Social Relations

Social relations are key to understanding the identity and becoming of persons in Laos. They involve kinship and relationships beyond kinship, state-society relations, take place within social spaces and often include lively interaction with invisible entities such as ancestor spirits. This chapter reflects the main lines of inquiry within anthropological studies of Laos and ethnographic accounts concerned with particular moments and facets of social relations. The first part explores the spatial dimensions of social relations and discusses the production of social spaces by looking at the role of pillars, houses and public spaces in Laos. Second, the chapter addresses the intersection of sociality and political ties, touches upon workplace interaction among government workers and explores how Laotians try to ‘socialise’ with the state. Finally, a life-cycle perspective on kinship is taken by zooming in on selected moments in people’s kinship lives, notably birth, marriage and death.