Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book demonstrates how archaeology nourished and was nourished by colonial ideology, and gave scientific legitimacy to colonial notions of race and development. It argues that these notions of essence and distance are fundamental for the justification of the projects of colonialism and ecotourism, and are at the same time contradictory to the explicit benevolent and philanthropic aims of ecotourism as well as of early twentieth century French colonial policy. The book presents traditional archaeology, which plays an important part in the discourses of French colonialism and contemporary ecotourism, embodies ideals of racial or cultural essence and nurtures the idea of an absolute distance between the local community around Hintang and the Western coloniser or tourist. It is based on fieldwork, archival research, and textual analysis done in my last research project in Laos, at Hintang from 2006 to 2009.