Resettled Lua communities in Northern Thailand: between national integration and ethnic disintegration

The paper focuses on historical developments of the political and ethnic relation between the mountain Lua ethnic minority of northern Thailand and agencies pursuing the national integration of ethnic minorities, such as the Thai Army, the Royal Family, the Sangha and several other national and international (governmental and non- governmental) organizations. By evoking the situation of Lua communities that emerged as a result of resettlement programs promoted by the Thai Army during and after the war its fight against the Communist insurgency (which occurred in this area between 1967–1990) , this contribution reflects on some important features of the current pattern of integration of this ethnic minority in the Thai nation. Based on historical and ethnographic data collected during repeated visits in the northern districts of Nan province, at the border to Laos , where most Lua villages and settlements are located (not less than 60,000 individuals, the largest among the ethnic mountain minorities in Nan province), the paper analyzes a set of micro- sociological dynamics of exclusion that nowadays induce most Lua individuals belonging to re-settled communities to take part in awkward, ambivalent, hypocritical performances of cultural mimesis: these dynamics are historically rooted in the complicated relationship with the Thai state and the idea of “Thainess” and shape structural processes of environmental, economic and political subjection of marginalized ethnic minorities.