Recent years have seen a highly elaborated controversy erupt within the development industry in Laos over the merit of what has been termed “resettlement”: state or development industry sponsored schemes to move poor people closer to government services or to new lowland fields. While planners argue that settlers will benefit from incorporation with the state and markets, thereby moving Laos closer to the overall goal of reducing poverty, critics argue that resettlement is in fact exacerbating poverty. Reports by international development consultants have suggested that thousands have died in resettlement villages unnecessarily. Critics suggest that all resettlement in Laos is essentially “involuntary” due to the political nature of Laos. What is more, they suggest that the motivations for resettlement include sinister-sounding attempts at “cultural integration” that are related to a fundamental misunderstanding of the value of swidden cultivation and opium production.
In an important report released in 2005, Baird and Shoemaker argued that development donors should abstain from uncritically supporting resettlement schemes. They instead praised those in the development industry who attempted to reduce resettlement by “anchor(ing)” people in place (2005:34). Baird and Shoemaker have now published a condensed (and somewhat less strident) version of their argument in the scholarly journal Development and Change 38(5):865-888 (baird-and-shoemaker-2007.pdf). This article is especially valuable for its summary of the various positions taken within the Lao development industry on the issue of resettlement. Baird and Shoemaker are particularly – and rightly – scathing of those development workers who claimed to be opposed to resettlement, yet were in fact unwitting funders of resettlement schemes (2007:879). Baird and Shoemaker challenge development workers to shed their political disengagement (either intentional or unwitting) and to face squarely the political implications of their activities.
While Baird and Shoemaker provide a valuable analysis of the development workers of Laos, their understanding of Lao settlers is less thorough. The loaded terms “indigenous”, “ethnic”, and “minority” are used to describe settler groups, despite the widely acknowledged difficulty of applying these terms to any simple sense in Laos. This language choice is, I think, part of their depiction of settlers as victims. Baird and Shoemaker’s ultimate argument is that there is no tenable distinction between “voluntary” and “involuntary” resettlement: all resettlement is essentially involuntary because the political climate in Laos allows the state to “fundamentally influence or coerce villagers to agree to the resettlement option” (2007:881). This is a significant conclusion, because other commentators, such as Rigg (2005) have found that many settlers express a personal desire for resettlement projects, or at least mixed feelings about the pros and cons of resettling. Baird and Shoemaker, by contrast, “caution against the framing of the positions of villagers as being either pro- or anti- resettlement” (2007:885) because, in their view, there is no distinction between voluntary and involuntary resettlement in Laos, no matter what settlers might say. On the back of a very brief reference to Foucault, they argue that expressions of the voluntary nature of resettlement are simply a “rationalization” of the use of power by governments (2007:882).
This depiction does not ring true with my own experiences in rural Laos. As I noted in previous New Mandala posts (here, here, here and here), I encountered many resettled Hmong in and around Vieng Say. Their accounts concurred with Baird and Shoemaker on serval points: they reported being poorer post-settlement, and they reported having limited choice in their decisions to move. But asked if they would like to move back to their pre-settlement homes, there was a unanimous and animated rejection of the idea. Resettlement had its attractions – particularly roads, schools and hospitals. But settlers felt excluded from fully utilizing these, due to their poverty. Yet, despite this exclusion, these benefits of resettlement still represented for settlers their aspirations for moving out of poverty. Many spoke of their hopes for their children in terms of education, white-collar jobs, and off-farm futures. When settlers looked to the future, their aspirations were turned steadfastly in the direction of modernity. Given this cultural milieu, Baird and Shoemaker’s call for “anchoring” such people in their original, and often remote, homes seems to run counter to local aspirations and desires. Is not the move to “anchor” itself a cultural imposition of the kind Baird and Shoemaker decry?
While conducting fieldwork in the south of Laos, I was witness to another resettlement project. This project offered land to landless farmers. Settlers were required to move to a new location. Their new houses built in a straight line beside a new road, with their new rice fields located several kilometres distant. Settlers incurred a debt with the Agricultural Promotion Bank for the cost of clearing the rice fields with a tractor, water pumps, and iron roofing. The first harvest was a disaster as the base pan had been broken by the tractor, and no residents had buffalo or machines to assist with the ploughing or harrowing. Residents were forced to rely on cutting and selling wood from the surrounding forests: an illegal practice that was tolerated by local authorities in this instance on compassionate grounds. I was moved by the suffering that I witnessed in the resettlement village, and I asked residents why they did not simply return to their old homes. Again they were resistant to the idea. They wanted to continue the experiment: perhaps yields would be better next year, and perhaps the government would forgive their debt, and perhaps the development industry would deliver on its promise of charity. Despite its all too evident drawbacks, resettlement taps into deeply held aspirations for poverty reduction and personal transformation among Lao rural residents. Many approached resettlement with a sense of cautious experimentalism, a kind of wary hopefulness. Neither notions of coercion (forced resettlement) nor consensus (voluntary resettlement) fully captures this experimental relationship with state projects. The main complaint that settlers had was not resettlement, but the services and assistance that were on hand once they got there. It was not resettlement per se, then, but the ability of government and the development industry to provide adequate support and services to new arrivals that was found objectionable.
These issues confound any attempt to define resettlement as “involuntary” or “voluntary”, and to this extent I agree with Baird and Shoemaker’s analysis. Yet, contrary to their conclusion that we must therefore collapse the distinction between the two, so that all resettlement is classed as “involuntary”, evidence from the field suggests that much of the attraction and reasoning of resettlement is found in the vast territory between coercion and consensus. In this frame, it is possible to see that resettlement is not in and of itself inherently problematic. Residents repeatedly indicated that they wanted to move, that they simply didn’t want to be “anchored” in place, or in time. They seek change. But resettled people were disappointed with the services and support present on resettlement. The role for development agencies, following this insight, is not to try to prevent change, or to turn back the clock by attempting to “anchor” people in place, but to fight the causes of poverty and inequality. It is poverty, not resettlement, that has led to the shocking rates of sickness, death and exclusion among resettled populations. In this view, the resettlement tragedy in Laos is not a cause of poverty: it is a symptom.
21 responses so far ↓
1 jonfernquest // Dec 3, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Just a suggestion about the Laos category. More finely graded categories would make it easier for people to link to issue relevant material at New Mandala.
If you had a separate category on the “new road connecting Yunnan to Chiang Khong,” it would be good. As it nears completion there are bound to be issues that arise and right now it’s a little difficult and time-consuming to find all your entries on this topic in order to link to them.
New Mandala’s critical perspective is a nice counter-balance to often one-sided business pieces (and vice-versa). IMHO encouraging debate is a good thing and doesn’t make one a “sophist” as one activist made out in a recent editorial.
2 Bak Falang // Dec 5, 2007 at 6:31 am
I feel that Holly’s analysis is right on here. I would like to add that the perspectives of Lao state agents in implementing resettlement plans may not always fall on the coercive side of the continuum that Holly describes. A deputy director of a department in the Lao Ministry of Agriculture who I know feels very strongly that these resettlement plans are good; she specifically counterposes them to problems of landlessness in places like Thailand. I remember her saying something like, “In Laos we have plenty of land, so all we need to do is just move people there if they don’t have any; in Thailand they don’t help farmers this way.” The sentiment expressed her may not fully express reality on the ground. But the point is, Lao government agents aren’t always sinister when it comes to projects like these; international development agencies are certainly not always innocent.
3 richard jackson // Dec 5, 2007 at 1:29 pm
excellent article – parallels my exprience exactly
4 Keith Barney // Dec 5, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Dear Holly:
Greetings from Toronto Canada.
I would be interested to hear more about your southern Laos case study in this instance. Why and how did the farmers you met become “landless”? Real landlessness in rural Laos is not typical situation, i.e. unlike elsewhere in SE Asia where population growth has in effect outstripped the productive capabilities of ‘customary’ village lands, or where a high degree of land consolidation has occurred through market and debt processes. Rather, a situation of landlessness in most areas of rural Laos that I know of would typically itself be a result of restrictive state zoning policies (i.e. Land and Forest Allocation), or resettlement policies, or from e.g. agri-business or hydropower concessions.
Indeed, in your New Mandala article on Vieng Xai in northern Laos, you write the following:
“The practice of classifying all land as one sort or another has become standard in contemporary Laos. This has the effect of squeezing settlement options for the poor down to a few prescribed areas. Furthermore, the practice of defining ownership in terms of “use” (and a very narrow definition of “use” at that) leaves many Hmong unable to prove a legally sanctioned authority over the upland fields that they cultivate and leave fallow, and the forest that forms an integral part of their productive activities.”
In order to have a better sense of your example and how it fits into the resettlement debate, we would need to know if the landless- resettlers in your fields site in southern Laos were “resistant” to the idea of returning to their former areas, because they had already been effectively displaced by some other government policy, program, or project.
I might note that Baird and Shoemaker also frame their critique of resettlement in Laos in the context of these other programs and policies, which *together* are resulting in an artificial, policy-induced squeeze on land availability in the countryside.
Can you expand on this local history a bit more for us?
Thanks and cheers,
Keith Barney
York University
ps: my students (and I) this year really enjoyed reading your “Sojourn” paper on solidarity and village formation processes in southern Laos. It was well written and argued, and usefully accessible for undergraduate students :~)
5 Keith Barney // Dec 5, 2007 at 4:19 pm
ps:
By my count, Baird & Shoemaker use the term “anchor/ing” only once in their 54 page Probe report ‘Aiding or Abetting’, and even here it is used in explicitly metaphorical quotes . They use the term to describe the efforts of one upland development program which is explicitly looking to manouevre around the imperatives of the GoL upland resettlement initiative by providing basic services to villages(see below).
On the other hand, High uses the term “anchor” or “anchoring” 5 times in her above short critique… as a way of suggesting that Baird and Shoemaker… are arguing that all rural Lao villagers should stay in their rural place (?)
Seems like High may be overstating the counter-critique of B & S a bit here…
sincerely,
keith barney
—————-
Aiding or Abetting (2005):
p. 44:
”
CWRWC: Based on their partner Refugee Care Netherland’s (ZOA) past work with refugee repatriation in Laos, the
INGO CRWRC concluded that it makes more sense to provide development assistance to upland villages than to
assist in their resettlement. In 2003, CRWRC negotiated a project agreement with the GoL to work with 12 remote
ethnic Hmong villages in two districts of Xieng Khouang province. One important aspect of the project is improving
access – CRWRC is funding roads, which provide the villages with vehicle access for the first time. The project sees
accessibility as a prerequisite for the marketing of new cash crops as alternatives to now-prohibited opium cultivation.
The provision of other rural infrastructure – primary schools, gravity feed water systems, etc., are also intended
to help ‘anchor’ these villages in place and make it more difficult for the GoL or other international agencies to
justify relocation. This project is still in the early stages so it is too soon to predict its long-term impact on the
intended beneficiaries. However, project staff, villagers, and local officials appear optimistic.
“
6 Holly High // Dec 6, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Bak Falang – thanks for the interesting story. I had a similar experience in Vieng Say when interviewing a Land’s Office official. He was extremely proud of the policy that allowed poor people to move on to land that was “unused” by other people. I think that “helping poor people” is an extremely important ideology among many officials in Laos. While we may question the efficacy of their policies, it is not so easy to question their intentions.
Richard Jackson – thanks for your comment too: I am sure that many New Mandala readers would be interested to hear some of your experiences, if you have a moment to write them down.
Keith, thanks for your interest, kind words, and provocations: they are truly helpful. I will deal with some of your questions one by one below.
First, the issue of landlessness. My experience in the southern lowlands is that landlessness is a problem and has been for the last thirty years. People can’t just go and clear new rice fields: every piece of land in the area has its owner, either farmers or the state. The last people who did clear new fields on the mainland are now in their fifties (perhaps there was a rush to clear new fields when the regulations started to be enforced, but I only know of one family comprising of several households in the village who did this). These people paid tax on their cleared fields each year, even if they were not using them. After paying tax, they received a receipt which served as their proof of ownership – and this could then be sold or rented. Some people are thus able to hand over such unused but “reserved” (cong wai) fields to their children as they mature into their twenties.
But for most people, this is not an option. The island itself where I was living is fully cultivated. There are forested areas on other islands and on the mainland, but people are very well aware that clearing these lands is illegal. They say that even the sound of a chainsaw will attract a fine, though obviously this is an exaggeration. The typical response is for one of the mature siblings to stay on the family plot with the parents and any immature children, while the others find work in factories, in the Boloven Plateau commercial agriculture industry, or in Thailand.
It should be noted that “the family plot” is not as stable as it sounds. Often what is seen as “the family plot” is composed of fields inherited by both the male and the female line, with all of their children technically having an equal claim on inheritance (although if the fields were divided in this way in reality, the plots would be unproductively small). I have seen disputes over inheritance emerge decades after the death of the person concerned, because although it is usually the youngest daughter who lives with aging parents and cultivating their land, this does not mean that she, upon her own death, is able to pass the land on only to her children. Instead, one or more of her siblings may emerge and demand that some of the land go to their children as well, particularly if they live in the area and are poor.
Keith, regarding your second question: yes, I agree that there is a combination of policies at play here. But I suggest that we acknowledge that these policies are responding to a situation of poverty. They are not “making” poverty in any simple sense, because poverty has many causes, and in many ways the nature and effects of these polices are shaped by this larger context of poverty. Most of the causes of poverty are well beyond the control of the Lao state. I would include among them the regimes of citizenship in nation-states that attempt to control the mobility of people, especially poor people (much more closely than they control the mobility of finance or goods). I would also include the effects of the most concerted aerial bombardment ever seen, with perhaps the exception of the bombardment of Vietnam. I also believe that the warped incentives of the medical industry are causing poverty: all jokes about Viagra aside, there are people dying of malaria, TB and dysentery in Laos. Why, as a species, are we so poor at working out a fair distribution of our medical talents? There is also the hoary old problem of debt: Laos is one of the most heavily indebted countries in the world, and much of this debt has gone towards financing the development industry. I am also moved to reflect on how our trouble-laden development industry provides a very poor second to what would be a more sincere response to poverty, premised on a global right to health care, food and shelter. Given this big picture, and these very big problems, a focus purely on the policies of land allocation and resettlement would appear as a bit of a furphy.
Finally, Keith, your point regards the idea of “anchoring”. Thanks for putting the whole paragraph up for people to consider. As I read over it again, I was still struck by the positive, even “optimistic” tones in which B&S write of this particular project. Compare it to the very critical analysis they give to projects that have supported resettlement. I think that this paragraph is an argument for a very particular response from the development industry to resettlement. And, yes, it is a response that aims itself at “anchoring”. I take your point that I have perhaps emphasized this point more clearly that B&S did, but this is the business of being an anthropologist: examining the “structures of feeling” that go so often unexamined in daily life. What I am trying to prompt here is a critical re-evaluation of the sometimes unacknowledged categories that we apply when negotiating the intercultural domain of policy and poverty.
7 Keith Barney // Dec 7, 2007 at 9:14 am
Hi again Holly:
Thanks, it was really interesting to hear more about your fieldsite and the situation with the history of landlessness in Siiphandone. And yes, as I think about it, my statement suggesting the landlessness is ‘not a typical situation in Laos’ cannot be justified- especially it would seem in the places you know best, where landlessness apparently has been an issue for over 30 years.
On the other hand, it does seem like your research example of a resettlement scheme involving landless individuals from a lowland Lao wet rice village on an island in the Mekong, moving to a mainland site which is close to a road, and which has low quality but available land, does not really serve as a useful comparison or basis for critique of Baird and Shoemaker’s criticism of state-backed resettlement policies involving moving ethnic minorities located in the uplands down to the lowlands.
As you know, state-backed, resettlement in these sites is justified by an ideology of swidden eradication, which is a long standing concern of authorities across Se Asia, but which holds little intellectual justification– especially in Laos. The resettlement schemes Baird and Shoemaker are critiquing also involve policies which have a strong undercurrent of integrating ethnic minorities into mainstream lowland Lao culture. These are also sites where the basis of rural poverty can be much more strongly linked to Chamberlain’s “new poverty” or policy-induced poverty, than is the case in Siiphandone.
So while it is very interesting to learn about your example of a state-backed resettlement effort in southern Laos, using this an a basis for critiquing Baird and Shoemaker seems something of a stretch.
It’s is a bit like comparing mangos and papayas it seems to me, if not something of a “furphy” [Which I had to google by the way- happy to have learnt a new Australianism!]
Of course part of the issue is that Laos is such an amazingly complex and varied place that one always faces the potential problem of over-extending one’s research and analysis when applying it to the country as a whole, or to (really complex) national policy questions. It’s a question of both the advantages and the limits of ethnographic research, I suppose. It’s something I am also working through with respect to my research in the Hinboun valley in Khammouane.
Anyway, I’d be interested in your thoughts. Resettlement in Laos is a really important and pressing debate, and I’m pleased to see this being identified on New Mandala.
cheers,
Keith
8 John Hall // Dec 11, 2007 at 4:41 am
It appears that Richard Jackson is a bit mixed up. After doing a little internet search, I found that he works for Oxiana Minerals in relation to their massive gold and copper mine in Xepon district, Savannakhet province. This might be why he failed to provide any details. That being the case, his comment that Holly High’s article parallels his own experiences exactly is misplaced to say the least. According to Baird and Shoemaker, resettlement associated with a project like the one he is involved with would be defined as ‘large development project oriented resettlement’, not the type of internal resettlement that they write about.
9 richard jackson // Dec 12, 2007 at 9:36 pm
A moment’s thought on John Hall’s part might have suggested to him that working at Sepon does not automatically mean that I cannot have observed the sort of internal resettlement under discussion (even if, in some circles, such an association is thought to disqualify me from being allowed to make any comment) ; and would perhaps have restrained him from positively hurling himself into a set of inaccurate conclusions. My original comment stands: a very interesting article which parallels what I have observed.
10 John Hall // Dec 13, 2007 at 9:44 am
Ok, if Richard Jackson has observed the type of internal resettlement discussed by Baird and Shoemaker elsewhere in Laos (that is, not project-related resettlement like what he has observed in relation to the Xepon mine), it would be useful if he could provide us with details of where he observed that resettlement, and in what context he observed it. Right now, his vagueness about this matter seems to suggest that my original comments were appropriate, but I could be wrong, and I would be happy if Richard Jackson could show that he does have relevant experiences.
11 richard jackson // Dec 13, 2007 at 3:28 pm
There are three forms of resettlement going on in Vilabouly District, Savanakhet, where the Sepon Mine is located. 1. Involuntary: In 2001, 23 households (five Makhong households and 18 Phou Tai) were resettled, with some success, to make way for mining operations; it is relevant that these families had settled in their locations between 1995 and 1998 against the advice of the District Government because it was known when they moved to those sites that if a mine proceeded those sites would be needed for mining purposes (government doesn’t always get its way). Since then, no similar resettlement has been necessary for mining purposes. 2. Voluntary resettlement: the improvement of roads in the District and provision (along some roads) of electricity in recent years has led to several (maybe six?) to move to roads where these run through their village lands. 3. Planned-by-government internal resettlement: The 105 villages in Vilabouly District are, according to District Government plans, in the (slow) process of being amalgamated into 19 clusters each grouped around a ’service village’ – a sort of miniaturized version of Perroux-style ‘poles de croissance’.
It will be of interest to see in Vilabouly whether type 2 wins out over type 3.
Of course, the exact nature of resettlement in Vilabouly must not, and I do not do so, be taken as typical of Lao experience elsewhere partly because mining is present and partly because of the area’s own history and mix of peoples; in the 1960s and early 70s most villages in the area were abandoned altogether and when villages reformed after the war they seemed to have relocated rather frequently. The Vilabouly situation is clearly not the same as those described by Holly High’s examples (even if her comments apply fairly well to the internal resettlement in Vilabouly to date) , those used by Baird and Shoemaker or the situation which Keith Barney examined. Each resettlement also has rather different sets of motivations among participants – resettlement of certain Hmong groups in the 1980s is unlikely to have had the same thinking behind it as resettlement in Pakse twenty years later or for the resettlement about to take place as a result of the extensions of the Nam Ngum Basin scheme ( – now there’s a case where John Hall’s use of the adjective ‘massive’ would be appropriate).
The details of resettlement always vary from one site to another even within Laos, but whatever the motivations, types of resettlement or details of individual instances, the same general issues arise world-wide. My own observations at Sepon are coloured by my observation (and occasional involvement) in resettlement elsewhere – in Guinea or its Pacific namesake- and by my having worked as a so-called resettlement specialist for lending agencies.
It is self-evident to me that, overall, any form of resettlement that isn’t initiated by the people involved themselves is something that in normal circumstances to be avoided (and even voluntary resettlement is often problematic) ; most involuntary resettlement schemes world-wide have had poor outcomes for the resettled;but that occasionally and with proper care and consultation they can improve people’s lives.This is not much of a conclusion (certainly not a novel one) and probably too vague for John Hall’s liking.
(I was not previously aware that simply by making a positive remark to an author on a site such as this, one was in danger of being called to account by a third party. I shall therefore be far more circumspect in future and never again congratulate any author appearing on New Mandala)
12 Keith Barney // Dec 14, 2007 at 7:21 am
OK John Hall– seems like it’s your turn to weigh in.
I’ve tried googling you but with no success, unless you are the John Hall on the web that has been ’serving Arizona real estate since 1974′?!
Keith
13 Ian Baird // Dec 15, 2007 at 10:24 am
Please check our response to Holly High, which has been posted on New Mandala as a separating article, dated December 14.
14 khamtham // Dec 15, 2007 at 6:10 pm
The strength of these forums is that they provide an ‘anonymous’ space for people to present their ideas and viewpoints without being chastised for them. But if someone’s only contribution to this forum is to chastise others then they should be held to account. Come on “John Hall”, post a reply.
15 John Hall // Dec 16, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I think Khamtham is misrepresenting the situation. Richard Jackson initially said that Holly High’s post “exactly” paralleled his own experiences. Since he works on project-related resettlement associated with the Xepon Mine, it was reasonable for me to question whether his experiences really did parallel Holly High’s experiences “exactly”, as he claimed. She has apparently mainly been working with lowland people (with some experiences with the Hmong in Vieng Xay), including resettlement of lowlanders in the Lowlands. Richard Jackson, however, has been working on project-related resettlement with Mon-Khmer language speakers and Phou Thai in the uplands of Savannakhet.
I appreciate Richard Jackson’s explanation. He makes some interesting observations, but it still appears that while he may be aware of other non-project resettlement going on in Vilaboury district, I doubt that he has been directly working on that resettlement, or with the people involved, as that resettlement does not relate to the Xepon Mine. So, in the end I can’t imagine that his experiences “exactly” parallel Holly High’s.
I think that those who post on this blog have the right to contribute whatever information they see fit, provided that they are polite. Khamtham should not try to impose rules on others. It appears that he or she is guilty of the exact thing that he or she has accussed me of. But I just asked for Richard Jackson to provide more information, as did Holly High. It was up to him to either respond or not. We all have that right. He didn’t have to respond.
One last comment: It is interesting that Richard Jackson refers to resettlement as either “voluntary” or “unvoluntary”. This is actually the type of dichotomy that Baird and Shoemaker warn against. They suggest that we need to examine our use of those terms more critically. I agree.
This will be my last communication regarding this matter.
16 Mariner // Dec 17, 2007 at 1:05 am
In response to Khamtham, above, I have doubts about the degree of anonymity. It is no secret that New Mandala is a site which the Thai ‘authorities’ keep an eye on. For those of us here in the ‘land of smiles’ we have to be pretty careful about what we write -and no I don’t think I being particularly paranoid. There is a new and alarming reality here and the future looks pretty grim.
17 khamtham // Dec 17, 2007 at 10:43 am
You are right Mariner, complete anonymity is a myth, and it is a struggle and a risk to make any kind of public expression, but I think it is a worthy ideal to uphold and the internet blogsite is still relatively anonymous compared to other forms of media, even in post-coup Thailand. I think it is important because if it was not an option then the only contributions to debates like these would be from prudes like John Hall who gain satisfaction from attacking other contributors for speaking single words out of place and supposedly discrediting them by association with industry.
This may be my final communication regarding this matter but maybe not “exactly”.
18 John Hall // Dec 17, 2007 at 5:01 pm
I can’t resist responding one more time. It is amusing that Khamtham has called me a “prude”. I am wondering if he or she even knows the meaning of the word. I suspect not. Khamtham simply wants to lash out at me. The Oxford dictionary defines it as,
“a person who is or claims to be easily shocked by matters relating to sex or nudity.”
Khamtham is revealing his or her ignorance of the words he or she uses. Is there any reason to think I am easily shocked by matters related to sex or nudity? I think not. Khamtham’s comments really are laughable.
Clearly, the careful use of words is important, even if Khamtham seems to think otherwise. Khamtham, thanks for making my point for me.
19 Keith Barney // Dec 19, 2007 at 7:25 am
Hi:
I would be interested if anyone has in their possession any maps which indicate the geographical extent of of state-sponsored upland resettlement or focal site development in Laos, or in specific provinces in Laos, over say, the past ten or fifteen years?
I have heard anecdotes of ‘empty districts’ in southern Laos due to state-sponsored resettlement schemes, but have not seen much real data on this issue.
A visual, cartographic representation of resettlement in Laos could serve as a very useful basis for debate and discussion.
Keith Barney
20 Melody Kemp // Apr 9, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Keith,
I think you are in touch with my partner Sean.. he may have maps in the office. Mike Callahan has an extensive library of maps and GIS data. Have you contacted him?
Ref the resettlement debate I am concious of the fact that farmers grow to know their land. I think planners assume that one parcel of land is as good as another but as non farmers they may not be cognisent of the time it takes for a framer to familiarise themselves with drainage patterns, sunlight, slope, local bugs, weather patterns etc.
There has been evidence of malnutrition in the new THPC site due to this. The health adviser is concerned about the extent of malnutrition. The same is true I gather of the NT2. where the people say they are happy with health centers and schools but not happy about being dependent on rice handouts. It’s worth mentioning that the Aheu (sp??) people I have been told by Monsieur Alton had a very important ancestral spiritual site located exactly where the dam wall is situated. Attempts to resettle in some approximation to the site to maintain some links with the ancestors have been refused. No one is prepared to say who made this decision. The proposed NT1 site will also submerge a few ancient caves and ancestral sites. Women in some minority groups are concerned that the placentas of their children which are usually buried around the houses may be abandoned with dire risk to the children. Ceremonies have to compensate.. so its all very complex as several writers have pointed out.
21 vincent // Apr 29, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Conflict of interest
Mr Jackson should say that he is involved in a mining project in Laos if he is going to comment on resettlement to make way for a mine. The fact that he is making money from mining in Laos, or a company mining there, is not something that he should hide from people reading his comments. Thank you Mr Hall for pointing this out.
Leave a Comment
Please note: New Mandala encourages vigorous debate. However, for the moment we will only be publishing high-quality comments that make original contributions to discussion. There will, of course, still be space for pithy, humorous, eccentric and cheeky input. Short and sweet will usually trump long and involved. Repetitive ranting, unimaginative point-scoring and idle abuse will not be entertained. Comments which carry a real name are also more likely to be approved. Thank you for your ongoing interest and contributions.