| Abstract: | This paper analyses the place of highland ethnic minorities in Vietnamese visual culture. For decades, artists have appropriated markers of ethnic difference in propaganda posters about national unity and progress. Vietnamese notions of ethnic groups draw on a historical trajectory that involves colonial racial classifications as well as the anti-colonial notion of 'the people'. The inclusion of ethnic minorities in official portrayals of the people draws on the historical conditions of nation building and an armed struggle for independence. Equally important, the visual appropriation of the markers of ethnic and national difference projects national progress through the mapping of backwardness on highland ethnic groups. The recent emergence of the same ethnic markers as an international tourist attraction draws on similar progressivist narratives, and the growing market in souvenirs recycles visual exercises in national unity as a just-discovered Other Vietnam. |
