die siamesische Oberherrschaft im 19. Jahrhundert. Der vorliegende Artikel stellt die Geschichte dieses gescheiterten Unternehmens ins Zentrum einer historischen Betrachtung des prekären Lao-Thai-Verhältnisses und beleuchtet ihre Nachwirkung in gegenwärtigen Erinnerungsdiskursen." (Autorenreferat)"The history of the relationship between Laos and Thailand is full of vicissitudes and conflicts. One of the most well-known episodes is the struggle of Chao Anuvong, King of Vientiane, against the Siamese suzerainty in the nineteenth century. The present article examines this crucial period of Lao-Thai history and puts it into the broader context of the historical relation between these two peoples. Moreover, the role of Chao Anuvong in current discourses of memory and history will be discussed." (author's abstract

Exploring Music in a Globalized World

Beyond the simple fact that many people enjoy music, as a social act music is also related to a wide range of emotions, associations, politics, and identifications that draw people to making, playing, and listening to music. To explore the interactions between music and various social phenomena, we have invited a number authors and musicians to share their thoughts on music for this issue. They present us a variety of perspectives on and of music practices, how music is lived and experienced in a range of settings, and why music has such an important role in the lives of people and societies around the world

Garments in exchange - changing clothes around the world

Clothing and dress are among the most central and common aspects of social and cultural life around the world. Dress may be used to represent a person’s or a group’s identity, and to create similarity or difference. Clothes are deeply social as they are commonly handed on in families, among friends and in transnational communities. They may be changed over the course of a day and their styles change over time in response to global and local fashion trends. To explore the significance of clothing in identity formations, we have invited authors from around the world to reflect on this topic

Fieldwork between folders: fragments, traces, and the ruins of colonial

This essay conceptualises the colonial archive as a product of processes of ruination. Taking its inspiration from recent studies of archival spaces, the three case studies on Portuguese, French, and Guinea-Bissauan colonial archives explore the ruptures, discontinuities, and silences inherent in such archives. With reference to Walter Benjamin’s writing of history and its recent applications in anthropology and history, the authors investigate the conditions, possibilities, and limitations of fieldwork in archives. Fragmentation, ruptures, and decay are not only understood as negative, but as productive processes. This perspective helps to shed light on the relevance of the historical materials that have survived as colonial debris and can provide traces that allow for developing unusual perspectives on the colonial past. By proposing methodologies to deal with these fragments, and by pointing to parallels in ethnographic fieldwork, the essay emphasises the processual character of data collection in the archive and the materials and documents themselves. Archives are, in this sense, less the static places of where facts lie waiting to be rescued, but places of the recurrent regrouping and transformation of facts through on-going ruination and fragment accumulation

Social Water

We encounter water every day. It is a vital substance biologically as much as socially. We may notice this in art exhibitions and university courses communicating submersed and subversive facts about water; the rhythms of floods and tides resonating with fishing techniques and conflict patterns; inundations carrying moral and political weight as much as water and pollution; and particular mixtures of water and land generating wealth, anxieties and memories. In short, wherever people deal with water, they are involved not only with a physical element, but also with social relations. In fact, whenever we pretend that water is foremost the molecule H2O, we ignore all the political, economic, infrastructural, emotional and legal aspects of this element without which water would not be what it is for us today. This issue explores some of the ways in which water is profoundly social, both in the sense of being co-produced by social life, and by being a core constituent of it. Some contributions to this issue do this through the examples listed above. Others illustrate the way water positions people and their perspectives. A few show how large water infrastructures reshuffle social lives. And some suggest that water may sometimes be better imagined as a word in the plural, rather than a singular, universal substance

Concepts of the Global South

Where and what is the Global South? If you ask people on the street, many would probably not have the faintest idea. In everyday parlance and mass media, Global South has hardly become a household term. In academic and (global) policy circles, though, the term is used with much more gusto. Politicians refer to it. The United Nations organize their statistical data in accordance with the term. Academics write books about it - or, as in our case, explicitly include the term in the name of a research center: Global South Studies Center (GSSC). But what does the term entail? Who uses it and why? And what are the implications of marking distinctions between the Global South and the Global North? We thought it relevant to address these questions in more detail – after all, we work for a recently established research institute featuring the term in its name. Accordingly, we asked a number of academics, journals and academic institutions to reflect on the term. In this online issue, we share their various perspectives and critical reflections on the notion of the Global South – see also a short discussion on a number of YouTube videos we have included

Reflections on migration in the global south

How can we achieve a better understanding of the variations in international migration to, from, and within the Global South? To facilitate a dia-logue about this topic, we asked a number of contributors to write or to provide a video statement about their region of expertise. To some we explicitly posed the following question: Is it possible to distinguish current or historical experiences or patterns of migration in the Global South that differ from patterns in the Global North