Mobility and Stability in a Tai Vat Village (Laos)

This article explores how Tai highlanders experience mobility. The Tai Vat living in Houaphan Province, Laos, first fled Vietnam at the end of the nineteenth century, and again during the First Indochina War. They presently engage in migrations to rural areas of the Mekong Plain as well as to Vientiane, the destination favoured by Tai youth. They relate their current mobilities to their past experiences, and also to issues of ‘development’. Though migrants are driven by a pioneer ethos, this does not preclude attachment to their village, as exemplified by the stability of the lak man, the ritual post at the centre of collective ritual activity. Local conceptions of mobility and stability are central to understanding these Tai highlanders’ sense of history and identity, as well as the interactions they have with the lowlands and the national space at large.SCOPUS: ar.j