1st Edition

Cross-Border Traders in Northern Laos Mastering Smallness

By Simon Rowedder Copyright 2022
260 Pages
by Routledge

260 Pages
by Routledge

260 Pages
by Routledge

Northern Laos has become a prominent spot in large-scale, top-down mappings and studies of neoliberal globalisation and infrastructural development linking Thailand and China, and markets further beyond. Yet in the common narrative, in which Laos appears as a weak victim helplessly exposed to its larger neighbours, attention is seldom paid to local voices. This book fills this gap. Building on... Read more
Acknowledgements, Notes on Language and Transliteration, INTRODUCTION, CHAPTER 1 - We are all Tai Lue: International Trade Fairs as Local Ethnic Affairs, CHAPTER 2 - Normal fruits for Laos, premium fruits for China: Transnational Flows of National Differences, CHAPTER 3 - Thailand: high quality; China: low price: Banal Cosmopolitanism in Local Marketplaces, CHAPTER 4 - I didn't learn any occupation, so I trade: Narratives of Insignificance, CHAPTER 5 - No matter what, we'll find a way: Uncertain (Chinese?) Futures, CONCLUSION - Large Insights from Smallness, Complete Bibliography

Biography

Simon Rowedder was a Research Fellow at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore (NUS), and member of the NUS-Max Weber Foundation Research Group on Borders, Mobilities and New Infrastructures. In December 2021, he became Assistant Professor of Development Politics at the University of Passau in Germany. Willem van Schendel, Professor of History, University of Amsterdam and International Institute of Social History, the Netherlands. He works with the history, anthropology and sociology of Asia. Recent works include A History of Bangladesh (2020), Embedding Agricultural Commodities (2017, ed.), The Camera as Witness (2015, with J. L. K. Pachuau). See uva.academia.edu/WillemVanSchendel.