Narrative, Memory and History: Multiple Interpretations of the Lao Past 

Vatthana Pholsena
 

The exploration of the oral memories of the men and women who belong to ethnic minority groups in southern Laos and who have been involved in the Vietnam Wars constitutes the focus of this paper. It analyses their interpretations of the past through their narratives: their pattern, logic and coherence, but also their discontinuities, omissions and exaggerations. In a second section, the paper focuses on a Ngè village in southern Laos. Although it is known as a “heroic village” (ban vilason), famed for its long tradition of resistance against the French (both during the colonial period and the first Indochina War) and the Americans, the village’s people feel they have been marginalised. In response to their marginalisation, however, some of them recall a time in which they were at the forefront of their country’s “struggle against colonialism”. In doing so, they re-appropriate to themselves the figure of a minority leader, who was born in their village and has since been turned into a “patriotic hero” for the sake of the nationalist narration. From a broader perspective, the analysis examines the ways individual and collective memories draw on the events of the past and also on the circumstances of the present to provide a basis for one’s identity.

Key words: Laos, ethnic minorities, oral memory, narratives, individual and collective identities.
 

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