Seminar Series: Abstract

09:30
May 27 2009
Seminar Room A

String: Binding Self to Power in Southeast Asia
Andrew Walker, RSPAS, ANU

String is a common element in many Southeast Asian rituals. String is used to link people and objects to sources of sacred power. String unites ritual participants in a single field of auspiciousness. String binds bodies and souls. And, on certain occasions, string is ritually destroyed to sever connections with accumulated misfortune.

In this paper the motif of string is used as starting point for exploring local manifestations of state power. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork in northern Thailand, the paper argues that rural people seek to bind themselves to the auspicious, productive and munificent power of the state, and in doing so participate in localised processes of state formation. The state is bound to the self in many different ways: displaying signs and pictures, wearing particular clothes, entering into personal relationships, sharing food and attending meetings. My focus here will be on the ways in which rural villagers bind themselves to the state by participating in modern rituals of administration and development, principally through the creation and implementation of projects (krongkan).

Considerable attention has been given to the ways in which state development projects create a legible population. The bonds created by string are often anything but legible. But they do highlight a local preoccupation, not with legibility, but with eligibility. To bind oneself to the state is to declare oneself an eligible participant in an auspicious field of power.