Centering the Margin

In a completely new approach to borders and border crossing, this volume suggests a re-conceptualization of the nation in Southeast Asia. Choosing an actor approach, the individual chapters in this volume capture the narratives of minorities, migrants and refugees who inhabit and cross borders as part of their everyday life. They show that people are not only constrained by borders; the crossing of borders also opens up new options of agency. Making active use of these, border-crossing actors construct their own live projects on the border in multiple ways against the original intention of the nation-state. Based on their intimate knowledge of the interaction of communities, anthropologists from Europe, the USA, Japan and Southeast Asia provide a vivid picture of the effects of state policies at the borders on these communities.

Preface
Figures and Tables

Introduction: Centering the Margin in Southeast Asia
Alexander Horstmann and Reed L. Wadley

CENTERING THE MARGIN I: CENTER AND PERIPHERY IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN BORDERLANDS

Chapter 1. “Once were Burmese Shans”: Reinventing Ethnic Identity in Northwestern Thailand
Niti Pawakapan

Chapter 2. Would-Be Centers: The Texture of Historical Discourse in Makassar
William Cummings

Chapter 3. Political Periphery, Cosmological Center: The Reproduction of Rmeet Sociocosmic Order and the Laos–Thailand Border
Guido Sprenger

CENTERING THE MARGIN II: ETHNIC MINORITIES IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN BORDERLANDS

Chapter 4. Premodern Flows in Postmodern China: Globalization and the Sipsongpanna Tais
Sara Davis

Chapter 5. Borders and Multiple Realities: The Orang Suku Laut of Riau, Indonesia
Cynthia Chou

Chapter 6. In the Margin of a Borderland: The Florenese Community between Nunukan and Tawau
Riwanto Tirtosudarmo

CENTERING THE MARGIN III: POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN BORDERLANDS

Chapter 7. Deconstructing Citizenship from the Border: Dual Ethnic Minorities and Local Reworking of Citizenship at the Thailand–Malaysian Frontier
Alexander Horstmann

Chapter 8. Sex and the Sacred: Sojourners and Visitors in the Making of the Southern Thai Borderland
Marc Askew

Chapter 9. Narrating the Border: Perspectives from the Kelabit Highlands of Borneo
Matthew H. Amster

Notes on Contributors
Index