RT Article
T1 Symbolic dimensions of the anti-opium campaign in Laos
JF The Australian journal of anthropology
VO 24
IS 2
SP 177
OP 192
A1 Cohen, Paul T.
LA English
YR 2013
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1937587134
AB This article is concerned with the campaign to eradicate opium consumption and cultivation among highland minorities of northern Laos. The campaign has attracted political explanations that emphasise external pressure and enticements from the United States and the United Nations as part of the global War on Drugs. I argue that such explanations ignore the symbolic aspects of the domestic process of Laoisation in post-socialist Laos that has marginalised ethnic minorities and has transformed opium into a key symbol of primitiveness and backwardness and into a fetishised cause of poverty.
K1 Opium
K1 Akha
K1 Minorities
K1 Laos
K1 Symbolism
DO 10.1111/taja.12037