Remains of War in Laos DISSERTATION Submitted In
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Revival: Remains of War in Laos DISSERTATION Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Anthropology by Leah Zani Dissertation Committee: Professor Tom Boellstorff Associate Professor Jennifer Terry Associate Professor Mei Zhan 2017 © 2017 Leah Zani TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements......................................................................................................................................iii Curriculum Vitae .........................................................................................................................................iv Abstract of the Dissertation .......................................................................................................................... v Note on The Lao Language..........................................................................................................................vi Fieldpoem 30: Postwar .................................................................................................................................1 1 Introduction: Remains/Revivals ........................................................................................................2 Fieldpoem 5: For an Unnamed Man and an Unnamed Photographer......................................................... 46 2 The Dragon and the River................................................................................................................47 Fieldpoem 11: The Fruit-eaters...................................................................................................................77 3 Ghost Mine ........................................................................................................................................78 Fieldpoem 23: Blast Radius......................................................................................................................121 4 Blast Radius.....................................................................................................................................122 Fieldpoem 26: House Blessings................................................................................................................162 5 Conclusion: Phase Out ...................................................................................................................163 Appendix: Notes on Fieldpoems...............................................................................................................187 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................................190 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the members of my Doctoral Committee for their invaluable support and advice: Tom Boellstorff, Jennifer Terry, and Mei Zhan. I am grateful to my dissertation writing group for their expert reading and thinking: Alyse Bertenthal, Jessica Cooper, Cheryl Deutsch, Lizzy Hare, Georgia Hartman, and Anna Zogas. And to the many, and wonderful, people who I delighted in thinking with over the course of this project: Chima Anyadike-Danes, Michael Boddington, Colin Cahill, Nigel Chang, Darcie DeAngelo, Jo Durham, Julia Elyachar, Nick Enfield, Grant Evans, Holly High, Andreas Hofman, Angela Jenks, Eleana Kim, George Marcus, Warren Mayes, Kimberley McKinson, Megan Neal, Valerie Olson, Shannon Parris, Kristin Peterson, Eli Simon, Sarinda Singh, Kathryn Sweet, Eric Stover, Vinya Sysamouth, Mindy Tauberg, Heather Thomas, Krisna Uk, Jeff Wasserstrom, Rebecca Wilbanks, and Sheron Wray. In line with my confidentiality agreements and subject protections, many others remain unnamed—which does not lesson my gratitude and admiration. I am grateful for the care and love of my friends and family during my time as a graduate student—with special thanks to my husband for his emotional and financial support of my academic work. My graduate training was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Program Fellowship and a University of California, Irvine, Social Sciences Merit Fellowship. The research for this dissertation was funded by the National Science Foundation; the Human Rights Center at the UC Berkeley; the Center for Global Peace and Conflict Studies at UC Irvine; the Center for Asian Studies at UC Irvine; the Center for Lao Studies; and the Department of Anthropology at UC Irvine. iii CURRICULUM VITAE EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND 2017 PhD in Anthropology, University of California, Irvine 2014 MA in Anthropology, University of California, Irvine 2011-2012 Teaching Assistant, School of Social Sciences, University of California, Irvine 2008 BA in Sociology/Anthropology with honors, Lewis & Clark College FIELD OF STUDY Sociocultural Anthropology, Medical Anthropology, Science & Technology Studies, Peace & Conflict Studies SELECTED PUBLICATIONS 2015 “Bomb Ecologies? Inhabiting Disability in Postconflict Laos.” Somatosphere. Online 6/15/2015. 2014 “Note from the Field: Charting Territories Without Maps.” Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology and Computing (CASTAC) Blog. Online 9/9/2014. 2012 “Reflections on American Anthropology: A Conference at UC Irvine.” American Anthropologist 114(4). Pp. 584-592. (with Chima Anyadike-James et al.) iv ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Revival: Remains of War in Laos By Leah Zani Doctor of Philosophy in Sociocultural Anthropology University of California, Irvine, 2017 Professor Tom Boellstorff, Chair This dissertation examines how legacies of war and ongoing violence are incorporated into peacetime development in contemporary Laos. I introduce the conceptual parallel of remains and revivals. By “remains,” I refer to massive military wastes left over from the Secret War in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s. During the Vietnam War, Laos was secretly bombed by the United States for nearly a decade. As a result of this covert conflict, contemporary Laos is the most massively cluster-bombed country in the world. Dangerous explosives continue to maim and kill; the risk of explosion frustrates plans to lure investors and build basic infrastructure. Remains also refers to the ongoing sociocultural impact of violence, including experiences of malicious ghosts and personal misfortune. By “revival,” I refer to the present period of rapid socioeconomic transformation as Laos opens to foreign intervention. I use revival as a touchstone for several interweaving processes: socioeconomic liberalization, authoritarian renovation, and religious awakening. Drawing on ethnographic evidence of Lao poetic parallelism, I innovate a method of poetic inquiry suited to hazardous fieldwork. v NOTE ON THE LAO LANGUAGE There are no standard transliterations for Lao words into English. I have used colloquial translations and transliterations when available (for example, the word karma instead of kamma) to aid the reader in recognizing more familiar terms. Unless a colloquial transliteration in English already exists, I have tried to preserve consonant distinctions and vowel lengths in my transliterations (for example, transliterating “development” as the conventional phattana rather than the more accurate phatthanaa). Lao naming practices do not follow the Western norm of personal first name then formal last name. In Lao, it is common to refer to a person more formally by a first name, particularly in honorifics. I have respected this by citing Lao authors by their first names in in-text citations and in the bibliography—unless the author has published significantly in English under their last name. All other authors are cited by their last names. vi FIELDPOEM 30: POSTWAR My sight has changed forever: I see the hulk of an army-green helicopter in a farm field in rural California amongst rusting tractors, threshers harvesters Every one is a wreck of something 1 1 INTRODUCTION: REMAINS/REVIVALS Opening Invocation An interlocutor of mine, prior to becoming a bomb technician, served as a monk for seven years at Wat Sokpaluang, a major Theravada Buddhist temple and center of healing in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. One day after work, he invites me to ride with him on his motorbike to visit this temple. Sokpaluang is a forest temple, originally situated in the jungle outside the city walls—though in recent decades it has been fully encompassed by urban sprawl. Nonetheless, the temple maintains expansive forested grounds, circumnavigated by a white, gilded wall. Leaving our motorbike beyond the wall, we enter by foot under a large, lavishly painted archway of entwined dragons. As we cross into the forested interior, the sound of the nearby thoroughfare is smothered by the vestigial forest preserved within the temple grounds: an underbrush of flowering ginger and medicinal herbs, plus large trees whose trunks host pale 2 lichens, wax-leaved bromeliads, ferns, and trailing gray lianas. When we arrive at the central plaza next to the sim (the most sacred central building), a cremation is under way (see Figure 1.1). The relatives and guests have left—only two silent novices remain to tend the giant kiln. They kindle the fire with long sticks, producing snapping crackles that seem only to deepen the silence in the plaza. The air is suffused with blue smoke and the smell of incense. The coffin has already collapsed upon itself and the body is no longer visible within the flames. Wreaths and other flower decorations smoke, their green moisture resisting the cremation. We stay at the border of the plaza and watch the flames slowly diminishing