On the unity of types: Lao gambling, ethno-metapragmatics, and generic and specific modes of typification

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn Luang Prabang, Laos, pétanque players distinguish two types of gambling: ‘gambling for beer’ and ‘gambling for money’. They readily and vividly contrast these types in abstraction but are more circumspect about identifying actual games as instances of one kind or another. In this article, I trace how players use these types in two modes of typification—as generics and specifics—and articulate a new way to approach similar salient and ideologically weighty ‘ethno-metapragmatic terms’, which can appear messy and unwieldy. I argue that pulling apart these modes of typification clarifies how and why people use such terms for social action, and where anyone studying them—or the types that are thought to underly them—should begin. (Generic reference, specific reference, typification, social types, explicit/implicit, metapragmatics, linguistic anthropology, Laos)*