Oscar Salemink

Revolutionary and Christian Ecumenes and Desire for Modernity in the Vietnamese Highlands

Inspired by a critical reading of James Scotts The Art of Not Being Governed (2009) which argued that Highlanders in Southeast Asia have intentionally evaded ‘state capture and state formations’, I offer a contrasting vision of Highlander motivations and desires from the Central Highlands of Vietnam. I argue that, in pre-colonial times, lowland states and Highland regions have been mutually constitutive through trade, tribute and feasts. Economic, political and ritual exchanges and connections were far more important for both uplands and lowlands than is usually acknowledged, not only in scholarship but in such phrases as ‘remote and backward areas’. For postcolonial Vietnam, I show that Highlanders were often motivated by the desire to become modern, and enacted such desires by joining ecumenes that embody modern universals, in particular revolutionary and Christian ecumenes, exemplifying oppositional pathways to modernity that contrast with those offered by authors Tania Li and Holly High.

Changing rights and wrongs: The transnational construction of indigenous and human rights among Vietnam's Central Highlanders

Abstract: In the context of Vietnam’s Central Highlanders’ conflict-ridden rela-tionship with the Vietnamese state and the growing transnational interference bytheir vociferous diaspora, this paper analyzes particular shifts in the framing oftheir rights. A notion of collective group rights that are by definition particularis-tic and exclusive has given way to individual rights (especially religious freedom)that are universal and inclusive. Simultaneously, a localized and communal em-phasis has changed to a transnational one oriented toward international fora. Lo-cal interests and aspirations thus come to be framed as universal human rights thatpertain to individuals, rather than local rights that pertain to collectives. In thislight, recent attempts to theorize minority or indigenous rights appear to be inef-fective and will probably be counter-productive. Keyw ords: ethnicity, human rights, indigenous rights, religion, transnationalism Focaal—European Journal of Anthropology 47 (2006): 32–47

Introduction: youth, subjectivity and Utopia – ethnographic perspectives from the Global South

ABSTRACT As a fluid age cohort and a social category between childhood and adulthood – and hence with tenuous links to the status quo – youth are variously described as ‘at risk’, as victims of precarious and unpredictable circumstances, or as agents of social change who embody the future. From this future-oriented generational perspective, youth are often mobilised to individually and collectively imagine, enact and embody Utopian futures as alternatives to reigning orders that moulded their subjectivities but simultaneously fail them. The papers in this issue look at how divergent Utopias inspire strategies, whereby young people come together in transient communities to ‘catch’ a fleeting future, cultivate alternative subjectivities and thus assume a sense of minimum control over their life trajectories, if only momentarily. This special issue of Identities explores the individual and collective strategies at play when political and religiously inspired Utopias motivate youth in the Global South to imagine, enact and embody what was missing in the past and present.