Relative Pleasures: Drugs, Development and Modern Dependencies in Asia's Golden Triangle
Chris Lyttleton
Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia (e-mail: [email protected] ). His current research interests include the social impact of HIV and AIDS in Southeast Asia; and social change, mobility and public health vulnerability in the Upper Mekong. He has published widely on these topics, including Endangered Relations: Negotiating Sex and AIDS in Thailand (Routledge/Martin Dunitz, 2000).
Search for more papers by this authorChris Lyttleton
Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia (e-mail: [email protected] ). His current research interests include the social impact of HIV and AIDS in Southeast Asia; and social change, mobility and public health vulnerability in the Upper Mekong. He has published widely on these topics, including Endangered Relations: Negotiating Sex and AIDS in Thailand (Routledge/Martin Dunitz, 2000).
Search for more papers by this authorI am grateful to the project directors and staff of GTZ in Sing District and NCA in Long District for their generous support in facilitating this research. Research was financed by one Australian Research Council Grant and three Macquarie University Research grants; in 2003, financial support was also provided by the Rockefeller Foundation. I also wish to thank Aphu for his tireless assistance in conducting interviews over several years, and the anonymous referees of this journal for comments. Any errors in interpretation are of course my own.
Abstract
As opium cultivation is increasingly controlled in the Golden Triangle, producers and traffickers have created new markets for methamphetamines (ATS) amongst highland and lowland populations. At the same time, evolving forms of drug abuse also reflect a larger order of social change that directly shapes the consumer market. This article explores how demand for methamphetamines in mainland Southeast Asia emerges in sync with changing value systems fostered by development trajectories within a globalized commodity culture. The primary focus is on Akha highlanders in northwestern Laos for whom dual processes of opium eradication and village relocation directly encourage the currently prominent uptake of ATS. As Akha move into the lowlands to engage in modern capitalist systems of production, increased methamphetamine use emerges as a means to facilitate a greater reliance on sedentization and petty commodity trade. Rather than the uptake of heroin that took place in neighbouring countries, the transition from opium to methamphetamines is a highly charged sign of new social and material relations adopted by the Lao Akha as they enter primitive forms of capital accumulation and wage-labour.
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