Introduction to Ethnobotany of the Mountain Regions of Southeast Asia

Abstract

SE Asia comprises a mainland SE Asia (Enfield and Comrie 2015) and a maritime SE Asia, or archipelagos (Sutherland 2003). Mainland SE Asia is often identified with rice cultivation, while trade is seen as the major economic activity in the maritime countries (Sutherland 2003). The present-day land mass of SE Asia results from the convergence of the Australian, Pacific, and Eurasian plates (Zahirovic et al. 2014), and the biologically and geologically complex Wallacea (Eastern Indonesia) is at the center of this region of confluence (Hall 2011). The definition of SE Asia is a contentious one. Geographical SE Asia includes Northeast India, Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India, Taiwan, and parts of China lying south to the River Yangtze (Enfield and Comrie 2015; Michaud et al. 2016). Popular notion of SE Asia, however, includes the 11 countries of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Timor Leste, and Vietnam. This popular notion of SE Asia is a legacy of European colonialism in the region and excludes certain ethnic communities of Southwestern China, Taiwan, India, and Bangladesh who are essentially SE Asian by virtue of their language and culture (Michaud et al. 2016; Winzeler 2010). Although the volume originally intended to focus on the plants of ethnobotanical importance for highland communities of geographical SE Asia, it has to be reoriented to focus on popular SE Asia, owing to practical difficulties in compiling the list of all ethnic communities whose culture and language could be considered as SE Asian.