Processes of Social Differentiation and (Re-)Integration in Northern Laos (Essay‪)‬

One Friday, Sunee, the secretary of the chao muang (district chief), invited me to go to his family's rice fields in order to do family work (het wiak khopkhua). The rice fields are located on Highway No. 3, next to the village settlements of Ban Nong Kham where Sunee was born before he moved to Vieng Phoukha district town and where many of his kinsmen still live and work as Khmu Khwaen (2) rice farmers. According to his explanations, family work includes all activities necessary for the reproduction of the household, for example farming, hunting, and house-building, but also the fulfilment of social responsibilities in rituals for the ancestor spirits. In contrast to family work, Sunee categorizes his work in the district office (3) as government work (bet wiak lathaban), which consists of meetings for political networking. Having a rest under the rice hut, Sunee bemoans the efforts of combining family and government work: Situations like this are characteristic of the lives of a "local elite", people who enjoy the privilege, but equally bear the burdens, of having positions within the local Lao administration, which is emerging in Vieng Phoukha as a result of the government's efforts to integrate ethnic groups into the political, economic, and religious structures of the Lao nation state. The entrance into jobs classified as government work is often accompanied by a movement of local officials to Vieng Phoukha district town. This movement is commonly associated with the beginning of a "modern lifestyle", differentiating civil servants from their relatives in Ban Nong Kham. The common statement, "Today we are modern, but we cannot ignore our ancestors, we have to come back to Nong Kham regularly in order to attend the rituals", reflects that these people have to come back to Ban Nong Kham regularly in order to fulfil responsibilities within kinship networks.