Abstract

The introduction sets the scene by criticallyreflecting on prevailing scholarly and publicrepresentations of Laos within the widerYunnan-Laos-Thailand borderlands. Moving away fromthe underlying deep-rooted entanglement ofself-fulfilling representations of space,ethnicity, and state, I outline in detail analternative ethnographic account of borderlandtrade dynamics that revolves around differentfacets of smallness.I develop the argument that it is the lens ofsmallness thatenables an ethnographically grounded explorationof northern Lao small-scale traders’ actuallylived transnational worlds of cross-bordermobilities, social relations, commercialexperimentation, and aspiration. The introductionis rounded off with extensive and reflectiveremarks on my fieldwork trajectory andmethodology, discussing the strengths andlogistical challenges of navigating through threedifferent national contexts.

Keywords: Laos; borderland;scholarly representation; smallness; transnationalworld; cross-border trade

Well, Laos is an elongated land of less than ahundred thousand square miles bounded by Thailandon the west and touched by Burma on the northwest,by China to the north, by Vietnam to the east andsoutheast, and by Cambodia on the southwest. TheMekong River, which marks most of thetwelve-hundred-mile western frontier withThailand, is placid but considerable, a littlelonger than the Mississippi. Up beyond the greengorges of the southwest Chinese province ofYunnan, its headwaters are fed by the meltingsnows of Tibet. And until recently the Lao kingdomof the river's middle reaches was nearly asisolated as the Roof of the World, and not half sowell publicized. […]. Anywhere from a million tofour million people live in Laos, depending on whois making the estimate. But it is agreed that theyare dreamy, gentle, bucolic, nonaggressive people,Buddhists of the Little Vehicle who live inbamboo-and-thatch houses on stilts, wadingtranquilly in their marshy paddies, fishing in thelazy rivers, and worshipping in the curly-roofedpagodas. They are content. They live in asubsistence economy, and generally there is enoughrice to go around. The Lao gentlenesstraditionally has enchanted the foreign visitor,particularly one not trying to go anywhere or doanything in a hurry.