… it seems clear that through their ways of using space our various Tai groups are expressing a ‘dialect’ no less telling than that of their speech. But, we must try to listen and decipher this ‘dialect of space’ with the same care we give to deciphering their languages. (Kirsch 1990: 74)

Such is the unity of all history that anyone who endeavors to tell a piece of it must feel that his first sentence tears a seamless web. (Pollock & Maitland 1898, vol. 1: 1 as cited in Thornton 1988)

Overview of topic

This book investigates the meaning of spatial practices in a non-state society, and their significance in the formation of a distinctive collective identity that developed in a regional context. The society is that of the Akha (phon. Àkà), a minority upland group found in Northern Thailand and surrounding countries with whom I have conducted long-term, participant-observational fieldwork between the years 1982 and 2010. This book, however, focuses on the time period 1982-1985. I discuss this case study in relation to three interpretive frameworks: 1) the cultural meaning of space in Akha society during the time period studied (and how it differs from western conceptions); 2) the relationship of that meaning to regional meaning systems and regional politicaleconomic and historical contexts, including those of majority, more powerful groups; and 3) larger comparative and theoretical discussions about the meaning of space in relation to economic and political contexts in general and in relation to identity construction. By considering a non-modern and non-western context, this study expands the conversation on the relationships among space, power, and the politics of identity, a conversation that has mainly focused on western modern and post-modern contexts. The reader will find that, throughout these chapters, these three frameworks are interwoven and ethnographic material that relates to one framework can also be interpreted in relation to another.

Just as with the Tai peoples that Kirsch refers to above, space was not only significant in Akha society, its significance was pervasive. To cite just one example, I remember the time of a Thai army raid on the village of my fieldwork.