Abstract
The characteristic mobility of highland populations in Southeast Asia relied to a large extent on their particular adaption to an ecological environment: swidden cultivation of tubers on mountain slopes. This ecology corresponded to cosmologies in which potency was limitless, or at least had no fixed and delimited precinct (as did the rice paddies and Buddhist realms in the valleys). Military state building, modern transport, and new crops and agricultural technologies have effectively ended swidden cultivation. In this article, I follow the pioneers of the plantation economy in the Wa State of Myanmar, who dispossess local populations of their land and employ them as plantation labour. The limits of growth and potency they encounter are (a) in the natural environment and (b) in the resistance of local populations. Yet, even though there are such limits, the potency to which these pioneers aspire is still limitless. It is however channelled through a new economy of life, epitomised in the plantation, nourished in excessive feasting, and maintained by the kinship dynamics of capture and care.
Highlights
A classic origin story told and retold among the Wa of China and Myanmar is about their flight from Keng Tung: in the long‐ago past, the Wa ruled over the Shan in the great city of Keng Tung
Plantains grow back very fast, and the latecomers got lost and had to stay in the plains: the Wa pioneers entered the mountains where they are until today, and the others are the ‘left‐b ehind Wa’, the Wa Git, or the ‘Hill Thai’, Tai Loi
Every time a new Sawbwa was installed in Keng Tung, some left‐behind Wa were feasted at the palace and ritually expelled (Enriquez 1918: 33; Mangrai 1981: 230)
Summary
Pioneers of the plantation economy: militarism, dispossession and the limits of growth in the Wa State of Myanmar. The characteristic mobility of highland populations in Southeast Asia relied to a large extent on their particular adaption to an ecological environment: swidden cultivation of tubers on mountain slopes. This ecology corresponded to cosmologies in which potency was limitless, or at least had no fixed and delimited precinct (as did the rice paddies and Buddhist realms in the valleys). Even though there are such limits, the potency to which these pioneers aspire is still limitless It is channelled through a new economy of life, epitomised in the plantation, nourished in excessive feasting, and maintained by the kinship dynamics of capture and care
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