Date of Award
4-2014
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Anthropology
First Advisor
Dr. Vincent Lyon-Callo
Second Advisor
Dr. Kristina Wirtz
Third Advisor
Dr. LouAnn Wurst
Keywords
Laos, biography, Vietnam War, oral history, Laotian Civil War
Access Setting
Masters Thesis-Open Access
Abstract
Employing oral history methodology, this research project was presented in the form of a biography. The focus was a humanistic approach to understanding the effects of civil war tlirough a first-person account of the lived experience. Through examination of the life history narrative of an immigrant refugee who survived the Laotian Civil War, the war itself is explored from a personal perspective as well as other issues relevant to refugeeism and immigration in America including policy, citizenship, identity, family, acculturation, and transnationalism.
By personalizing war through the voice of one who experienced it, a new perspective arises; not only are the events themselves understood at the livedexperience level, but a single, unique recollection of these events adds tremendous dimension to the statistical data available on the aforementioned topics. Situating a biographical narrative at the nucleus of a historical event also offers texture to existing historiographical accounts.
Recommended Citation
Niltasuwan, Patrice M., "Piles of Salt: A Narrative of Civil War, Refugeeism, and Sociopolitical Transnationalism" (2014). Masters Theses. 493.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/493