Moving Mountains

Anthropologists, geographers, and political economists provide an unprecedented glimpse into the lives and survival strategies of minorities who draw on culture and ethnicity to confront economic and political change in the mountainous borderlands of socialist China, Vietnam, and Laos.

This collection argues that minorities in the Southeast Asian Massif are not powerless in the face of economic and political change in the region – they are drawing on ethnicity and culture to indigenize modernity and maintain their livelihoods.

The mountainous borderlands of socialist China, Vietnam, and Laos are home to some seventy million people, representing an astonishing array of ethnic diversity. How are these peoples fashioning livelihoods now that their homeland is open to economic investment and political change?

Moving Mountains presents the work of anthropologists, geographers, and political economists who have first-hand experience in the Southeast Asian Massif. Although scholars have typically represented highland people from this region as marginalized and powerless, these case studies – on groups such as the Drung in Yunnan, the Khmu in Laos, and the Hmong in Vietnam – argue that ethnic minorities draw on culture and ethnicity to indigenize modernity and maintain their livelihoods. This unprecedented glimpse into a poorly understood region shows that development initiatives must be built on strong knowledge of local cultures in order to have lasting effect.