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"No longer far from the ruler:" A "then and now" portrayal of the indigenous Lisu 

of Mainland Southeast Asia and Southwest China 

 

Review by Micah F. Morton, Ph.D. 
 

The Lisu: Far From the Ruler 

By Michele Zack 

University Press of Colorado, 2017 

 

Like other indigenous peoples the world over, the Lisu of Mainland Southeast Asia and Southwest 

China have experienced profound changes in their lives during the past twenty odd years. The Lisu, a 

Tibeto-Burman speaking group of some 1.5 million people, are adapting to those changes in ways that, 

while leading to new and emergent ways of being "Lisu," nevertheless maintain a uniquely "Lisu" 

disposition or habitus grounded in a strong sense of being "independent," "egalitarian," "hard working," 

and "self-employed." Situated across the borders of three nation states undergoing dramatic political, 

economic, and sociocultural transformations - namely China, Myanmar, and Thailand - Lisu, regardless 

of where they reside, are being strongly impacted by and adapting to situations in which they can no 

longer live "far from the ruler." 

 

In each of those national contexts, Lisu are adapting to a situation in which the state is exerting an 

increasingly significant presence in the form of expanding transportation and telecommunication 

infrastructures and direct rather than indirect control. Along with restrictions on land use, land scarcity, 

and population pressure, Lisu increasingly find themselves in a situation where they can no longer 

follow their age old tradition of "voting with their feet," the quintessential means by which they have 

maintained their "independent" and "egalitarian" nature. Lisu are further engaging in new and emergent 

forms of global connectivity, which have spurred a trans-regional Lisu identity movement. 

 

In short, the Lisu are a people that, while "no longer on the move" spatially, maintain a migratory 

outlook or ethos that helps them adapt to and make the best of the many changes occurring in their 

everyday lives and surrounding environments. Through it all, they have asserted and will continue to 

assert a distinct Lisu identity grounded in a fiercely independent, egalitarian, and hardworking mindset 

that can be found among Lisu regardless of national context and religious affiliation. These are the 

main arguments made by Michele Zack in The Lisu: Far From the Ruler. 

 

Zack is a journalist that first began studying the Lisu in the early 1990s, initially in North Thailand, and 

later in North Myanmar and Southwest China. During that period, Zack argues, the Lisu were able to 

follow their "traditional live-far-from-the-ruler playbook." Following a roughly twenty year hiatus from 

"Lisu country," she returned in 2014 to find that Lisu had undergone dramatic changes due to their 



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increasing entanglements in both the "state-dominated worlds they (now) inhabit" and today's 

increasingly globalized world. In brief, Zack argues that due to those changes, the Lisu are no longer 

able to "live far from the ruler." Her accessible and engaging text offers a "then and now" look at the 

Lisu that is variably travelogue, memoir, and ethnography. It will appeal to a wide spectrum of readers 

interested in Mainland Southeast Asia and Southwest China, indigenous peoples, cultural change, 

religion, the state, and globalization. 

 

Zack frames her "then and now" thematic focus in relation to the burgeoning scholarship on "Zomia," 

arguing that "Lisu custom.....provides an alternate road map to living together cooperatively that clearly 

privileges egalitarian and individualist values over hierarchical ones" (p. 224). "Zomia" refers to a 

"non-state" space traversing the mountainous borderlands of Mainland Southeast Asia, Southwest 

China, and South Asia inhabited by supposedly anarchic ethnic groups, such as the Akha, Hmong, and 

Lisu, that have, until recently, actively avoided being burdened by and incorporated into lowland states. 

 

In terms of structure, the text is divided into two parts that largely adhere to the theme of "then and 

now." The first part offers a portrayal of "the Lisu" in classical anthropological style with each sub-

chapter covering different aspects of Lisu culture, such as "Mythic Origins," "Migration," and 

"Childhood: Learning by Doing." In those sub-chapters, however, Zack relies heavily on the earlier 

scholarship of a number of anthropologists, missionaries, and colonial officials. As a result, part one at 

times reads like a dry secondary report on "the Lisu." In addition, Lisu from Thailand figure 

prominently in part one. This is due to the fact that most English-language scholarship on the Lisu to 

date focuses on Thailand. 

 

Zack claims, however, that she has written the first ever English-language book focusing on the larger 

Lisu country of North Thailand, North Myanmar, and Southwest China. While she achieves that goal in 

the larger text, Zack's heavy reliance in part one on scholarship pertaining to Lisu in Thailand is 

problematic. First, the Lisu in Thailand today are a small minority on a regional scale, comprising 

roughly 50,000 people compared to 400,000 in Myanmar, and 700,000 in China. Second, most Lisu in 

Thailand are non-Christian "animists," unlike Lisu in China and Myanmar who are largely Protestant 

Christians. The impact of Christian conversion on Lisu culture is a major theme in the text. 

 

Last, the Lisu in Thailand today have migrated the furthest and the most when compared to other Lisu 

in the region. This leaves me to wonder if Zack's emphasis on the Lisu in general as a people on the 

move forever seeking to live "far from the ruler" applies more to Lisu in Thailand rather than Lisu as a 

whole. Zack's incredulity upon learning of a 400-500 year old Lisu village in Southwest China suggests 

that her representations of Lisu history and culture may be skewed more by her observations in 

Thailand rather than in the greater Lisu country. The latter finding further complicates Zack's portrayal 

of the Lisu as the quintessential "Zomians." 

 

Part two of the book, entitled "The Lisu by Country: Contemporary Sketches," offers a richer, more 

intimate portrayal of Lisu culture via a string of vignettes and ethnographies of the particular drawing 

on Zack's experiences in the multi-sited field of Lisu country. My favorite chapter in part two is the one 

on Thailand, not because I know that particular context the best, but because in its pages Zack and her 

interlocutors really come alive. The range of individuals whose life stories are featured in that chapter 

vividly illustrates the diverse issues facing Lisu and other upland minorities in Thailand today (i.e. 

citizenship and land rights, drug addiction, poverty, discrimination, and cultural loss) as well as the 

strategies they are pursuing in grappling with those issues. In addition, the chapters on Myanmar and 

China shed much needed light on some of the ways in which certain Lisu in those countries perceive of 



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and are positioning themselves relative to the dramatic economic, sociocultural, and, in the case of 

Myanmar, political changes taking place locally, regionally, and nationally. 

 

One limitation I found with the text, however, is how Zack deals with the issue of the relationship 

between culture and religion, given that the vast majority of Lisu today are Protestant Christians. She 

argues that for Lisu Christians, "culture is  bigger than religion," and that religious conversion has only 

impacted some aspects of traditional Lisu identity as (Protestant) Christians no longer raise pigs for 

feasting but rather for the market, and no longer consume alcohol and cigarettes. Zack overlooks earlier 

scholarship on highland Southeast Asia arguing that for many upland minorities "religious" conversion 

is understood and experienced as an "ethno-religious" conversion process involving the adoption of a 

new collective identity grounded more in practices than beliefs. A few "animist" Lisu from Thailand 

featured in the text express the latter view via their assertions that Christian converts "no longer do as 

we do." I also find Zack's claim that Christian Lisu are doing more to preserve Lisu culture than non-

Christian "animists" troubling and am uneasy with her use of the label "animists" for Lisu 

Traditionalists. 

 

Micah F. Morton is an Associate Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in 

Singapore and an Associate Researcher in the Center for Trans-Himalayan Studies at the Yunnan 

Nationalities University in China. His research and publications focus on transnationalism, state-

minority relations, social movements, religion and politics, ethnicity and nationalism, and the politics 

of indigeneity in Mainland Southeast Asia and Southwest China. He recently published an article in 

American Anthropologist entitled "Reframing the Boundaries of Indigeneity: State-based ontologies 

and assertions of distinction and compatibility in Thailand." 

 

 

 

 

 

© 2018 Micah Morton 


