"The dialectical relationship between the nation state and zones of relative autonomy isn?t unique to mainland Southeast Asia, but it is of particular salience there, demarcating the social cleavage that shapes much of the region?s history: that between hill peoples and valley peoples. It led to a process of state formation in valleys and peopling of hills, and left the latter largely absent from the historical record...‘Non-state spaces? are where the state has difficulty establishing its authority: mountains, swamps, mangrove coasts, deserts, river deltas. Such places have often served as havens of refuge for peoples resisting or fleeing the state. Only the modern state possesses the resources to bring non-state spaces and people to heel; in Southeast Asia it represents the last great effort to integrate people, land and resources of the periphery and make them contributors to the gross national product. The state might dub it ‘development?, ‘economic progress?, ‘literacy?, ‘social integration?, but the real objective is to make the economic activity of peripheral societies taxable and assessable ? to make it serve the state ? by, for example, obliging nomads or swidden cultivators to settle in permanent villages, concentrating manpower and foodstuffs. Thus the padi-state was an ‘enclosure? of previously stateless peoples: irrigated rice agriculture on permanent fields helped create the state?s strategic and military advantage. In fact, the permanent association of the state and sedentary agriculture is at the centre of this story (a story by no means confined to Southeast Asia, which this article targets). The vast ‘barbarian? periphery became a vital resource: human captives formed a successful state?s working capital. Avoiding the state used to be a real option. Today it is quickly vanishing..."