Pierre Petit and Jean Michaud, ⁠eds. Chasing Traces: History and Ethnography in the Uplands of Socialist Asia. University of Hawai‘i Press, 2024. 311 pages, 15 photographs, 7 maps, 10 tables. Hardcover, $70.00; paperback, $28.00.

Chasing Traces: History and Ethnography in the Uplands of Socialist Asia is a reflexive examination of the challenging task of writing history related to contemporary ethnographic projects done in the uplands of the Southeast Asian massif, particularly the socialist states of Vietnam, China, and Laos. In eleven chapters, readers are presented with “inside stories” of how archival work and fieldwork on oral history is conducted as the authors intimately share their experiences with “chasing traces” of local histories in contexts that have often proven inaccessible or situations in which no written (or otherwise logged) data exists.

Editors Pierre Petit and Jean Michaud, both well-known for their long-term work on the region’s local cultures, lay out ten issues in the introduction, which they assert have become even more relevant with the challenges that persist from the COVID-19 era, and serve as a charter for the volume: 1) the “Duty of Remembrance” and how scholars relate to and relate the past, all within the post- (or sometimes neo-) colonial contexts of the region; 2) the “incidental” writing of “regressive” (9) or “instrumental” (10) histories by ethnographers of various sorts (social scientists, especially anthropologists) as much needed context for understanding present social situations and understanding cultural practices; 3) the assertion that histories constructed by the contributors follow an “iterative” process built on multiple, often uneven or incomplete sources, complicated by institutional and political factors; 4) the lack of history from “below” and the recognition of alternate histories, such as genealogical or mythical ones; 5) issues with gender and writing about the past; 6) the “legacies of war and violence” in the fraught region; 7) the interplay of “local stories” and “national metanarratives,” often along the divides of lowland/upland or upriver/downriver (though those dichotomies are sometimes challenged in the chapters); 8) legacies of “revolutionary destruction” and the “glorification of national heritage,” as best-exemplified by the “buy in” to “intangible cultural heritage” and ethnic tourism, common bedfellows in Southwest China; 9) the concerns of “reflexivity and positionality,”; and 10) ethics. All the authors have produced extensive research in their respective areas, but these chapters tend to dwell less on research results than the personal stories behind those results, focusing on process and positionality from differing perspectives. Several chapters discuss learning curves and strategies for gaining access and rapport, as well as revelatory experiences when the playbook is discarded in favor of realities on the ground.

In chapter 1, Christian C. Lentz employs “methodological reflection” (33) to describe the process of realizing connections between his work in the National Archives of Vietnam and how a chance invitation to the rooftop to examine a broken air conditioner led to a vista view of the city and its transport connections to the countryside. This event led to fieldwork visits entwined with the archival research within a “contrapuntal research design” with “iterative knowledge production” (34–35). As in several other chapters, the importance of understanding and participating in local notions of “reciprocity” were key in building rapport and gaining access. In chapter 2, Jean Michaud ventures to rethink productive uses for the “incidental” (53) ethnographies created by untrained French military officers in Upland Tonkin (in northern Vietnam) once ignored by modern ethnographers, offering sample traces of this fragmented work within the archives and insights into his positionality. Magnus Fiskesjö’s chapter 3 gives a concise account of Wa history in the Sino-Burmese borderlands, drawing on Wa myth-epic traditions and British, Chinese, and Burmese sources in changing social contexts. Highlighting the overlooked importance of the former “skull avenues” (87) as chronological markers of Wa warrior encounters, Fiskesjö argues such material memorials can be “fertile foundation for historical memory” (ibid.), to cultural insiders, though illegible to outsiders.

In chapter 4, Pierre Petit explores the relations between orality and history among the Tai Vat—a subsection of Black Tai (103)—of the Houay Yong valley of Laos, an interest piqued by local history as told by a tradition-bearer named Thaaboun. Vanina Bouté, in chapter 5, offers insights into working with the minimal written resources and memories “not equally shared by all” of locals in local societies in Laos. Many of the author’s insights concerning discrepancies between past and present records, confusion of names, dealing with diverse “snippets” of information in attempts at fuller pictures, attempts at even gaining access to records of various periods (indigenous and colonizing governments), and suspicions of village folk resonate with experiences of many contemporary ethnographers of the region both within this volume and among the many not included. In chapter 8, Vatthana Pholsena explores the relations of personal life histories of persons of Phouthai and Brou “ethnic origins” (214) and the legacies of the Vietnam War in Laos.

Sylvie Beaud’s chapter 6 on the Guan Suo Opera folk drama tradition of some Han communities in Yunnan province “pulled out all the stops” (157) to utilize diverse print and oral sources from “folk almanacs” purchased in local markets, to interviews with local actor/participants, to writings of specialists outside China. Chapter 7 by Ming-ke Wang reflexively explores issues of ethnic identity of the Qiang and Rma peoples, complicated by ancient historical records and the official status of the present Qiang ethnic minority group. The author explains the need for a “multi-site” (178–82) strategy and reflects on ethics and positionality. Chapter 9 by Pascale-Marie Milan offers insights into “backstage” fieldwork on life stories and oral traditions among the Na (Mosuo) people around Lake Lugu in Southwest China, juxtaposing the data with layered narratives of the state and tourist trade.

In chapter 10, Sarah Turner and Sarah Delisle describe experiences of what could be called cultural sustainability oral history projects among Hmong youth and elders in Upland Northern Vietnam, producing a historical narrative in a “multistep collaborative process” (253) conducted by “two white women researchers” (262) engaging in fieldwork. Gabor Vargyas, in chapter 11, relates how a self-described “Eastern bloc European anthropologist” confronts the tortuous difficulties of interviewing a distinguished Bru man in Vietnam in the late 1980s, which resulted in an eighteen-hour personal narrative (still unpublished due to ethical concerns, as described in detail) in a society with “almost a total lack of historical remembrance,” though having a “highly developed cult of the dead and ancestors” (278–79). This penultimate chapter provides anecdotal experiences with two socialist states which often reverberate with (and magnify) accounts of process and positionality throughout the book.

The diverse insights of this groundbreaking and instructive volume will resonate within other fieldwork contexts where “chasing traces” is a reality of the research.