The characteristic mobility of highland populations in Southeast Asia relied to a large extent on their particular adaption to an ecological environment: swidden cultivation of tubers on mountain slopes. This ecology corresponded to cosmologies in which potency was limitless, or at least had no fixed and delimited precinct (as did the rice paddies and Buddhist realms in the valleys). Military state building, modern transport, and new crops and agricultural technologies have effectively ended swidden cultivation. In this article, I follow the pioneers of the plantation economy in the Wa State of Myanmar, who dispossess local populations of their land and employ them as plantation labour. The limits of growth and potency they encounter are (a) in the natural environment and (b) in the resistance of local populations. Yet, even though there are such limits, the potency to which these pioneers aspire is still limitless. It is however channelled through a new economy of life, epitomised in the plantation, nourished in excessive feasting, and maintained by the kinship dynamics of capture and care.

中文翻译：

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种植园经济的先驱：缅甸佤邦的军国主义、剥夺和增长限制

东南亚高地种群的特征流动在很大程度上依赖于他们对生态环境的特殊适应：在山坡上散播块茎。这种生态对应于宇宙论，其中效力是无限的，或者至少没有固定和划定的区域（就像山谷中的稻田和佛教领域一样）。军事国家建设、现代交通、新作物和农业技术有效地结束了荒耕。在这篇文章中，我跟随缅甸佤邦种植园经济的先驱们，他们剥夺了当地人口的土地，并将他们作为种植园劳动力。他们遇到的增长和效力的限制是（a）自然环境和（b）当地人口的抵抗力。然而，即使有这样的限制，这些先驱者渴望的效力仍然是无限的。然而，它通过一种新的生活经济进行引导，集中体现在种植园中，在过度的盛宴中得到滋养，并由捕获和照顾的亲属动态维持。