Frontier Livelihoods

"A powerful ethnography of economics that reaches deep into local and regional economies and histories, tracing the pathways of key products made and traded."—Magnus Fiskesjo, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"[This] important contribution . . . provides new insights into borderlands and everyday politics of ethnic minorities in the Southeast Asian Massif."—Alexander Horstmann, SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia

"Provides a vivid description of a myriad of activities in the everyday lives of Hmong on the fringes as they make their living in the sectors of agriculture, livestock transactions, locally distilled alcohol, cardamom, and the textile trade."—Nguyen Thi Le, Southeast Asian Studies

"A highly readable and informative account of local economies under pressure from both market and state forces. This is a wonderful record of the realities of everyday decision-making among an ethnic minority in the borderlands between two socialist nation-states, presenting the full complexity of social and cultural contexts in which livelihood decisions are taken. It shows a diversity of indigenous responses to modernization, and will shed new light on our understandings of the workings of local agency at the margins of power and domination."—Nicholas Tapp, Australian National University