Vatthana PHOLSENA

Statutory researcher from 2011 to 2013

Vatthana Pholsena is a research fellow at the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research). She taught at the National University of Singapore between 2004-2006 and 2014-2017 and was posted to IRASEC between 2011 and 2013. Her current research covers the social and political history of the Cold War from the vantage point of the Lao-Vietnamese and Lao-Thai borderlands, and the nexus between state, local elite, and ethnicity in post-socialist Laos. More generally, her research interests include the processes of state and social formation in borderlands, the interaction between the past and personal and collective memories, and issues relating to ethnicity and multiculturalism in Southeast Asia.

Selected bibliography

Books

LAOS. Un pays en mutation, Paris : Editions Belin-La documentation Française, 2011.

Post-war Laos : The Politics of Culture, History and Identity, Singapore/New York : Institute of Southeast Asian Studies/Cornell University Press, 2006.

Changing Lives in Laos, co-edited with Vanina Bouté, Singapore : NUS Press, 2017.

Interactions with a Violent Past. Reading Post-Conflict Landscapes in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, co-edited with Oliver Tappe, Singapore : IRASEC-NUS Press, 2013.

Articles and book chapters

“State formation, social hierarchies, and ethnic dynamics : a case from upland Laos.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 41, n^o 7, 2018, pp. 1294-1311.

“Politics of Cross-Border Living in Southern Laos-Central Vietnam.” Ethnic and Religious Identities and Integration in Southeast Asia, Keat Gin Ooi and Volker Grabowsky (eds.), Chiang Mai : Silkworm Press. 2017, pp. 31-55.

“War Generation : Youth Mobilization and Socialization in Revolutionary Laos.” Changing Lives in Laos. New Perspectives on Society, Politics, and Culture in a Post-Socialist State, Vanina Bouté and Vatthana Pholsena (eds.), Singapour, NUS Press, 2017, pp. 109-134.

 “There is more to roads : Modernity, Memory and Roads in Hướng Hoá -Sepon area between Central Vietnam and Southern Laos.” Transnational Dynamics in Southeast Asia : the Greater Mekong Subregion and Malacca Strait Economic Corridors, Nathalie Fau, Sirivanh Khonthapane and Christian Taillard (eds.), Singapore : ISEAS, 2014, pp. 377-396.

“A Social Reading of a Post-Conflict Landscape : Route 9 in Southern Laos.” Interactions with a Violent Past. Reading Post-Conflict Landscapes in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, Vatthana Pholsena and Oliver Tappe (eds.), Singapore : NUS Press, 2013, pp. 157-185.

“The (Transformative) Impacts of War and Revolution in a border region in Southeastern Laos (1961-1975)”, War & Society, Vol. 31(2), 2012, pp. 163–83.

“Nommer pour contrôler au Laos, de l’Etat colonial au régime communiste”, Critique Internationale, 45, 2009, pp. 59-76.

“Highlanders on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Representations and Narratives”, Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 40(3), 2008, pp. 445-474.

“A Liberal Model of Minority Rights for an Illiberal Multi-Ethnic State ? The Case of the Lao PDR.” Asian Minorities and Western Liberalism, in Will Kymlicka and Baogang He (eds.), Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 80-109.

« The Changing Historiographies of Laos : a Focus on the Early Period », Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 35 (2), 2004, pp. 235-259.

« Nation/Representation : Ethnic Classification and Mapping Nationhood in Contemporary Laos », Asian Ethnicity, Vol.3 (2), 2002, pp.175-197.

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