Opium interdiction projects have dominated Thai state interactions with northern upland ethnic minority peoples since the 1970s. One of these projects, the Sam Muen Highland Development Project (SMHDP), had great success in ending opium production. This success emerged out of the participation of the most peripheral peoples in international drug markets, the producers. To understand why Lisu villagers cooperated with the Project, I examine how state power was realized through its practice in the village through the Project. Lisu had tactics and strategies available to them. They strategically adapted through household and kinship practices. They tactically cooperated through the use of Project discourse and the performance of cooperation. Participatory drug interdiction was not just a “new tyranny”; it opened up new political processes at the microlevel. However, Lisu villagers’ tactics for regaining local power were constrained by the global processes of drug control.
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