| Abstract: |
In 1894 the French established 'Commercial Agencies' in the upper-Mekong Siamese towns of Chiang Khong and Chiang Saen. In the following years the various French officials posted to these agencies attempted to exert significant influence over the political, economic and social lives of these frontier districts. This paper explores the ways in which these interventions, and the Siamese responses, imbued the Mekong River border between Siam and French Indochina with new sets of meanings. While cartographic demarcation was relatively straightforward, the local establishment and consolidation of the borderline involved ongoing negotation and dialogue. These local dealings generated forms of colonial administration and territorial discourse that were, in many cases, quite different to those promoted by the centres of colonial power. The paper shifts attention away from state-focused processes of treaty making and border delineation towards the local processes of negotiation, through which new understandings of the border emerged. From this perspective, the formal demarcation and mapping of the border can be seen as the beginning of a process of dialogue rather than its endpoint.
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