Description:
In Projectland, anthropologist Holly High combines an engaging first-person narrative of her fieldwork with a political ethnography of Laos, more than forty years after the establishment of the Lao PDR.
Brief description: Holly High is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Sydney.
Review Quotes: In Projectland High destroys some simplistic assumptions concerning ethnic minorities and their relation to the (socialist) state. It takes individual subjectivities and desires seriously, and highlights the social fragmentation below the surface of village "unity." The author provides a lucid analysis of the functioning of the Lao socialist party state at the margins, discussing the dialectic of transformation and resilience. High's analysis goes beyond many village studies that mainly focus on livelihood and economic transformation. Unlike most studies that rely on socioeconomic data, Projectland touches the individual subjectivities of the villagers and the affective dimensions of the socialist state. More than forty years after the communist revolution, the author examines the ideological, biopolitical, and affective outcomes of the socialist "project" in the Lao PDR.--Oliver Tappe, University of Cologne