TY - BOOK ID - 85644497 TI - Post-war Laos : The Politics of Culture, History and Identity AU - Vatthana Pholsena AU - Nordic Institute of Asian Studies. AU - Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. PY - 2006 SN - 9812305602 9812303561 9812303553 PB - Singapore : Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, DB - UniCat KW - Ethnicity KW - Nationalism KW - Consciousness, National KW - Identity, National KW - National consciousness KW - National identity KW - International relations KW - Patriotism KW - Political science KW - Autonomy and independence movements KW - Internationalism KW - Political messianism KW - Ethnic identity KW - Group identity KW - Cultural fusion KW - Multiculturalism KW - Cultural pluralism KW - History. KW - Laos KW - Lao People's Democratic Republic KW - Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxôn Lao KW - People's Democratic Republic of Laos KW - République démocratique populaire Lao KW - Lao PDR KW - Lao-Issara KW - Laosskai︠a︡ Narodno-Demokraticheskai︠a︡ Respublika KW - Sāthālanalat Pasāthipatai Pasāson Lāo KW - Phrarātsaʻānāchak Lāo KW - LNDR KW - Lanxang KW - Lan Xang KW - Lan Sang KW - Lan Chang KW - ʻĀnāchak Lāo KW - RDP lao KW - Sō̜. Pō̜. Pō̜. Lāo KW - Sō̜pō̜pō̜ Lāo KW - Lao P.D.R. KW - Saathiaranarath Prachhathipatay Prachhachhon Lao KW - Cộng hòa dân chủ nhân dân Lào KW - Royaume du Laos KW - French Indochina KW - Ethnic relations KW - Political aspects. KW - Politics and government KW - RDP Lao UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:85644497 AB - More than a quarter of century after the end of the war in 1975, the Lao leadership is still in search for a compelling nationalist narration. Its politics of culture and representation appear to be caught between the rhetoric of preservation and the desire for modernity. Meanwhile, originating from the periphery where ethnic minorities had hitherto been symbolically, politically and administratively confined, the participation of some of their members in the Indochina Wars (1945-75) exposed these individuals to socialization and politicization processes. This rigorously researched and cogently argued book is a fine-grained analysis of substantial ethnographic material, showing the politics of identity, the geographies of memory and the power of narratives of some members of ethnic minority groups who fought during the Vietnam War in the Lao People's Liberation Army and/or were educated within the revolutionary administration. No study has ever been conducted on the latter's views on the national(ist) project of the late socialist era. Their own perceptions of their membership of the nation have been overlooked. Post-War Laos is a set to be a landmark study, and an original contribution which refines established theories of nationalism, such as Anderson's 'imagined community', by addressing a common weakness: namely, their tendency to deny agency to individuals, who in fact interpret their relationship to, and place within, the nation in a variety of ways that may change according to time and circumstance. ER -