Enclaves of Improvement
Sovereignty and Developmentalism in the Special Zones of the China-Lao Borderlands
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2108709 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Pal Nyiri (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 54 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 533-562 |
| Publication date | 2012-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Comparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0010417512000229 |
| OpenAlex | W2164859006 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 55 |
| References cited | 37 |
The highlands of mainland Southeast Asia have famously been the locus of 'Zomia,' polities resistant to control by lowland nation-states, but this relative resilience has been due to their marginality. However, as even remote borderlands connect to the market economies of what has been labeled the 'Greater Mekong Subregion,' these semi-independent polities are trying to transform themselves from isolated drug enclaves into regional paragons of economic modernity labeled 'Special Economic Zones.' The main actors in this transformation are ethnic Chinese migrant capitalists who embrace the economic rhetoric of mainland China's 'growth model' to create respectability and to evoke images of a cosmopolitan future as they build casinos in the rainforest. The zones' claim to be the vanguard of modernity rests on two mutually contradictory sets of symbols: a mimicry of Chinese state paraphernalia designed to conjure up the efficacy of a strong developmental state, and the discourse of freedom from state control. This article examines the transformation of zones of political and criminal resistance into zones of economic development from a historical perspective of changing practices of sovereignty and shifting understandings of development
China · Development economics · Developmentalism · Economics · Economy · Geography · Modernity · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Sociology · Sovereignty · State (computer science · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Socioeconomic Development in Asia · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies · Law
Flows and Frictions in Trans-Himalayan Spaces
Laos 2016
Chinese organized crime and the illegal wildlife trade
Not Found
Flows and Frictions in Trans-Himalayan Spaces
The Rise of Offshore Urbanism and the Expanding Frontiers of Financialisation in the Global South
Industrial parks development in Ethiopia
China in Laos
‘A Garuda in my Heart, a Tiger in my Stomach’
Mongla and the borderland politics of Myanmar
Introduction
The long land grab
Selling seasteading
Repositioning security spaces of exclusion, exception, and integration in China–Southeast Asia borderlands
Contested Borderlands
Laos’s Peripheral Centrality in Southeast Asia
Going West and Going Out
Railroading land-linked Laos
Thinking through the everywhereness of borders
Introduction
Peripheral centers
Presence without Encounters
Zomia 2.0
Delinquent Borderlands
Ungovernable? The vital natures of swidden assemblages in an upland frontier
Economic development, national strategy and administrative trusteeship in China
Small city politics in the Global South
Negotiating post-resettlement livelihoods
Tourism border-making
Chinese Eastern Industrial Zone in Ethiopia
Territorial (In) Coherence
Theorising small city as ordinary city
Theorising from the Belt and Road Initiative (一带一路)
Of Other Spaces? Hybrid Forms of Chinese Engagement in Sub-Saharan Africa
Impersonation in ethnic tourism – The presentation of culture by other ethnic groups
Introduction
Dreaming the ‘Chinese dream’
When is a Frontier? Nostalgia and Aspirations at China’s Borderlands with Burma and Laos
Repositioning Yunnan
Zone, city, border, corridor
Comrades in arms, or comrades in angst? Interest convergence, regime security, and the Vietnam factor in Cambodia’s and Laos’ relations with China
Permissive Politics and Entrepreneurial Transgression in a Chinese Border Town
Dog Days
The social formation and cultural identity of Southeast Asian frontier society
The Art of Neighbouring
Worlding Developmentalism
Complexities and surprises in local resistance to neoliberal conservation
They will not automatically benefit
Bordering dynamics and the geopolitics of cross-border tourism between China and Myanmar
Militarized Development in Post-war Sri Lanka
Flexible sovereignty and contested legality
Neoliberal Capitalism and Ethno-Territoriality in Highland Northeast India
Chinese Investors, Labour Discipline and Developmental Cosmopolitanism
The Sino-centric Capital Export Regime
Contesting Moral Capital in the Economy of Expectations of an Extractive Frontier
States and Illegal Practices
Routes
The black Atlantic
Bounding the Mekong
The Art of Not Being Governed
The Galactic Polity
Modernity at large
The State of Exception
The Anti-Politics Machine
Chinese entrepreneurs in poor countries
Of Quality, Harmony, and Community
Sharing Sovereignty
From War Refugees to Immigrants
Imagined communities
The anti-politics machine
Premodern Flows in Postmodern China
Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities and Nations
A Theory of Middleman Minorities
Ethnic Adaptation and Identity
Geographies of Knowing, Geographies of Ignorance
African Shenzhen
Reconstructing Empire in British and French Africa
The Legend of the Golden Boat
Flexible Citizenship
Political Systems of Highland Burma
Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
Ethnic Adaptation and Identity
Merchants and Migrants
Patriotism and Its Futures
Graduated Sovereignty in South-East Asia
Diaspora
The Frontiers of 'Burma
| Unique citing works | 55 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,23 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2026 (14) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 54 |