Within and beyond the national identity? ‘Post-hill tribe’ Hmong political subjectivities in northern Thailand

Across mainland Southeast Asia, highland ethnic minority groups were divided by the demarcation of international borders. In Thailand, this coincided with rampant nation-building projects that unfolded throughout the 20th Century. These projects were highly focused on a national Thai identity, and clear demarcations of which subjects were within or beyond this 'imagined community'. The so-called ‘hill tribes’ in the country's north were labelled as outside this national identity, while other ethnic minority groups were seen as better assimilated into ‘Thai-ness’. The Hmong ethnic group has been central to this history, villainized for their ‘disloyalty’ to Thailand, history of opium production, and specific swidden agricultural practices. Demonstrating how feminist nationalism studies can better integrate considerations of history, culture, and ethnicity, I analyze the resultant subjectivities of state-making projects designed to exclude ‘Others within’. A near-century after being rendered an ‘enemy’ of the national interest, or what I call ‘post-hill tribe’ Thailand, I argue that Hmong simultaneously self-identify as non-Thai, while selectively engaging in ‘Thai-ization’. Advancing feminist political geographies of how political subjectivities are experienced in everyday life, I uncover how residents of one Hmong village negotiate their political subjectivities through clans and family names, textiles and cultural beauty, and animist-Buddhist belief systems. I argue that while the government toyed with policies aimed at assimilation and integration, Hmong individuals have chosen to embrace their non-Thai identity as a way of prefacing their strong sociocultural affinity, without forfeiting their right to exist and thrive in Thai-land.