The connectivity of ethnic displays: new codes for identity in northern Laos

In Laos, cultural festivals and other forms of ethnic display communicate locality and ethnicity to external agencies, in particular the nation state. This article documents strategies of identity-making in a small festival that was staged spontaneously in a Rmeet (Lamet) village. The chosen representations were conventional: dance, music, clothing. The Rmeet thereby employed a festival code used by numerous minorities worldwide. But these recently invented traditions are continuous with earlier representations that addressed various categories of strangers, including historic states and non-state groups. What has changed is the connectivity of the representations. Dance or costume used to represent external relationships in the past, but have been recoded for present use. Moreover, Rmeet have appropriated a New Year’s festival invented by the neighboring Khmu. Thus, ethnic displays appear as the most recent way of communicating difference in a code that connects them with the state, neighboring ethnicities, and a global language of locality.