Introduction : definition, innovation, and history / Gehan Wijeyewardene -- Language and ethnicity : the Mon in Burma and Thailand / Christian Bauer -- Thailand and the Tai : versions of ethnic identity / Gehan Wijeyewardene -- A comparative study of structure and contradiction in the Austro-Asiatic system of the Thai-Yunnan periphery / Cholthira Satyawadhna -- Ethnicity, nationalism, and the nation-state : the Karen in Burma and Thailand / Ananda Rajah -- Capitalism and the structure of Yao descent units in China and Thailand : a comparison of Youling (1938) and Pulangka (1968) / Douglas Miles -- Squatters or refugees : development and the Hmong / Nicholas Tapp -- Afterword : "ethnicity" and anthropology / Rozanna Lilley