by Pierre Petit (LAMC, EASt/ULB)

Kinchiang is a festive period of a three days celebrating the coming of the New Year among the Tai Vat of Laos and Vietnam. During that period, villages undergo a radical transformation that sets them apart from normal life and generates a temporary heterotopia. Rituals, dances, music, songs, traditional games, specific foods, home receptions create a liminal place and a liminal time that plays a crucial role in the villagers’ self-perception, both in relation to their local identity and in relation to the Lao State. I shall analyse how this liminality articulates the vernacular society and the national state. The current cultural policies stipulate that each ‘ethnic’ group must preserve its specific culture and contribute to the multi-ethnic character of the nation. Village leaders and mass organizations are required to support cultural practices that vivify cultural heritage and identity. Performances are (re)designed in the process, sometimes far away from their earlier patterns. However, these policies are in no way received passively: the new state lexicon on culture, heritage and development provides resources to uphold some rights (notably for religious practice and local hierarchies) and to plead for full recognition in the nation-state, in a context where non-Buddhist highlanders are still often despised as underdeveloped.

Tuesday 10th March 2026, from 2pm until 4pm

Room S.H3244
Building H3
ULB - Campus Solbosch

Free entrance