ofthe SAME TREE

Conclusion
Framing the Southeast Asian
Past in Ethnic Terms
A
well-established principle in ethnic theory is that ethnicity
only emerges when one community encounters a
distinct other. Such encounters produce separate ethnic
affiliations that are identified by a name given by their members and/or a
name imposed by outsiders. These ethnic names, however, do not determine
their membership for all times. At some historical point a name attached to
an ethnic community may incorporate a different membership because of
the tendency for ethnic groups to redefine themselves periodically to maximize
their advantage. Ethnic labels often survive, but they may represent an
expanded or more restricted membership in accordance with the times and
circumstances. Even the most isolated communities have undergone this process,
albeit more slowly and less spectacularly, because of the need to maintain
a specific lifestyle for survival in difficult ecological conditions or to facilitate
the gathering and export of products for international trade. Ethnicity, therefore,
is far more than simply a form of identification; it is also a protective
mechanism that is readily invoked to assure the well-being of the group. When
a community redefines itself in ethnic terms, certain practices and beliefs are
declared sacred traditions, old cultural heroes are reaffirmed and new ones
proposed, values are reinterpreted, and membership is restructured.
Social scientists have long acknowledged this process in ethnic formation,
but historians have been slow to appreciate its implications for the interpretation
of Southeast Asian history. If ethnic labels, membership, and even
attributes undergo change as a result of significant encounters with the other,
then it becomes necessary for historians to examine much more critically who
we mean when we write about a specific ethnicity in the past. Southeast Asian
history has been shaped to a considerable extent by an emphasis on ethnic
struggles: the Mons against the Tai and the Burmese, the Khmer against the
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