‘Before others’

• Verfasst von: Stolz, Rosalie [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: ‘Before others’
• Titelzusatz: construction pioneers in the uplands of northwestern Laos
• Verf.angabe: Rosalie Stolz
• Jahr: 2021
• Umfang: 15 S.
• Fussnoten: Gesehen am 11.11.2021
• Titel Quelle: Enthalten in: Social anthropology
• Ort Quelle: New York, NY : Berghahn, 1992
• Jahr Quelle: 2021
• Band/Heft Quelle: 29(2021), 3, Seite 718-732
• ISSN Quelle: 1469-8676
• DOI: doi:10.1111/1469-8676.13091
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• Sach-SW: béton
• Sach-SW: concrete
• Sach-SW: construction pioneers
• Sach-SW: houses
• Sach-SW: Khmu
• Sach-SW: Laos
• Sach-SW: maisons
• Sach-SW: pionniers de la construction
• K10plus-PPN: 1777293049
• K10plus-PPN:
  Universitätsbibliothek
• Lokale URL UB: Zum Volltext

Abstract

Given that houses have become a key signifier of an orientation towards the future, several villagers in Pliya can be regarded or regard themselves as pioneers of the construction of a new type of house. I will suggest here that the construction of new concrete houses is not to be understood merely as an adoption of lowland styles but as a self-conscious and selective use of a style of building. Those who are pioneering these houses also discuss their efforts in terms of pioneering acts, emphasising the self-taught nature of their appropriation of new aspects of craftsmanship. Drawing on long-term fieldwork among the Khmu of Pliya, and especially on more recent fieldwork in 2019 and 2020, I wish to argue that the way in which new houses have entered the local cosmos and are materialised by pioneering builders highlights a pioneering ethos that infuses local attempts at future-making, from wet rice cultivation to concrete villas.