Research & Article

The Lue are a Tai-speaking people whose home land is the Sip Song Panna region of Yunnan, China. There are also large Lue populations in Thailand and Laos. This paper compares Lue communities in northern Laos (Muang Sing) and northern Thailand (Nan}, focusing on the relation between Lue ethnic identification and territorial cults. I seek to explain the transformation of Lue ethnic identity in terms of the way the Lue relate to the nation-state and, in particular, to discourses of national culture and development.