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State Institutions In Northeast Thailand: Lao Ethnics And The Thai Identity, Jacob Ricks
State Institutions In Northeast Thailand: Lao Ethnics And The Thai Identity, Jacob Ricks
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In this last chapter on state representation, we focus on a case where there has been an absence of demands. In Northeast Thailand, the large ethnic Lao population has not demanded cultural concessions from the state. In fact, not only have the demands been absent, but most people in the region see themselves as Thai (the broader national identity) or Isan (a moniker meaning “northeast”)—as opposed to ethnically Lao. The absence of the Lao identity has less to do with the absence of civic associations from the bottom up than with the absence of political representation from the top down. …