Comments on: Internal resettlement in Laos: a response http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/12/14/internal-resettlement-in-laos-a-response/ New perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:28:26 +1100 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: David Feingold http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/12/14/internal-resettlement-in-laos-a-response/comment-page-1/#comment-654106 David Feingold Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:13:34 +0000 http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/12/14/internal-resettlement-in-laos-a-response/#comment-654106 It may be late to come to this party, but the intervening period has not been kind to High's position. Jim was correct that the issue was quite clear in terms of the impact of resettlement on maternal and child health, mortality, nutrition, domestic violence, and numerous other social indicators. The impact of the ill-conceived and badly executed opium eradication policy has only reinforced the previous weight of evidence. That not every resettlement is totally disasterous is rather like saying not every patient dies after being bled with leeches. It may be true, but hardly a good recommendation for quality medical practice. In reading Baird & Shoemaker (either the article or the original paper), I was never under the impression that they sought to keep people in the hills against their will. The real issue is allowing uncoerced choice. That some resettled people are hopeful is a good thing, but many more are not. For those advocating a benign view of most resettlement in Laos, it is the triumph of hope over experience. It may be late to come to this party, but the intervening period has not been kind to High’s position. Jim was correct that the issue was quite clear in terms of the impact of resettlement on maternal and child health, mortality, nutrition, domestic violence, and numerous other social indicators. The impact of the ill-conceived and badly executed opium eradication policy has only reinforced the previous weight of evidence. That not every resettlement is totally disasterous is rather like saying not every patient dies after being bled with leeches. It may be true, but hardly a good recommendation for quality medical practice. In reading Baird & Shoemaker (either the article or the original paper), I was never under the impression that they sought to keep people in the hills against their will. The real issue is allowing uncoerced choice. That some resettled people are hopeful is a good thing, but many more are not. For those advocating a benign view of most resettlement in Laos, it is the triumph of hope over experience.

]]> By: Olivier Evrard http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/12/14/internal-resettlement-in-laos-a-response/comment-page-1/#comment-422687 Olivier Evrard Wed, 16 Apr 2008 07:50:13 +0000 http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/12/14/internal-resettlement-in-laos-a-response/#comment-422687 "It has been demonstrated clearly in PPA 2000, and now in PPA 2006, in the studies by Ian and Bruce, in the studies by ACF, in the WB-EC PSIA, and I am sure elsewhere"... Indeed ! The first extensive survey on resettlement done in Laos has been published in 1997 in 2 volumes Yves Goudineau (ed.) Social Characteristics of resettled villages in Laos, Undp-Orstom-Unesco, 2 volumes, 390 pages. The first volume include the general report and statistics, the second one the provincial reports on 6 provinces (more or less 1000 families or 6000 people interviewed during one year in 2006 by a team of foreign and lao researchers). This report already showed clearly the negative impacts of resettlement in most of the cases, as well as the impossibility to classify the resettlement cases simply as being either "voluntary" or unvoluntary". Later on, other studies confirmed the conclusions of this report and provide more details on specific issues (such as the links between mortality and resettlement). Unfortunately, the attitude of the Lao authorities as well as of the main donors did not really change up to now... A last word, there are also two articles related to resettlement in Laos in Development and Change volume 35, number 5, November 2004. “It has been demonstrated clearly in PPA 2000, and now in PPA 2006, in the studies by Ian and Bruce, in the studies by ACF, in the WB-EC PSIA, and I am sure elsewhere”…

Indeed ! The first extensive survey on resettlement done in Laos has been published in 1997 in 2 volumes
Yves Goudineau (ed.) Social Characteristics of resettled villages in Laos, Undp-Orstom-Unesco, 2 volumes, 390 pages.
The first volume include the general report and statistics, the second one the provincial reports on 6 provinces (more or less 1000 families or 6000 people interviewed during one year in 2006 by a team of foreign and lao researchers).
This report already showed clearly the negative impacts of resettlement in most of the cases, as well as the impossibility to classify the resettlement cases simply as being either “voluntary” or unvoluntary”. Later on, other studies confirmed the conclusions of this report and provide more details on specific issues (such as the links between mortality and resettlement). Unfortunately, the attitude of the Lao authorities as well as of the main donors did not really change up to now…
A last word, there are also two articles related to resettlement in Laos in Development and Change volume 35, number 5, November 2004.

]]> By: Grasshopper http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/12/14/internal-resettlement-in-laos-a-response/comment-page-1/#comment-274994 Grasshopper Sat, 15 Dec 2007 08:47:27 +0000 http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/12/14/internal-resettlement-in-laos-a-response/#comment-274994 Jim C - definitely - Additionally, for me, High's position was unclear because of the word 'poverty', which I interpreted as a contrived value judgment rather than an objective statement about economic inequality. Was there a survey given to these ethnic groups that was collated to produce a venn diagram that showed a majority of ethnicities thought that they were too 'poverty' stricken to decide whether relocation was right for them? Is sentimentality or cynicism toward the land for whomever it concerned a poverty stricken idea?! Aren't the individual subjective attitudes of persons within Laos too overwhelming for any sort of conclusion to be made about a political implication for many persons defined here solely by their ethnic group? Especially because relocation and resettlement is a present political issue and not an objective history. Isn't this therefore saying that politics in Laos is largely defined by ethnic identity and less to do with ideas by people in Laos which transcend ethnicity? I think that a lot of people who try and decipher opinions outside of their local environments end up doing what they detest most, which is underestimating the people whose opinions they are collecting by being able to write an article about the 'other'. Why is it that resettlement of people is discussed as though we are architects designing a botanic garden of deciduous ethnicities? Jim C – definitely – Additionally, for me, High’s position was unclear because of the word ‘poverty’, which I interpreted as a contrived value judgment rather than an objective statement about economic inequality. Was there a survey given to these ethnic groups that was collated to produce a venn diagram that showed a majority of ethnicities thought that they were too ‘poverty’ stricken to decide whether relocation was right for them? Is sentimentality or cynicism toward the land for whomever it concerned a poverty stricken idea?!

Aren’t the individual subjective attitudes of persons within Laos too overwhelming for any sort of conclusion to be made about a political implication for many persons defined here solely by their ethnic group? Especially because relocation and resettlement is a present political issue and not an objective history. Isn’t this therefore saying that politics in Laos is largely defined by ethnic identity and less to do with ideas by people in Laos which transcend ethnicity? I think that a lot of people who try and decipher opinions outside of their local environments end up doing what they detest most, which is underestimating the people whose opinions they are collecting by being able to write an article about the ‘other’.

Why is it that resettlement of people is discussed as though we are architects designing a botanic garden of deciduous ethnicities?

]]> By: Jim C. http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/12/14/internal-resettlement-in-laos-a-response/comment-page-1/#comment-274895 Jim C. Sat, 15 Dec 2007 05:20:38 +0000 http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2007/12/14/internal-resettlement-in-laos-a-response/#comment-274895 Having been alerted to the debate on relocation and resettlement taking place on New Mandala, I find it hard to resist adding my two bits. In this regard there are several points that I would like to make. First, I was of the opinion that the relation of involuntary relocation (in the name of land reform, village consolidation, swidden eradication, opium eradication and plantation concessions – that is, leaving aside for the moment the issue of resettlement related to infrastructure projects) to increased mortality (and suicide) rates, to physical and psychological trauma, to drug addiction, to prostitution, to outmigration, and to poverty was not in question. It has been demonstrated clearly in PPA 2000, and now in PPA 2006, in the studies by Ian and Bruce, in the studies by ACF, in the WB-EC PSIA, and I am sure elsewhere. So to start to question, and to muddle the issue, now seems to me counterproductive. Wouldn’t it be better to focus on what can be done to alleviate and set right the tragedies that have been occurring in the name of this approach to development. Second, these same studies have shown that the victims of relocation policies are upland (non-Lao-Tai) ethnic groups whose languages and cultures vary significantly from lowland Tai or Lao speaking ethnic groups, and whose social systems are for the most part poorly understood, least of all by the planners and developers. Furthermore, these ethnic groups are very different from each other, so even at this level generalization is risky. Responses to relocation or to any other issue can only be truly understood in an ethnic specific context. The Hmong, for example, as I believe one of the contributors alluded to, are in fact the least typical of upland ethnic groups in terms of the relation of the social system to the environment, to the degree where ethnic Hmong usually fare well regardless of the location (upland, lowland, U.S., France, etc.). As Ian pointed out, for Holly to use an ethnic Lao village and a Hmong one as representative just doesn’t wash. Thirdly, taking Ian’s example of the Brao one step further, in order to separate data gathered by brief forays or interactions from data that more closely represents the thinking of various relocated groups, I think that from the outset we should require that contributors to the debate use as evidence only information that was provided in the mother tongue of the resettlers to anthropological researchers (or those from related disciplines) who understand that language and have some basic understanding of the social system and the historical setting. This may seem too stringent a requirement, but given that the evidence to date overwhelmingly details the negative impacts of involuntary relocation, the onus is on those who would challenge or muddle these findings to provide incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. Jim C. Having been alerted to the debate on relocation and resettlement taking place on New Mandala, I find it hard to resist adding my two bits. In this regard there are several points that I would like to make.
First, I was of the opinion that the relation of involuntary relocation (in the name of land reform, village consolidation, swidden eradication, opium eradication and plantation concessions – that is, leaving aside for the moment the issue of resettlement related to infrastructure projects) to increased mortality (and suicide) rates, to physical and psychological trauma, to drug addiction, to prostitution, to outmigration, and to poverty was not in question. It has been demonstrated clearly in PPA 2000, and now in PPA 2006, in the studies by Ian and Bruce, in the studies by ACF, in the WB-EC PSIA, and I am sure elsewhere. So to start to question, and to muddle the issue, now seems to me counterproductive. Wouldn’t it be better to focus on what can be done to alleviate and set right the tragedies that have been occurring in the name of this approach to development.
Second, these same studies have shown that the victims of relocation policies are upland (non-Lao-Tai) ethnic groups whose languages and cultures vary significantly from lowland Tai or Lao speaking ethnic groups, and whose social systems are for the most part poorly understood, least of all by the planners and developers. Furthermore, these ethnic groups are very different from each other, so even at this level generalization is risky. Responses to relocation or to any other issue can only be truly understood in an ethnic specific context. The Hmong, for example, as I believe one of the contributors alluded to, are in fact the least typical of upland ethnic groups in terms of the relation of the social system to the environment, to the degree where ethnic Hmong usually fare well regardless of the location (upland, lowland, U.S., France, etc.). As Ian pointed out, for Holly to use an ethnic Lao village and a Hmong one as representative just doesn’t wash.
Thirdly, taking Ian’s example of the Brao one step further, in order to separate data gathered by brief forays or interactions from data that more closely represents the thinking of various relocated groups, I think that from the outset we should require that contributors to the debate use as evidence only information that was provided in the mother tongue of the resettlers to anthropological researchers (or those from related disciplines) who understand that language and have some basic understanding of the social system and the historical setting. This may seem too stringent a requirement, but given that the evidence to date overwhelmingly details the negative impacts of involuntary relocation, the onus is on those who would challenge or muddle these findings to provide incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.

Jim C.

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