Shifting Landscapes - Shifting Cultures in Xishuangbanna, Southwest China

Abstract

Though relatively small in size, Xishuangbanna (Banna) displays an astonishingly high degree of cultural and biological diversity. This fact has always made Banna attractive and special, but also vulnerable to external attention, interests and interventions. Geographically and politically wedged between the powerful empires of Burma and China, the Buddhist kingdom struggled to keep its independence from the time of its founding in the 13th century. The Dai, the ruling class of the feudal state settled and dominated the lowlands while various ethnic groups followed relatively secluded and independent ways of life in the remote and topographically challenging uplands. From the 19th century, Banna came increasingly under the influence of the Chinese Empire and later on the Republic. After 1950, Banna lost its remaining spheres of sovereignty and was absorbed into the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Soon, it became integrated into the national and global economy as a supplier of natural resources and was also the target of ambitious projects of civilization, modernization and development implemented by the Chinese state. Over the last decades, the face, function and structures of the social and physical landscape of Banna have completely changed. Arguing on the premise that space is produced and transformed within and through social relations, I will discuss these changes along with the concept of the paddy line and the rubber line – socio-ecological boundaries defining and dividing the landscapes and local societies. This article is closely based on the author’s dissertation (Wehner, 2011) and extensive fieldwork that was undertaken between 2006 and 2010.