In this chapter I focus on the Akha construction of spatio-political totalities in a regional context, especially in relation to discussions of the ‘cosmic polity’ in lowland Southeast Asia. I bring rarely drawn attention to the similarities in upland and lowland spatial practices. I claim that a similar set of spatial codes can be used in alternative and resistant ways to index different political interests and to construct alternative polity forms, including nonstate forms. I return us to the examples of Akha reversals of lowland hierarchies that we have seen in both the village and inside/outside spirit chanting chapters, and to the examples of household reversals of village hierarchies that appeared in the household chapter.

Through these discussions, I provide a critique of previous models of the Southeast Asian premodern ‘cosmic polity’. I will argue that the ‘mandala’ and other spatialized concepts associated with the ‘cosmic polity’ in Southeast Asia (such as ‘exemplary center’ and ‘sinking status’, ‘galactic polity’, ‘concentric circles’, ‘nested emboxment’, etc.) are key concepts with a similar form that have dominated theories of premodern Southeast Asian political and social structure. I claim that previous approaches to the mandala polity have been defined from the perspective of dominant political groups, and thus are top-down or centerout models. As a result, theorists have inadvertently reified this perspective in a set of analytical concepts that reaffirm existing power structures. As such, they have skewed our understandings of the mandala away from that of a socially enacted set of spatial codes that communicate and index hierarchical status between individuals and groups, both dominant and nondominant.

Reynolds (1995) has called for a critical reassessment of how we view the past in Southeast Asia, including our view of the Southeast Asian ‘state’. He suggests that the elitist models of the Southeast Asian state that exist derive from colonialist and nationalist attempts to create a ‘noble past’ and justify themselves, and postcolonial attempts to create an ‘authentic’ Southeast Asia. Citing Scott, Reynolds (439) also points out that the source materials available on early states are elitist and textual. Again, echoing Scott (Scott 1992: 7), Reynolds sees these previous models as too static, eliminating conflict (1995, 427, 439).