ABSTRACT

This book looks at ethnographic discourses concerning the indigenous population of Vietnam's Central Highlands during periods of christianization, colonization, war and socialist transformation, and analyses these in their relation to tribal, ethnic, territorial, governmental and gendered discourses. Salemink's book is a timely contribution to anthropological knowledge, as the ethnic minorities in Vietnam have (again) been the object of fierce academic debate. This is a historically grounded post-colonial critique relevant to theories of ethnicity and the history of anthropology, and will be of interest to graduate students of anthropology and cultural studies, as well as Vietnam studies.

chapter 1|39 pages

Introduction

Ethnography, anthropology and colonial discourse 1

chapter 2|33 pages

Missionaries, explorers, and savages

The construction of an evolutionist discourse

chapter 3|27 pages

Léopold Sabatier

Colonial administration and cultural relativism 1

chapter 4|29 pages

The return of the Python God

Multiple interpretations of a millenarian movement 1

chapter 5|50 pages

War and ethnography

Territorialization, ethnicization and cultural relativism 1

chapter 6|32 pages

Romancing the Montagnards

American counterinsurgency and Montagnard autonomy

chapter 7|46 pages

Moving the Montagnards

The role of anthropology

chapter 8|31 pages

The Dying God revisited

The King of Fire and Vietnamese ethnic policies 1

chapter 9|9 pages

Conclusion

French, American and Vietnamese ethnographies in comparative perspective