Atelier des doctorants du CASE

Oliver Tappe, professeur invité EHESS "Historical Anthropology of the Lao-Vietnamese borderlands: sources, methods, questions"

How can we assess contingent sociopolitical dynamics and cultural transformations in bygone times? What sources and methods do we have at hand when we practice ethnography in/of the past? Taking examples from the late 19th- and early 20th-century upland Laos, this lecture explores the methodological and epistemological challenges of investigating past sociocultural configurations in a culturally diverse and politically turbulent region. Although events such as the assassination of a French missionary or an attack on a colonial post have left a considerable paper trail in the archives – achieving a grassroots perspective and uncovering indigenous voices remain difficult tasks for the historical anthropologist.