Bottom-up parameters in the bordering and territorialization process

Having established the paramount role of states, their formation and relations among each other in the creation of borders as a result of territorialization efforts, the top-down perspective misses however the interplay of cause and effect of these processes on the ground. States are socially constructed along shared ideas, practices and interactions, who reach their limit when they meet a different set of ideas, practices and interactions they cannot compete with either because of mate-rial constraints, incompatibility, or lack of administrative strength to consolidate these ideas (LUSTICK 2004, 79-80; DOORNBOS 2006, 43-44). Borders are nothing more than a conse-quence of how state-power was reflected in the interdependencies among the states, implying flexible and contested lines, delimiting territory often more on a map than in reality, so that the meaning of the border can change when the relation among the actors are changing and so that legitimizing arguments are adapted to new circumstances, such as changes in legal traditions or emphasis on cultural distinctions. Over time this flexibility disappears as the strongest actors in the network – notably the state itself – claim their absolute sovereignty over a territory. Borders are in most cases a brainchild of the capitals, modified by circumstances on the ground in an in-terplay of means of capital, coercion and cooptation of regional elites and negotiated with other capitals: the Southeast-Asian Chinese border is to a large degree grown organically through an

ebb and flow of territorial claims and modes of integration. These were sometimes interrupted by international events, the struggle of elite groups to get their interests implemented and always characterized by a strong state-involvement that modulates these struggles by implementing measures for state-cohesion and adapting its stance towards regional population and elites as well as its presence in the borderland to the strategic and economic importance of the border. The con-ciliation of these different perspectives – such as resistance against assimilation attempts, fight against separatists or the attitude towards smuggling – depends also on how well the regional elites are integrated into the networks of state-power so that they can become important allies for the state to control and claim the borderland. States try to shift the base of the legitimacy of the regional elites from the regional embedding of power-relations towards a legitimacy that rests purely on their service to the state itself for taxes, tribute, discipline and expansionist projects.

The case of the Hmong-kingdom under Hoang Yen Chao and Hoang Tuong during the French rule in Northern Vietnam illustrates that as its legitimacy purely rested on the ability to control the influx of communist elements from China as opposed to their original role as leader and pro-tector of their people. Relying on both the state and their own independent power-base they do have leverage against the state to oppose centralizing policies (BAUD/VAN SCHENDEL 1997, 217-219; STURGEON 2004, 466; WIMMER 2013, 153). The local population in the borderlands determines the social dynamics of the region through its relations to the regional elites and the states on both sides of the border and by defining the structure of their territory out of their local conceptions of power-relations. The influence of the local population on power-relations is de-fined by – simultaneously as it defines – the social, economic and political situation in and inter-actions between the two states: ethnic or religious divides, state-induced otherness, markers of different competing political and economic visions for the territory are reflected in the border-lands (BAUD/VAN SCHENDEL 1997, 219-220; HASTINGS 1996, 30).

States can interact with other states on these issues, but on the ground they accumulate means of capital and coercion to shape the dynamics between the center and the borderland and influence the relation between borderlands, using social markers, providing security, introducing practices that tie people to the center and penetrate the area with modes of governance and administration.

The status of a border-region is something that is not only being imposed on an entity that was incorporated as a buffer on the fringes, but rather needs to be actively created through interac-tions between the state, the borderland and their counterparts on the other side of the border. This can be understood as a dynamic to give the region a purpose for the state – namely as a bridge or

buffer-zone – for which this area needs to transform itself: the border-area simply doesn‘t exist by itself, but rather needs to be created according to the circumstances surrounding the border, the needs as well as the shape and structure of the state and its relations (YIFTACHEL 2004, 360;

GAT/YAKOBSON 2013, 309-310; VU 2010, 159). Thus after the interplay to territorialize the space within the state, a process of marginalization needs to set in to make the area a border-area.

States are never finite in terms of material, economic or institutional constraints that inform their boundaries, but rather constantly evolving through intra-state negotiations about structure, gov-ernance and authority as well as intra-border region negotiations over sovereignty and territoriali-ty. While on the level of states this issue is resolved on a different scale, in the case of bottom-up dynamics this needs to happen on the intra-regional, inter-regional and intra-state and inter-state scale, to accurately depict which factors influenced in what way the resolution of different con-cepts of territoriality in case of clashes and overlaps – galactic polity model, Neo-Confucian cen-tralism, tributary states and unchartered territory – against the backdrop of drastically different experiences and views on statehood and borders. To some degree the borderland is a derivative of the state building process but given that it is in the case of the Southeast-Asian-Chinese border not an unchartered territory, it needs to be seen as an entity in its own right, that possesses its own ability to act, and whose marginal position in the state-structures is not an imposition but the out-come of a complex social, political and economic interplay between and among the region(s) and central state(s). This part will introduce a systemic approach combining the dimensions of inter-state, intrainter-state, inter-region and intra-region relations, which will be the basis in the continuing analysis of the development of the borderlands as to what degree border-regions acted to become marginalized in the state structure and what roles they managed to appropriate that deviate from the orthodox understanding of the borderlands. It is inevitable given the geographic scope of this thesis to also take a closer look on how the Zomia-idea will fit into this. I argue that the agency embodied in the bottom-up approach allows to reconcile the territoriality-marginalization-approach in connection with statehood and inter-state politics with Zomia as border areas are able act and react to developments in this network of power relations on every scale they are being part of, impacting territorialization efforts, thickness of governance and penetration of adminis-trative practices, while navigating global trends and dependencies as world-regions in their own right.

This interplay is not just an ad-hoc picture of the border-situation but the result of deep socio-historical processes, in which the area embraced or resisted the border, the incorporation into the

territorial state, the penetration of the lowland societies and their practices and the territorializa-tion efforts (HEYMAN 2012, 48). The questerritorializa-tion is therefore how to bring this evoluterritorializa-tion into a model that takes into account the situation on the ground and the multifaceted interplay with state, regional and global systemic influences, that account for the non-linear evolution of the border.

HEYMAN (2012, 48, 54) describes the bottom-up sociohistorical process as the interplay of three inheritances: cultural lineage that has hybridized with subsequent state culture, mixture of two preexisting cultural formations and polarization in which cultures are established as opposites by their interaction. The problem with this approach is that while it considers the bottom-up nature of territorialization and border-setting through interaction, it assumes a natural process, like an osmosis, omitting the relations that steer such an evolution. By doing so, the outcome is inevita-ble and only dependent on the basic cultural parameters that are meeting in the area, stripping the border-area – and the state for that matter – of a substantial agency to interact in power-relations, opt-in or refuse the border-situation and choose between a wide range of transnational relations to further their own aims: forces that draw a space into a territory are not uni-linear vectors of pene-tration, but rather an array of multiple directions of mutual influence, through which the bottom is enabled to direct its interests upwards and doesn‘t remain passive (MOSTOV 2008, 23; CANEY 2005, 31, 149; SCOTT 2009, 8-9).

In terms of the political economy of state-building, this means that the nearly universal course of states to start from capitalist production, which informs nationalism and later forges a national state, that claims sovereignty and independence, territorialization is not only a function of pene-tration of this mode of production – together with other factors – but also of how they are re-ceived, accepted or resisted in a border-area, as they go hand in hand with a monopolization of means of coercion, standardization of political and administrative governance practices and also the sometimes forced introduction of cultural markers. However, hardly any state until the estab-lishment of the post-World War II order was as strong at the border as it was at its core, meaning that political and symbolic power wasn‘t strong or attractive enough to get accepted by the people living in these areas. Rather, geographical limits were ill-defined, jurisdictions overlapped and practices were informed by many different cultural inheritances thanks to a lot of options, while state-power needed to compete with, adapt to and accept the realities that were set by the local situation, and using indirect ways through elites or other privileged groups to penetrate the area.

That‘s the way how China for example swallowed Yunnan, making it a border region while be-fore it was a multicultural hub with global relations. Territorial expansion therebe-fore is a matter of

principle, while territorial fixity a matter of self-determination. Both however happen in spaces with their own aims and principles, and need to interact and balance each other for achieving a border. Territorialization and bordering is in this sense partly a civilizing mission of the unruly hinterlands, partly a show of force, partly proselyting efforts to spread advanced governance and technology, but always a confrontation and interaction with already existing structures and forms of governance, that carve out their own influence in this process through alliances, taking ad-vantages of overlaps and conflicts (O‘DOWD 2012, 161; cf. TAN 2004, 100, 104-105, 111).

ANDERSON (2012, 140-142) points out how state-territoriality is not only a top-down approach but also driven by bottom-up factors that shape in their own way the acceptance of space-control and classification of territory in terms of what or who can cross and what or who belongs to the territory. Lines might be drawn in a top-down way, but the policing of these borders and their le-gitimacy depend on the social meanings attributed to them by those who are affected the most by finding a role within the new state-territoriality. What he proposes is therefore a multiple track approach of political integration and consolidation in the form of nationalism – the top-down component – complemented by an economic bottom-up component whose acceptance is at the basis of the formative process leading to territoriality, while rejection undermines this process.

Both of them are not independent from each other but mutually constituting, so that economic bottom-up integration and participation in the state furthers political top-down consolidation of the territory. An example would be the tributary systems of Myanmar in the 16^th to 18^th century, out of which political integration formed the pre-colonial state under one dynasty, using econom-ic attraction – bottom-up – for exploitation and territorialization – top-down. This separation of top-down and bottom-up approaches are useful for the territorialization efforts, as it allows di-minishing local agency through accepting an attractive model while furthering the state‘s goals.

Also, it can by varied from depoliticized economic laissez-faire as the widest separation possible to almost no separation in economies with state-owned-enterprises, allowing for an adaptation towards a model that its attractive enough for being accepted at the margins (DOORNBOS 2006, 43-44;SCOTT 2009, 91, 334; STURGEON 2005, 463-465).

Given the bottom-up chain of power-transmission through agency of the border-region itself, this region is not only influenced by the state but also has impacts on state-building processes that are reflected at the border. Nanzhaos‘s behavior towards the Tang-Dynasty deeply influenced the state-consolidation and institution building even after its fall and re-construction as Dali, not only

regarding power-relations but also the acceptance and spreading of knowledge and religions and trade (CHANG 2015, 245; GOH 2010, 142-143; YANG 2008b, 17, 19).

Given that, these interactions are not only based on economic terms and power relations but also intraregional influences and factors mutually impinging on and creating central-periphery rela-tions. The border-region can act on its own as an agent vis-à-vis the center but for some reason is made a peripheral region. The key to analyse the question from a bottom-up perspective of why it became marginalized and did not stay or become an entity in its own right is an understanding of how the constrained fluidity in interregional, intraregional, inter-state and intra-state is affected and shaped by what set of actors, how these actors can be identified in maneuvering the interplay of economic, political, social including institutional, administrative and bureaucratic factors and what actions and motivations finally marked the step of this region becoming a border-region.

On a more granular level of analysis, the regional attitude towards accumulation and leveraging of power and capital, ideas on land rights and use of resources, and the interplay of accepting or refusing to be incorporated into the state through bureaucratic, ritualistic, administrative and in-stitutional practices play an important role with regard to popular mobilization and mediation of these factors for the purpose of territorialization. Outside the Westphalian context of pre-colonial Southeast Asia this also means, that the inclusion and marginalization of the border area didn‘t happen in a linear way but rather in a constant expansion and retreat of spheres of the state, caused by the different modalities of territorialization and state-organization. The Mandate of Heaven, the Galactic Polity model and different administrative structures waxed and waned in this region, modulating their reach and intensity given the situation on the ground between grant-ing laissez-faire autonomy and dogmatic integration. I argue that based on the waxgrant-ing and wan-ing of territorial reach as a function of top-down power relations, the quality and intensity of this penetration of the area as a function of bottom-up interaction with states and polities, depends on the nature of the interaction between these models in the area, that is mediated through interac-tions between local population, regional elites and the ruling class of the state. The outcome de-pends on the nature and purpose of singular clashes that cement certain relationships and eventu-ally led to the marginalization of the region as a border-region.

According to BAUD/VAN SCHENDEL (1997, 229-230; cf. HENRIKSON 2011, 86) this pattern is a double set of actors and relation on both sides of the emanating border, as the society in a border region deals with two different states, claiming sovereignty over two halves of the border-land and providing opt-in and opt-out options for either side. To materialize their claims, the state

needs to leap into the organization of the borderland societies and their elites, convinces them of the attractiveness of becoming a part of the state and provides services that would make them perpetually opt for belonging to it as a part of the constant reproduction of the border and mar-ginalization of the area as a borderland.

Graph 2: Model of social interactions across the border area (cf. BAUD/VAN SCHENDEL 1997, 219)

At the same time, given that there is not only one option, the relations of the state to the elite and the populations are under a strain as the state needs to constantly assure their status as border-land society to show control over its part of the borderborder-land, while this assuring needs to be ac-cepted by the people or constructed through economic or coercive means by the state (STA-NILAND 2012, 249). The agency of the border societies and the different capacities of the state to integrate the territory depending on its internal organization provide for either rebellious or quiet situations on each half of the border, leading to four different scenarios:

Center A Center B

Periphery B Periphery

A

Borderland 1 Borderland 2

Quiet Quiet

Quiet Rebellious

Rebellious Quiet

Rebellious Rebellious

Table 1: Possible constellations of internal situations of states at the border

When different state-building projects compete, such as a state in the cycle of territorial expan-sion meets a polity in its own process of consolidation, the spatial intersection of these projects can cause instability at the border, making it rebellious or also outright violent. Antagonisms are reactivated and divisions pronounced – often as a rationalization and externalization of the con-flicts within the state itself. A border area is therefore a set of alternatives how to govern and how to create a state with the power to disrupt core-state interests and to shift the balance of economic and political power in its own interest in cycles of peace and rebellion (O‘DOWD 2012, 165-166).

The border between Southeast Asia and China went through all these stages in different cycles.

While the Myanmar-Nanzhao-border was at relative peace due to stable tributary relations and a degree of state consolidation that didn‘t impact much on the social fabric of the borderland, the Vietnam-China border was unruly on both sides given the demise of the Tang-dynasty and the independence of the country – also promulgated by Nanzhao who kept its border to Vietnam in peace. Later, the Tay Son-uprising made the Vietnamese side of the Chinese-Vietnamese border unruly, yet the rest of the borders were quiet on both sides (YANG 2008a, 1, 10, YANG 2008b, 25; cf. DUTTON 2006). While the cycles were not interlocked on all sides, but to some degree influenced each other, the pattern of influence of bottom-up and top-down impacts is individual for every single border-society and depends on how the state on either side expands and contracts, and how much the expansion and attempts at integration interrupts preexisting patterns and

While the Myanmar-Nanzhao-border was at relative peace due to stable tributary relations and a degree of state consolidation that didn‘t impact much on the social fabric of the borderland, the Vietnam-China border was unruly on both sides given the demise of the Tang-dynasty and the independence of the country – also promulgated by Nanzhao who kept its border to Vietnam in peace. Later, the Tay Son-uprising made the Vietnamese side of the Chinese-Vietnamese border unruly, yet the rest of the borders were quiet on both sides (YANG 2008a, 1, 10, YANG 2008b, 25; cf. DUTTON 2006). While the cycles were not interlocked on all sides, but to some degree influenced each other, the pattern of influence of bottom-up and top-down impacts is individual for every single border-society and depends on how the state on either side expands and contracts, and how much the expansion and attempts at integration interrupts preexisting patterns and