The Thai-Yunnan Project of the Australian National University

The Thai-Yunnan Project of the Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific Studies (RSPacS), Australian National University (ANU), is concerned with the study of the peoples of the border regions between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the mainland states of Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Burma). The project encompasses the study of languages, cultures, and societies of the constituent peoples as well as of their interrelations within and across national boundaries. Practicalities make it necessary to focus our immediate interests on the more southern regions of Yunnan and northern Thailand. Academic knowledge of Yunnan, particularly as represented in published Western literature, is superficial; yet in theoretical and strategic terms it is an area of great interest. Very briefly, the case for attention to this region may be reduced to three points.