The Peasantry as the Territorial Spearhead of the State in Southeast Asia: The Case of Vietnam

Throughout history, peasant communities have been involved in forms of land pioneering which have contributed to the territorial formation and consolidation of states. This has been facilitated by a compromise between the builder-administrators of the states and the peasants themselves in their capacity as guardian-prisoners of the territory. This compromise, through which the state gains territorial legitimacy by protecting and administering newly established peasant domains, has been and remains exceptionally dynamic in Southeast Asia. Examples are provided concerning Burma, Thaifand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and, particularly, Vietnam. Between the historical southward drive of the Viet people, from the Red River delta to that of the Mekong, which began as early as the tenth century and lasted through the eighteenth, and the contemporary westward drive to the Central Highlands, there is a thread. From Nam Tien to Tay Tien, this thread is drawn by the Vietnamese peasantry which acts as the territorial spearhead of the Vietnamese state. It implies the integration of peripheral and marginal lands and their inhabitants, particularly minority people.