Orphans of Empire: Divided Peoples, Dilemmas of Identity, and Old Imperial Borders in East and Southeast Asia
Author(s)
Cribb, Robert; Narangoa, Li
Abstract
The creation of new states out of the remnants of 19th- and 20th-century empires split the populations of Mongols, Lao, and Malays between, in each case, an ethnic “homeland” and another host country. The experience of Mongolian-Chinese, Lao-Thai, and Malay-Indonesian relations during the second half of the 20th century illustrates three factors that prevented close relations within ethnic groups divided across national borders: international strategic considerations, cultural dynamics in the separated communities, and the role of programmatic nationalism as an alternative to ethnic nationalism.
