Decolonizing methods: Akha articulations of indigeneity in the Upper Mekong Region

The concept of indigeneity is highly problematic in Asia, where a heightened degree of spatial mobility and ethnic fluidity challenge conventional understandings of Indigenous peoples (IPs) as rooted, stable, and unchanging from time immemorial. As some scholars have argued, however, this conception of indigeneity ignores the fact that many IPs have had multiple experiences of displacement due to their colonization by outsiders. Here, the authors discuss one such group – the Akha minority residing throughout the Upper Mekong Region – that in spite of multiple historical experiences of displacement, marginalization, and, more recently, colonization has maintained an intimate connection with their ancestral homeland. Akha have maintained this connection by way of their ‘intimate place-making cosmographies’, whereby non-Akha space is reconfigured as a microcosmic totality of the larger Akha cosmos. These practices have allowed for Akha to sustain and vitalize their distinct identity as Akha in the face of various external pressures from non-Akha others.