ABSTRACT
A key theme informing understandings of power across Southeast Asia is the contrast between lowland centres and upland frontiers. The lowlands are sites of productive irrigated agriculture, religious and cultural refinement and political integration and wealth, whereas the uplands signify the opposite. While associated with ‘tributary frameworks of pre-modern states’ (Jonsson 2000: 76), many modern states and non-state actors also utilize and perpetuate such upland–lowland distinctions. In recent years, a considerable body of research has questioned the presumed divide between centres and peripheries across Southeast Asia. For instance, Scott’s (2009: 24–7) ‘anarchist history’ of the region sees the uplands as an ecological ‘shatter zone’ where a ‘fugitive population’ of swidden agriculturalists flee to evade the unwanted control of lowland states. Even more usefully, other work has countered this tendency to emphasize the power of central authorities in the lowlands, even when ‘looking “uphill” or “outward” ’ (Jonsson 2001: 66). A view from the uplands can usefully enhance our understanding of the uplands and lowlands as interpenetrating social domains. As Allerton (this volume) argues, notions of ‘marginality’ or ‘escape’ as definitive of the uplands ‘risk over-emphasizing both the “remoteness” of such communities, and the hegemony … of the state.’
