Living with Transition in Laos Market Intergration in Southeast Asia (Routledgecurzon Contemporary Southeast Asia Series)

Living with Transition in Laos

Laos-the Lao Peoplersquos Democratic Republicmdashis one of the least understood and studied countries of Asia Itrsquos development trajectory is also one of the most interesting as it negotiates the transition from subsistence to dependence from command to market and in the longer term the government hopes from poverty to prosperity A node of poverty lying at the geographical core of the worldrsquos most dynamic region Laos is being progressively drawn into the wider Greater Mekong sub-region The spatial market and mental integration of the population of Laos is advancing as boundaries become more permeable mobility rises and more generally as people are drawn into the mainstream Drawing on original field work and unpublished reports and taking an individual and household viewpoint the book examines and assesses the effects of these transitions on poverty inequalityp and livelihoods

Jonathan Rigg is a geographer based at the University of Durham and formerly at the School of Oriental and African Studies London He has been working on issues of development in Southeast Asia since the early 1980s with a focus on agrarian and rural transitions in Thailand and Laos

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Helen James

Regionalism in Post-Suharto Indonesia Edited by Maribeth Erb Priyambudi Sulistiyanto and Carole Faucher

Living with Transition in Laos Market integration in Southeast Asia

Jonathan Rigg

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square Milton Park Abingdon Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue New York NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor amp Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor amp Francis e-Library 2005

ldquoTo purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor amp Francis or Routledgersquos collection of thousands of eBooks please go to httpwwwebookstoretandfcoukrdquo

copy 2005 Jonathan Rigg

photocopying and recording or in any information storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN 0-203-00203-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-35564-8 (Print Edition)

Contents

List of illustrations vii

Preface xv

Acknowledgements xvi

List of abbreviations and terms xviii

1 Managing and coping with transitions 1

PART I Setting the context 17

2 New poverty and old poverty livelihoods and transition in Laos 18

3 Subsistence affluence or subsistence struggle Unpicking tradition and illuminating the past 40

4 Poverty inequality and exclusion 67

PART II Constructing the case 95

5 The best of intentions policy-induced poverty 96

6 Not in our hands market-induced poverty and social differentiation 118

7 Making livelihoods work 140

PART III Putting it together 168

8 Muddled spaces juggled lives 169

Appendices

1 Summary information on published and unpublished field studies mentioned

in text 184

2 Table relating to Chapter 2 187

3 Table and figures relating to Chapter 3 188

4 Tables and figures relating to Chapter 4 191

5 Table and figure relating to Chapter 7 196

Bibliography 198

Index 212

Illustrations

Plates

11 Household interview Sang Thong district (2001) 6

12 Participatory mapping exercise Tulakhom district (2002) 6

13 Drawing a timeline Tulakhom district (2002) 7

14 Preparing for a group discussion Tulakhom district (2002) 7

21 The market comes to Sang Thong (2001) 27

31 Elephant tusks being carried to market depicted in the late nineteenth century murals of Wat Phumin in the northern Thai town of Nan

32 Transport in Sang Thong district (2001) 48

33 Lowland wet rice fields and upland dry fields Pak Ou district Luang Prabang (2002) 52

34 Lowland rice fields Ban Nam Ang Tulakhom district Vientiane (2002) 57

35 Shifting cultivation and cleared hillsides Pak Ou district Luang Prabang (2002) 61

36 NTFPs in Vientianersquos morning market (talaat sao) (2003) 64

B31 The Lao rural idyll Ban Pak Chek Pak Ou district Luang Prabang (2002) 45

41 A classroom and pupils Ban Ang Noi Sang Thong (2001) 88

B41 Ban Mae Nam Mai Chiang Mai Northern Thailand (2000) 84

51 Development project in the form of clean water comes to Ban Huay Luang Pak Ou district (2002) 99

52 Buat paa in northern Thailandmdashthe lsquoordinationrsquo of trees as a form of counter-territorialisation (2000) 105

53 Ban Nong Hai Kham a resettlement village in Tulakhom district where women and men juggle activities to meet their needs (2002)

54 The lowland rice fields of Ban Nam Ang (2002) 115

B51 Monastery at Ban Lathahair (2001) 101

B52 Territorialisationmdasha map of village lands Ban Kop Pherng Sang Thong (2001) 103

61 The road to Sang Thong (2001) 122

62 A rotavator in Ban Kop Pherng (2001) 129

63 The Friendship Bridge 134

64 Crossing the Mekong to Thailand is becoming increasingly important for villagers in Sang Thong district (2001) 135

65 Having a young family stymies attempts at widening livelihood footprints beyond the local area Ban Nong Hai Kham Tulakhom district (2002)

71 New off-farm opportunities for young women in villages like Ban Phon Hai have become important contributors to household livelihoods (2002)

Figures

11 Map of Laos 4

12 Map of primary research sites 5

13 Map of research sites drawn from secondary sources noted in text 10-

21 Economic Performance Lao PDR (1992ndash2004) 23

B21 The peoples of Laos represented on the 1000-kip note 29

31a Percentage of surveyed villagers who have or are working in Thailand Saravan and Xayabouri provinces (2001) 49

31b Number and sex of surveyed villagers who have or are working in Thailand Saravan and Xayabouri provinces (2001)

32 The regional human resource economy migration routes in the Greater Mekong Subregion 51

33a Sources of income by income class Hune district Oudomxai (1997) 54

33b Sources of income by income class Khanthabouri district Savannakhet (1997) 55

34 Rice sufficiency on the Nakai Plateau by ethnic group (1997) 60

41 Estimates of poverty in Laos using the LECS II data set (1997ndash1998) 72

42 Incidence of poverty by region (1997ndash1998) 73

43 Incidence of poverty by province (1997ndash1998) 74

44 Poor districts identified by the LECS II survey and upland areas (1997ndash1998) 75

45 Distribution of total consumption expenditure per capita (1992ndash1993 and 1997ndash1998) 80

46 Level of communication skill in Lao (1997) 85

47 Village-level health access by ethnic group across seven northern provinces (1999) 86

48 Poverty rates by educational attainment of head of household (2000) 87

49 The chances of a girl attaining a basic education in Vieng Phou Kha district Luang Namtha (1997) 92

51 The government presents the benefits of resettlement 99

52 Rice security and land allocation in Nam Pack (1993 and 1997) 106

53 Poverty and labour availability Luang Prabang and Houa Phanh (1997) 110

61 Public expenditure by sector (1995ndash1996 to 2001ndash2002) 120

71 Landowners and wealth categories (2001ndash2002) 152

72 Conceptualising chronic poverty structure context and contingency 157

73a Agricultural assets and wealth categories land owned or freely accessed (1997ndash1998) 159

73b Agricultural assets and wealth categories livestock and machinery (1997ndash1998) 160

74 Farm and non-farm activities and wealth (1997ndash1998) 161

75a The Kham household (Ban Ang Noi Sang Thong District Vientiane) 162

75b The Chanpeth household (Ban Kop Pherng Sang Thong District Vientiane) 163

76a The Chandaeng household (Ban Sawai Sang Thong district Vientiane) 164

76b The Phonxai household (Ban Sawai Sang Thong district Vientiane) 165

B71 Mobility in thirteen villages seven districts and three provinces illegal labour migration to Thailand (2000) 145

A31 Average travel time to the nearest place where motorised transport is available (1997) 189

A32 Area planted to upland and lowland rice by ethnic group (1998ndash1999) 190

A41a Incidence of poverty in Laos (1990ndash2005) 192

A41b Number of poor in Laos (1990ndash2005) 193

A42 Growth rate in level of poverty (1992ndash1993 to 1997ndash1998) 194

A43 Representation by gender in the Lao government (1999) 195

A51 Persistent poverty estimates rural South India (1975ndash1976 to 1983ndash1984) 197

Tables

21 Laos Landmarks of economic reform (1975ndash2003) 20-21

22 The NEM and the Washington consensus 22

23 Laos health and education profile 31

24 Village histories time lines for villages in Tulakhom and Sang Thong districts Vientiane Province 34-36

B21 The peoples of Laos and their classifications 30

31 Mr Phimponersquos household Ban Nam Ang Tulakhom district (2002) 53

32 The relative importance of different livelihoods in six villages in the Xe Bang Fai River Khammouan Province (2001)

33 Rice security or rice insecurity 59

34 Patrolling controlling stabilising and eliminating shifting cultivation in Laos 63

41 Spatial and social reflections of wealth and poverty 69

42 Geographical and social reflections of wealth and poverty 71

43 Incidence of poverty by ethno-linguistic family (2001) 76

44 Average quality of life scores by ethnic category Luang Prabang province (1997) 77

61 Effects of rural road construction on communities in Savannakhet and Oudomxai (1997) 126

62 Decline in the availability of NTFPs Ban Nong Hin 130

Champassak province (1989ndash1999)

63 Foraging in Saravan a time line of resource exploitation and decline 132

64 Female-headed households in Ban Houay Luang Pak Ou district (2001) 138

71 Resources by class study villages (2001ndash2002) 152

B71 Relative daily wage rates in Laos and Thailand (2000ndash2002) 147-148

A 11 Summary information on published and unpublished field

studies mentioned in text 184-186

A21 Human development in Luang Namtha (1995) 187

A31 Rice cultivation in Laos (1998ndash1999) 188

A32 Estimates of number of swiddeners and extent of shifting cultivation 189

A41 Summary characteristics of categories of the poor in Vientiane (2000) 191

A42 Inequality Laos and its Asian neighbours 193-194

A51 Deagrarianisation in Southeast Asia the results of village studies 196-

21 Making sense of Laosrsquo ethnic mosaic 29-30

22 Structural change evolving livelihoods and poverty in the Philippines and Thailand 37-38

31 Rediscovering the past in Thailand 44-45

41 Ban Mae Nam Mai an excluded tribal community in Thailand 83-84

51 Village histories Ban Lathahair Pak Ou Luang Prabang 100-101

52 Defining terms territorialisations 102-103

53 Land versus services the trade-off in a resettlement village 113

54 People on the move 115

71 Bridging the Mekong cross-border livelihoods 145-149

72 Mr Bounthasii A successful farmer 158

Preface

By most measures Laos remains one of the worldrsquos poorest and least developed countries However while the bulk of the population may live meagre lives this should not be equated to the grinding poverty associated with some other lsquoleast developedrsquo countries The challenge for Laos is not how to deal with famine or ultra poverty on a wide scale but how to ensure that modernisation does not undermine and fragment the livelihood systems that are in place This is not to suggest that Laos should reject the neo-liberal modernisationdevelopment project that is central to the New Economic Mechanism There is little doubt in my mind that lsquoordinaryrsquo rural Lao harbour a vision of the future framed in terms of the modernisation project better health more education closer links with the market higher incomes more consumer goods better services and so on It is also the case that existing traditional livelihood systems are coming under pressure and in more than a few places are beginning to fragment Where Laos perhaps is different is that despite its membership of the club of Least Developed Countries it has more latitude and a less pressing need to up-end the present in pursuit of the future There is both time and space to be moderate and pragmatic

The danger is that in setting in place the structures and mechanisms to achieve the modernist ends of the development project something important will be lost For many this may not be significantmdashOut with the old In with the new But a line of evidence presented in this book suggests that in uncritically embracing the new real damage can be done whether in terms of livelihoods the environment or sustainability more broadly In embracing pro-poor growth the international development agencies have acknowledged the need to refine the former lsquogrowth at all costsrsquo policies This book applies a similar critical lens to the issue of transition the process of getting from here to there

To date most of my fieldwork has been undertaken in neighbouring Thailand This experiential baggage has no doubt influenced and possibly clouded my view of development in Laos Depending on where one looks and importantly how one looks Thailand reveals either the tragedy of the modernisation project or the paucity of tradition My own position is clear modernisation is necessary and has been very broadly positive in the Thai case This book makes a similar case for Laos but I trust not in a manner that smacks of complacency or indicates myopia The risks are all too clear In promoting physical integration there is the danger of social disjuncture In accelerating transition there is the threat of differentiation And in promoting the modern there is the peril that it may undermine sustainability

Jonathan Rigg Department of Geography

Durham University

Acknowledgements

This book is the final outcome at least on my part of a European Commission-funded research programme on lsquoSustainable livelihoods in Southeast Asia a grassroots-informed approach to food securityrsquo (ICA4ndashCT-2000ndash30013) My partners in the Lao element of the programme were Dr Bounthong Bouahom and Mr Linkham Douangsavanh of the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute in Vientiane (NAFRI) Without their input and supportmdashas well as their hospitalitymdashI would not have been able to write this book Their efforts and ideas are present in this book even if the words are my own While Linkham and Bounthong were the key people involved we also had a team of field researchers who did sterling work on our behalf They were Bounthan Keoboalapha Manoluck Bounsihalath Onchan Bounaphol and Vongpaphan Manivong

In addition to Laos this EU-funded research project included parallel work in Thailand and Vietnam (The papers and reports for the project as a whole may be downloaded from httpwwwsscrucdkinco) The other partners in what proved to be a remarkably happy enterprise were Pietro Masina and Irene Noslashrlund Roskilde University Denmark Michael Parnwell University of Leeds UK Suriya Veeravongs and Wathana Wongsekiarttirat Chulalongkorn University Thailand Bui Huy Khoat National Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities Vietnam and Valerio Levi IZI Rome Italy Just occasionally research networks can become more than bureaucratic exercises to lever funds out of the EU and this was one such instance No doubt meetings in places such as Rome Naples Singapore Luang Prabang Bangkok and Hanoi also helped along with cold beer and late night traditional massages

The European Commission funding coupled with the support of my department at Durham University allowed me to spend a relaxed three months in Laos during 2003 and much of the secondary material presented and discussed in this book was collected at that time The field research itself was undertaken over several months during 2001 and 2002 People and institutions in Laos proved to be unstintingly friendly and cooperative and only wild horses abandoned students and the need to pay the mortgage dragged us back to Durham at the end of our stay There were numerous people and organisations who helped in this work knowingly or not Malcolm Duthrie Karin McLennan and Kornelius Schiffer at the World Food Programme Thibault Ledecq and Bounphama Phothisane at the FAO Linda Schneider and Morten Larsen at the World Bank Albert Soer at the UNDP Helle Buchhave at the UNCDF Paul Turner and Jim Chamberlain at the Asian Development Bank Adam Folkard of CARE Dominique Van der Borght at Oxfam Eduardo Klien Rob Murdoch and Nakharin at Save the Children (UK) Joost Foppes who was attached to Micro-Project Development through Local Communities (EU) John Raintree at NAFRI and Geoff Griffith and Youngyer Kongchi of the Technical Coordination Office for EC Cooperation Programmes in Laos Beyond these named individuals we also received a great deal of support and assistance from local officials who offered their views and permitted us to range across their districts Finally I would

also like to acknowledge the assistance of Myo Thant at the ADB in Manila and Simon Bland of the UKrsquos Department for International Development (DFID) office in Bangkok The figures were as always expertly drawn by Chris Orton in the Department of Geographyrsquos Design and Imaging Unit

There were individuals who added recreational entertainment to the more usual scholarly and professional input that work such as this requires They were therefore doubly helpful and included Linkham Douangsavanh Bounthong Bouahom John Raintree Morten Larsen Helle Buchhave Geoff Griffith Jim Chamberlain Charles Alton Paul and Sandra Rogers and Adam Folkard

Finally and as is usual in these circumstances I have to thank all those Lao villagers who welcomed us into their communities and homes and who so willingly and openly talked to us about their difficulties hopes concerns and desires They of course will never see or read this book and it will probably make no difference to their lives There is just a small chance however that some of the issues and concerns discussed here will raise an eyebrow and be squirrelled away for later consideration by someone who will be in a position to make a difference

Abbreviations and terms ADB Asian Development Bank

Asean Association of Southeast Asian Nations (which Laos joined in 1997)

baht Thai unit of currency (40 baht=US$1)

Chin Thanakaan Mai lsquonew thinkingrsquo the NEM

DFID Department for International Development (UK)

DORAS Development Oriented Research on Agrarian Systems

EPI Expanded Programme on Immunization

EU European Union

FAO Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN

GMS Greater Mekong Subregion (including Laos Burma Cambodia Thailand Vietnam and China)

hai shifting cultivation field

hai leuan loi pioneer shifting cultivation

hai moun vian rotational shifting cultivation

IDA International Development Association

IDRC International Development Research Centre (Canada)

ILO International Labour Organisation

IMF International Monetary Fund

IRAP Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning

JICA Japanese International Cooperation Agency

kip Lao unit of currency (10000 kip=US$1)

Lao Loum Lowland Lao

Lao Soung Upland or Highland Lao

Lao Theung Midland Lao

LDC Least Development Country

LECS Lao Expenditure and Consumption Survey

NAFRI National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (of Laos)

NBCA National Biodiversity Conservation Area

NEM New Economic Mechanism

NORAD Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation

NTFPs non-timber forest products

NTR normal trade relations

NTRPs non-timber rotational products

NUOL National University of Laos

ODA Overseas Development Administration (UK) forerunner of the DFID

PIP Public Investment Plan

PPA Participatory Poverty Assessment

rai traditional unit of measurement 1 rai=016 ha 1 ha=625 rai

souk sala health centre

SIDA Swedish International Development Agency

SOE state-owned enterprise

SCB State Commercial Bank

STDs sexually transmitted diseases

than samai lsquoup-to-datersquo lsquomodernrsquo

thuk nyak poverty

TVEs township and village enterprises (China)

UNCDF United Nations Capital Development Fund

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNEP United Nations Environment Programme

WB World Bank

WFP World Food Programme

1 Managing and coping with transitions

Setting the scene structures and agencies

This is a story of mixed fortunes and unforeseen outcomes of structural rigidities and surprising levels of agency In other words the story fits the template of many recent studies of social and economic transformation where neat transitions and clear trajectories of change are replaced by muddle and ambiguity This is in danger of becoming the lazy conclusion of much social science research the world is a confusing place of contradictory evidence and mixed messages so why bother to make sense of it

However more often than not there are patterns in the confused mosaic of human responses At a base level there are commonalities points of intersection in the propelling forces and driving desires that mould the human landscape In their totality people and households are joined however loosely in a shared wish to improve their lives and more particularly to improve the prospects for their children There are shared goals that are defined increasingly in terms of lsquomodernisationrsquo This is no reason to succumb to the notion that in time the world will converge on some common point as differences are worn flat by the indefatigable forces of globalisation But it does indicate a need to scratch through the layers of muddle

In writing these two paragraphsmdashand I do so having written much of the rest of the bookmdashI am in danger of raising the unlikely possibility that I will say something truly profound The argument which follows is more pedestrian and prosaic than that In essence it tries to tread the thin line between structure and agency and does so in two ways

The first resonates with Giddensrsquo structuration theory to the degree that I am interested in the ways in whichmdashin practice rather than in theorymdashhouseholds and individuals challenge and rework the status quo This may be in terms of lsquohowrsquo people make a living in a country which is undergoing the transition from subsistence to market and from farm to non-farm Or it may be in terms of the software of change the desires and aspirations that inform strategies of making a living and the negotiation (and resistance) that arises as established norms are stretched reworked or reconstituted The second reason I am interested in the structureagency debate regards the distinction between the broader patterns discernible from the aggregate social and economic data and the eddies that make these flows more complex and contingent than is sometimes assumed As later chapters will elucidate while there are common themes these are worked out in sometimes surprising ways It is possiblemdashand often valuable and necessarymdashto squeeze individuals and households into none-too-neat categories (rich poor middle) and classifications (chronic upwardly mobile entrenched) but each time a generalisation is drawn the particularities of place and peculiarities of individual experience serve as a reminder that generalisations usually stand and fall by their utility and not by their ability to explain the world Bebbington notes that all processes are place-based but they are

bound up in the wider geographies of capitalism (2003301) Theory in his view needs to begin with place (and I would add circumstance) and then lsquobuildrsquo or lsquotheorisersquo upwards Thick description based on ethnographic research is a good beginning but it is not the end when it comes to elucidating geographies of development

This book is essentially a discussion and analysis of the Lao Peoplersquos Democratic Republicrsquos engagement with modernity through its ongoing and evolving engagement with the market The focus however is very much on the local and the human with an emphasis on how change is experienced at the local level A geat deal of attention has been paid in recent years to what is variously termed the lsquoeverydayrsquo the lsquobanalrsquo the lsquoordinaryrsquo and the lsquoprosaicrsquo This reflects two desires First and more obviously a wish to shake off the dominating effects of the higher reaches of social economic and political control and action second and less obviously to focus concern on the normal times that link abnormal events In this book too the commanding heights of political and economic debate in the shape of ministerial meetings and national development strategies give way to a primary concern for communities households and individuals and their lives These are the starting points even if the discussion and analysis may originate or terminate occasionally at a comment on some grand policy initiative

In addition to being a study of contemporary change in Laos writ small I set out to achieve something rather wider to illuminate the rich terrain of struggle resistance and acquiescence that is part-and-parcel of any modernisation project This is not to suggest that the experience of modernisation is necessarily negativemdashfar from itmdashbut to recognise that change involves frisson no matter what the outcome of the process lsquoFrissonrsquo is used here to encapsulate those environmental social cultural and economic tensions that arise when established systems of production consumption reproduction and relation are challenged In these regards the book is intended to provide an insight into such tensions and their outcomes The stage for this act just happens to be Laos

The Lao Peoplersquos Democratic Republic (Figure 11) is counted among the worldrsquos forty-nine poorest countries It is also situated within one of the worldrsquos most economically dynamic regions straddling Southeast and East Asia Since the dark days of the war in Indochina and the countryrsquos failed attempt at socialist reconstruction and development Laos has been opening up in two regards It has embraced since the mid-1980s a deep and far-reaching process of economic reform in the guise of the New Economic Mechanism (NEM) and in 1997 the country joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Laos in these two ways has moved into the economic and political mainstream The ruling Politburo may still rule but it does so it would seem having given up the struggle of swimming against the current of economic history

That Laos is in transition is without question The waters become increasingly muddied and muddled however when this question is dissected and interrogated Transition itself is a nom de clef of every country so what is meantmdashsubstantivelymdashby transition when it is applied to Laos Transition from command to market from subsistence to market or from self-reliance to dependency Even more pertinent in a country where more than one-third of the population are recorded as living in absolute poverty what are the livelihood effects of this process of lsquotransitionrsquo To put it starkly

Living with Transition in Laos 2

What is the landscape of winners and losers and moreover how is this changing over time This is not just a numbers game It is not just a question of measuring the incidence of poverty over time but also and more importantly of understanding who is poor and why and who is (relatively) rich and why As this book will illustrate and argue the lsquowhorsquo and the lsquowhyrsquo change over time as transition proceeds The rules of the game so to speak are in flux

Building the argument

The book draws on a combination of primary fieldwork and the analysis of secondary sources The fieldwork funded through an EU research grant1 was undertaken over three periods during 2001 and 2002 in nine villages across three districts Tulakhom district 60 km north of Vientiane in Vientiane province Sang Thong district 60 km west of the capital on the Mekong in Vientiane municipality and Pak Ou district 30 km from Luang Prabang in the northern province of Luang Prabang (Figure 12) In addition to these periods of fieldwork a longer stay in Vientiane from the beginning of 2003 (also EU funded) permitted the collection of additional secondary material

The approach to the fieldwork was participatory and used a range of qualitative methods In summary these included key informant interviews transect walks group and focus group discussions participatory mapping exercises life histories and time lines and household case studies (see Plates 11ndash14)2 In total across the nine villages fifty-five case study households were selected for detailed interview as part of the project3 In addition to this primary material I also refer to a substantial number of unpublished and published documents More particularly the argument and underpinning discussion draw on data and analysis from some forty-two field studies the great majority of these based on fieldwork conducted since 1995 (see Table A11)

In the late 1980s when the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) began to intensify their presence in Laos it was still possible to write that even basic information about the country constituted lsquoeducated guesses rather than confirmed factsrsquo (World Bank 1990a) There was the international aid community asserted lsquoinsufficient information on the countryrsquos key physical social economic and climatic variablesrsquo (UNDP 19909) Today many of these basic knowledge gaps have been filled but even so the country remains one of the least understood and studied in Asia Compared with other countries in the region there are few scholars writing about Laos for an international audience and this applies particularly to work that requires some level of ground-level engagement This is partly because of the difficulty until fairly recently of undertaking fieldwork in the country and partly to put it bluntly because of the countryrsquos low international profile and significance

Managing and coping with transitions 3

Figure 11 Map of Laos

Figure 12 Map of primary research sites

Plate 11 Household interview Sang Thong district (2001)

Plate 12 Participatory mapping exercise Tulakhom district (2002)

Plate 13 Drawing a time line Tulakhom district (2002)

Plate 14 Preparing for a group discussion Tulakhom district (2002)

While it may still be possible to depict Laos as lsquounder-researchedrsquo such a statement tends to overlook the rich grey literature that exists in government departments and in the offices of international agencies in Vientiane Since the 1970s and particularly since 1990 a large number of research teams have produced an even larger number of mission

statements midterm evaluations feasibility studies think pieces project assessments issue papers aides-meacutemoire briefing papers appraisal reports working papers inception reports baseline surveys and inventories the majority in English and French Small print runs of these documents are circulated among the international community in Vientiane to then languish largely unread in resource centres and libraries in the capital It is this surprisingly rich seam of literature that I have mined to help underpin the discussion which follows

The great majority of these lsquopublicationsrsquo are not academic studies Their raisons drsquoecirctre usually lie understandably in the requirements and demands of development policy and practice and they therefore have to be used with a degree of care Yet they contain a wealth of information and data that are relevant and of interest to an academic study such as this one In particular they provide two things First they provide a very extensive source of primary data on human development drawn from field studiesmdashadmittedly of varying levels of intensity and employing different methodsmdashundertaken in all regions of the country (Figure 13) Second they provide a direct link between policy concerns and interventions and actual and projected outcomes on the ground

Most of what we know of Laosmdashand the same may be said of other places toomdashcomes from lsquograndrsquo studies that aggregate data to arrive at a generalised view of conditions But as Ravallion (2001) has observed the concern to arrive at easily digestible lsquoaveragesrsquo tends to iron out differences It is on this basis that Ravallion writes of the lsquoimportance of more micro country-specific research on the factors determining why some poor people are able to take up the opportunities afforded by an expanding economyhellip while others are notrsquo (20011813) Such fine-grained studies permit some departure from the tyranny of averages In this way the lsquomarketrsquo becomes an agent for accumulation and impoverishment while lsquosocial capitalrsquo can be both developmental and destructive

In focusing on the local and in particular on communities households and individuals new and differentmdashnot just more finely grainedmdashperspectives become evident An IDRC study of the Nam Ngum watershed for instance revealed that a traditionally sustainable system of resource management was undermined in the 1970s and 1980s as new settlers with their own resource management traditions began to settle in the area (IDRC 20002) However it was not a simple case of a sustainable system coming under pressure through a combination of resource pressures and the encroachment of new (unsustainable) systems lsquoThe greater the level of detail we look[ed] atrsquo the report states lsquothe more problematic gross generalizations and simplifications appear[ed]rsquo (IDRC 20002) There were 200 villages within the watershed comprising Thai Phuan Hmong and Khmu lsquoeach group [with] different cultivation and resource management traditions ranging from wet-rice cultivation to shifting cultivationrsquo (IDRC 20002) Applying single perspectives even in this restricted area would fail to illuminate the degree to which each group was facing different challenges and was responding to those challenges in differentmdashbut potentially equally valid sustainable and productivemdashways In other words the concern with the local reveals a different architecture and not just the same patterns but at a finer level of analysis

The research superstructure around which the book and the argument are formed consists therefore of two principle elements primary field research complemented by material gleaned from secondary usually grey literature These two strands of material

are integrated into the discussion although the former are concentrated in the second half of the volume and the latter in the first half In addition to these two lines of evidence the discussion also at times incorporates material and refers to literature from neighbouring Thailand and the wider Asian region and occasionally from even further afield The intention in doing this is to show how parallel debates and similar processes and tensions have been highlighted in other areas This is not to suggest that Laosrsquo future will be mirrored by other countriesrsquo past and present but rather to reflect on Laosrsquo development challenges in the light of experiences elsewhere A criticism that could reasonably be levelled at development geography is a failure to see beyond the case study and a general avoidance and apparent fear of comparative work (see Bebbington 2003)

Managing and coping with transition

lsquoTransitionrsquo may be used to refer to a range of interlinked and overlapping processes Most obviously it refers to the transition from command to market This is the way the term is usually employed when it is applied to communist or former communist countries across Europe and Asia More particularly it refers to market transition or less attractively marketisation While market transitions have become common currencymdashafter all the World Bankrsquos 1996 World Development Report sported the subtitle From Plan to Market (World Bank 1996)mdashZthe link between wider market transitions and what are termed here livelihood transitions has not been extensively researched As Dercon and Krishnan write in the context of reform in Ethiopia the lsquoliterature on poverty changes and the link with economic reform is characterised by strong views and little datarsquo (20001) Moreover it has proved extremely difficult to disentangle the poverty and livelihood effects of reform from other issues Right from the start there existed the recognition that transition might well lead to greater inequality but the hope was that faster growth would mean that even the losers would lsquowinrsquo in absolute terms (World Bank 199666)4 Those who did see their livelihoods decline would be supported by state-knitted social safety nets and in any case this decline would prove to be transient in most cases as the effects of transition policies seeped through to all societal levels and geographical areas

Viewed from the standpoint of lsquoordinaryrsquo people (who are of course extra-ordinary) living in rural areas of Laos the countryrsquos reform process burdened by the expectation that it involves lsquonew thinkingrsquo has a surprisingly low recognition level People in general seemed blithely unaware that their government is struggling to reorient the economy and transform the countryrsquos development trajectory and prospects through an overarching reform programme One of the reasons for this may be disappointingly humdrum those Lao who have access to television or radio tend to tune into transmissions from neighbouring Thailand rather than their own state broadcasting agency5 The result is that people often know more about what is going on next door in Thailand than they do about events in their own country How the government of the Lao PDR delivers its own story whenmdashrelatively speakingmdashthe country is a minnow living in the shadow of an electronic media superpower is rarely considered

Number Source Date of fieldwork

Location of fieldwork

1 ADB 2000a 1999 Houa Phanh Phongsali Luang Namtha Luang

Prabang Oudomxai Bokeo and Xieng Khouang

2 ADB 2001b 2000 84 villages and 43 districts in every province

3 ADB 2001d 2000 Vientiane

4 Chamberlain et al 1996 1996 Nam Theun II reservoir site

5 Denes 1998 1998 Saravan province

6 DUDCP 2001 2000 Nakai Plateau

7 EU 1997 1996 Luang Prabang Pak Ou Phonxai and Pak Xeng districts Luang Prabang province

8 EU 2000 1999 Houa Phanh Phongsali Luang Namtha Luang Prabang Oudomxai Bokeo and Xieng Khouang

9 FAO 1996 1996 Xaythani and Naxaythong districts Vientiane municipality

10 FAO 1997 1997 Luang Prabang and Houa Phanh provinces

11 IDRC 2000 1999 Nam Ngum dam site

12 ILO 1997 1994 and 1997

Hune district Oudomxai province and Khantabouly district Savannakhet province

13 Inthasone Phetsiriseng 2001

2000 Khammouan (Nongbok and Xebangfai districts) Savannakhet (Khantabouly Outhoumphone and Songkhone districts) and Champassak (Pakse Phonethong and Pathumphone disctricts) provinces

14 Ireson 1992 1988ndash89 Luang Prabang and Bolikhamxai provinces

15 JICA 2000 1998ndash2000 Bolikhamxai Khammouan and Savannakhet provinces

16 Kaufmann 1997 1997 Nalae and Sing districts in Luang Namtha province

17 Kheungkham Keonuchan 2000

1997ndash98 Nan district Luang Prabang province La district Oudomxai province and Namtha district Luang Namtha province

18 Lao PDR 2001a 2001 Xayabouri (Phiang and Pak Lai districts) and Saravan (Vapi and Khong Xedon districts) provinces

19 Lao PDREU 1999 1999 Phongsali province

20 Lao Womenrsquos Union 2000

1998 Vientiane municipality and Xayabouri Xieng Khouang and Savannakhet provinces

21 Lemoine 2002 2002 Muang Long district Luang Namtha northern Laos

22 MSIFP 1995 1995 Muang Sing district Luang Namtha province

23 NTEC 1997 1997 () Nakai Plateau

24 NUOL 1999 1999 Xieng Khouang and Houa Phanh provinces

25 Ovesen 2002 Xepon district Savannakhet province

26 Author 2001 Pak Ou district Luang Prabang province

27 Pandey amp Montry Sanamongkhoun 1998

1996 Champassak and Saravan provinces

28 Raintree 2003 2002 Phonxai district Luang Prabang province and Namo district Oudomxai province

29 Author 2001 Sang Thong district Vientiane Municipality

30 Save the Children Norway 2001

2001 Nhommalath district in Khammouan province and Viengkham district Luang Prabang province

31 Schiller et al 2000 1998 Vientiane and Champassak provinces

32 Shoemaker et al 2001

2001 Xe Bang Fai River basin in Khammouan province

33 Sparkes 1998 1998 Nakai Plateau

34 Trankell 1993 1991 Bolikhamxai province and Vientiane province

35 Author 2002 Tulakhom district Vientiane province

36 UNCHS 1996 1994 Vientiane

37 UNDP 1988 1988 Vientiane

38 UNDP 1991 1991 Vientiane province

39 UNDP 1997a1997b 1996 Luang Namtha Oudomxai Xieng Khouang Attapeu Saravan and Sekong provinces

40 UNDP 2002 1999 Champassak province

41 UNDPNORAD 1997 1997 Sekong province

42 UNESCOUNDP 1997

1996 Luang Namtha Oudomxai Xieng Khouang Attapeu Saravan and Sekong provinces

Figure 13 Map of research sites drawn from secondary sources noted in text see Appendix 1 page 198 for further details

While the grander debates over market transition may not obviously filter down to

ordinary people the theme of transitionmdashbut its boundaries more broadly drawnmdashis important To begin with rather than making a transition from command to market the dominant theme in Laos is transition from subsistence to market After all of the more

than 80 per cent of the population who live in rural areas two-thirds are said to be subsistence cultivators (Lao PDR 20035)6 For these people lsquocommandrsquo has always been more of an ideological wish of the leadership than a tangible local reality That aside there are other forms of transition which may accompany market transition but are also partly independent of it agrarian transitions and poverty transitions for instance And because the focus here is on the local rather than the national the wider notion of livelihood transitions partly propelled and structured by the reform programme is seen as a more useful starting point Livelihood transitions while they overlap and are influenced by market transitions also have an independent logic that is often grounded in the particular experiences and conditions of individual households

Market transition on the margins

Van de Walle considers lsquoinaccessibilityrsquo to be an adequate proxy for poverty in rural developing economies (2002581) The same assumption underpins many other studies of communities and households living at the lsquoedgersquo Hentschel and Waters writing about highland Ecuador for example suggest that robust livelihoods lsquodepend on the degree to which they are linked to or isolated from marketsrsquo (200236) If roads are poor this erodes the terms of trade for rural communities raising the costs of inputs and lowering the value of outputs and in the process undermining livelihoods This is akin to the notion of lsquooldrsquo poverty explored in greater depth in Chapter 2 But while some scholars see greasing the wheels of market transition through improving infrastructure helping to ameliorate poverty boosting incomes and raising living standards other writers turn this logic on its head

The reorientation of subsistence production to the demands of the market in this contrary view has compromised household livelihoods for the rural poor (eg Gutberlet 1999 on Brazil) Consider Sommers et alrsquos definition of marginality as lsquoa condition of poverty and deprivation found in a community or territory that has experienced the adverse effects of uneven development either due to non-competitive conditions in free markets or hegemonic biases in regulated or controlled marketsrsquo (200127) They continue lsquoGenerally marginal areas occur where there is a convergence of political cultural economic and resource problemsrsquo This definition reflects the tendency to see marginality as the product or outcome of lsquodevelopmentrsquo whether market-led or state-directed In poverty terms this may be depicted as lsquonewrsquo

As is so often the case the distinction drawn between these two forms of marginality is not a case of competition for the high ground of explanation There is a simpler reality that lives are squeezed and livelihoods compromised for both sets (lsquooldrsquo and lsquonewrsquo) of reasons Thus Mehretu et al define marginality as lsquoa condition of socio-economic and spatial distress resulting from either the unintended consequences of traditions and markets or from cognitive systems of hegemonic inequity in social and economic relationsrsquo (2001280 emphasis added) This definition raises the possibility that traditional structures and processes as well as those associated with modernisation may lead to marginalitymdasha not surprising observation given the subject of their paper the plight of rural women in Zimbabwe They also make a distinction between contingent marginality and systemic marginality The important point here is that while contingent marginality lsquooccurs spontaneously as a function of either accepted cultural norms and

traditions or free market mechanismsrsquo systemic marginality is lsquocaused by a system of inequitable social relations in a society where a hegemonic order uses formal and informal institutions to victimize individuals or collectivesrsquo (Mehretu 2001280)

To complicate matters still further there are also studies which suggest that while market liberalisation may have accelerated processes of differentiation the propelling forces have remained largely unchanged In his work on three upland villages in northwestern Vietnam Sikor (2001) argues that notwithstanding liberalisation household differentiation continues to reflect the family life cycle just as it did during the period of collective production To be sure some subtle changes have occurred In particular opportunities in the new post-socialist era have provided greater scope for households to accumulate wealth He argues therefore that while the process of differentiation remains largely unchanged the pattern has altered Inequalities have widened but the driving forces are similar between the socialist and post-socialist eras (2001944ndash5) For Sikor then the propelling forces are old and new at the same time The final way of thinking about drivers of social differentiation considered here comes from Marques and Delgado-Cravidatildeorsquos (2001) discussion on Portugal They distinguish between lsquooldrsquo and lsquonewrsquo forms of inequality seeing the former as based on structural macro-economic asymmetries and the latter on dynamic micro-economic differences (2001195) It would seem that their lsquonewrsquo inequalities are rooted in the differences between people while old inequalities are linked to differences between regions

The main point of this discussion is to highlight the ways in which scholars working in different national contexts have attempted to structure their explanations Marginality of people places and systems is a common theme but each author provides a different explanatory structure These may be thought of as operating through a series of identified binary relationships traditionmodernity isolationintegration embeddedintroduced and old new The argument which will gradually emerge in this book is that the problem is not that such binaries simplify reality (which they do) but that they push for a particular takemdashgoodbadmdashon the elements in each of the binaries

Market transition and frisson

The opening section of this chapter introduced the notion that change even when the outcome of change may be seenmdashin developmental termsmdashas positive involves some degree of frisson

The suggestion that change produces frisson is at one level self-evident and at another inconsistent The inconsistency lies in the fact that change occurs even in lsquotraditionalrsquo societies and therefore the idea that the peoples of Laos are moving from some stable traditional state to modernity is problematic What does lsquotraditionrsquo mean when lives are lived on the move and when each generation builds its own unique future It is not possible to identify in Laos one traditional state from which change may be gauged and assessed Furthermore not only are there problems and inconsistencies in trying to identify some starting point from which the impacts of change may be measured but the mere statement that Laos is changing is so self-evident as to lack interest or analytical bite

Both these concerns have value and the first is explored in greater detail in Chapter 3 However if we put aside the view that the analysis of change requires the identification of some starting point and instead look at the way change is encountered at the local level this difficulty recedes somewhat Here I am concerned to unpick and interrogate the different ways in which changemdashtransitionmdashis experienced in locales and then to understand how this is reworking livelihoods both directly (through for example government policies such as the Land-Forest Allocation Programme) and indirectly (as an outcome for instance of road construction)

Arguably frisson occurs because the rules of the game are changing in a way and to a degree that is pronounced and significant Rather than the incremental changes that are part-and-parcel of lsquonormalrsquo societal advance the years since the mid-1980s have seen something more profound and often more jarring The frameworks within which people live have been and are being reworked These frameworks encompass nature economy and society and the interactions between them The forest has been progressively captured by the state and infiltrated by new market-based actors The farm economy has diversified in new ways while possibilities for access to non-farm opportunities many involving an engagement with distant economic circuits have multiplied And in social terms established norms of behaviour and intra-household relationships have come under pressure and have sometimes been reconstituted

It is these structural changes these lsquobreaksrsquo in established ways of operation over and above the usual patina of adaptation that create the frisson alluded to here That said it should not be assumed that such frisson is negative or destructive Indeed and as the following discussion will attempt to show there are aspects of these deeper changes that may be viewed as liberating empowering and creative None the less the forces that are being brought to bear in rural Laos and in particular the intensification of market relations are setting out new challenges that will require substantial and often disruptive modifications to livelihoods Who is in a position to adapt and benefit and who is not is a critical component in building an understanding of livelihood transitions and this forms a central component of the discussion that will emerge

Part I Setting the context

2 New poverty and old poverty Livelihoods and transition in Laos

Picturing Laos alternative visions

Literature on Laos tends to parade one of two development visions The first portrays a country mercifully insulated from the worst excesses and ravages of modernisation and the market economy and where a large proportion of the population live simple but self-sufficient and fulfilling lives The alternative vision is one of a place that has lsquomissed outrsquo on development and of a people forced to endure a meagre collective existence at the edge of survival The temptation is to feel a need to jump one way or the other to embrace the modernist vision of Laos as lsquobackwardrsquo or to find succour in the post-developmental position that the country and its people have benefited from their isolation

Post-development The ideology of development must accept part of the blame for this new poverty Outside pressures to promote economic growth and modernization have led prematurely to the institution of programs and policies which have led systematically to the pathologies we now define as poverty For it is safe to say that poverty as it is defined by the poor today was not an original condition for the peoples of Laos

(ADB 2001a53)1

Modernist Living conditions in rural areas have remained largely unchanged for several generations The majority of the rural population lives in unhygienic conditions is illiterate and has low cultural awareness particularly in the case of ethnic minorities

(Lao PDR 2001a3ndash4)

Whichever way one jumpsmdashand as hinted in Chapter 1 and further explored later in the book these two visions are far from being mutually exclusivemdashboth interpretations depict a country where poverty is pronounced and many people live marginal existences It is just that for the modernists development will bring relief from the burden of tradition while those who subscribe to a quasi-post-development vision see poverty being produced through the very process of development as modernisation

Developing Laos reforming and revitalising the economy

Socialism in Laos lasted barely fifteen years The roots it sunk were shallow and they were easily uprooted

(Evans 1995xi)

Laos is one of the worldrsquos forty-nine so-styled lsquoLeast Developed Countriesrsquo a group defined by the United Nations in terms of its collective low per capita GDP weak human resource base and high level of economic vulnerability2 The government of Laos may have set itself the aim of quitting lsquoonce and for allrsquo the category of Least Developed Country by 2020 (Lao PDR 2001a22) but for the time being it remains near the bottom of the globersquos development hierarchy3 In terms of human development there would seem to be little doubt that Laos is poor More than one-third of the population live in poverty seven out of ten villages do not have access to electricity the under-5 mortality rate is 107 per 1000 live births and the adult literacy rate among women is just 55 per cent (UNDP 2002)

Since the mid-1980s the central means to solve Laosrsquo underdevelopment at least at the level of national strategy has been through the market reforms encapsulated in the New Economic Mechanism more evocatively termed Chin Thanakaan Mai or lsquoNew Thinkingrsquo in Lao In the early 1980s with the domestic economy close to collapse and the political imperative to noticeably improve standards of living growing the leadership began to experiment with the market Initially the debate was largely restricted to the Politburo and close advisers and experimentation with market reforms limited to a few areas around Vientiane In 1986 however the issue of reform entered the mainstream with General Secretary Kaysone Phomvihanersquos ground-breaking address to the Fourth Party Congress

In all economic activities we must know how to apply objective laws and take into account socio-economic efficiency At the present time our country is still at the first stage of the transition period [to socialism] Hence the system of economic laws now being applied to our country is very complicated It includes not only the specific laws of socialism but also the laws of commodity production Reality indicates that if we only apply the specific economic laws of socialism alone and defy the general laws pertaining to commodity production or vice versa we will make serious mistakes in our economic undertaking during this transition period

(Lao PDR 19899)

Since then there has been a progressive freeing up of the economy to market forces (Table 21) These policies comprise in summary

bull A move to a market determination of prices and resource allocation bull A shift from central planning to guidance planning bull An elimination of subsidies and introduction of monetary controls

New poverty and old poverty 19

bull An alignment of the domestic currency with the market rate bull A decentralisation of control to industries and lower levels of government bull The encouragement of the private sector bull The encouragement of foreign investment

Table 21 Laos landmarks of economic reform (1975ndash2003)

December Full and final victory of the communist Pathet Lao

1982 Reforms first touted

1985 Pilot studies of financial autonomy in selected state-run industries

1986 Decentralisation of decision-making to the provinces including provincial tax administration Freeing up the market in rice and other staples

November NEM endorsed by the Party Congress

1987 Restrictions on the cross-provincial movement of agricultural produce abolished barriers to external trade reduced provincial authorities charged with the responsibility of providing health and education services

June Prices of most essentials market-determined

1988 Forced procurement of strategic goods at below market price abolished reduction in public sector employment tax reforms introduced private sector involvement in sectors previously reserved as state monopolies permitted introduction of new investment law

March Prices of fuel cement machinery and vehicles freed tax reforms enacted state and commercial banking sectors separated state enterprises made self-reliant and autonomous explicit recognition of the rights of households and the private sector to use land and private property

June Nationwide elections held for 2410 positions at district level

July Multiple exchange rates abolished liberal foreign investment code introduced payment of wages in kind abolished

June Second tax reform enacted

October First joint venture bank with a foreign bank begins operation the Joint Development Bank

March Privatisation (lsquodisengagementrsquo) law introduced

June Key economic laws covering contracts property banking and inheritance discussed by National Assembly

July State Bank (Central Bank) of the Lao PDR established and fiscal management of the economy formally handed over to the new bank

1992 Thai Military Bank begins operating a full branch in Vientiane

January Commercial Bank and Financial Institutions Act introduced

1993 Accelerated privatisation programme announced

December Removal of last quantitative restrictions and licensing requirements for imports

March New investment and labour laws passed in March by the National Assembly to be enforced within sixty days As an incentive to foreign investors the investment law lowers some import taxes and the tax on net profit streamlines the approval process and ends the foreign investment period limit of fifteen years

1997 Government attempts to control currency transactions in the wake of Thailandrsquos economic collapse

April New land law authorises the transfer of land titles to relatives and their use as collateral in obtaining bank loans

July Laos joins the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN)

1999 Stabilisation of the economy through expenditure cuts and monetary controls

2000 Direct foreign investment approvals decline from a peak of US$26 billion in 1995 to just US$20 million in 2000

March Basic principles of decentralisation set out with the province as the strategic unit of administration

October Progressive simplification of export and import procedures to boost trade

December Restructuring and reform of the three State Commercial Banks (SCBs) agreed with the IMF to build up commercial lending profiles and practices

2002 New Foreign Exchange Decree passed to improve private sector access to foreign exchange

2003 Plans for restructuring of five largest SOEs in preparation

April Bilateral trade agreement signed with the USA

February Discussions with the USA for the extension of normal trade relations

Source Adapted and updated from Rigg (200314ndash15)

It is possible to transpose the reforms of the NEM quite closely on to a matrix of generic recommendations linked to the neo-liberal Washington consensus (Table 22) In other words the NEM quite closely follows the mainstream orthodox recipe for success as purveyed by the institutions of the Washington consensus4 Indeed over the years the Lao government has been lauded more than once by the World Bank and the IMF as an exemplar of economic reform One lsquoinsiderrsquosrsquo account tells the lsquostory of how one developing country [Laos] in the 1990s [conducted] a concerted impressively successful campaign to attract foreign investment to ensure it serves host-country interestsrsquo (Sunshine 19959)

For many commentators the economic successes of the years since the mid-1980s are intimately linked to the policies associated with the NEM For the World Bank lsquounder the NEM the Lao PDR has witnessed economic

Table 22 The NEM and the Washington consensus

The Washington consensus Reforms of the NEM Fiscal discipline and austerity

Fiscal austerity-cuts in public expenditure and monetary controls (1999)

Tax reform Tax reforms introduced (1988) second tax reforms enacted (1989)

Financial liberalisation

Fiscal management handed over to the newly-created Central Bank of the Lao PDR (1990) reform and restructuring of State Commercial Banks (2001)

Exchange rate reform

Multiple exchange rates abolished (1988) New Foreign Exchange Decree approved (2002)

Trade liberalisation

Freeing up of market in rice and other staples (1986) barriers to cross-provincial and international trade loosened (1987) market determination of prices for most commodities (1987) removal of final licensing restrictions for imports (1993) export and import procedures simplified (2001) bilateral trade agreement signed with USA (2003) discussions with USA for extension of normal trade relations (2003)

Foreign direct investment

New investment law (1987) liberalisation of investment code (1988) further reforms to investment law (1994)

Privatisation Private sector involvement in state monopolies permitted (1988) privatisation law introduced (1990) accelerated privatisation announced (1993)

Deregulation Banking partially deregulated (1988) first foreign bank begins operation (1989) plans for restructuring of five largest state-owned enterprises drawn up (2003)

Property rights Rights of households to private property acknowledged (1988) new laws on contracts and inheritance introduced (1990) new land law authorises transfer of land titles to relatives and their use as collateral (1997)

Sources Characteristics of the Washington consensus adapted from Reed and Rosa (nd [1999]) and Standing (2000) NEM reforms extracted from Table 21

progress unparalleled in its historyrsquo (World Bank 1999aiii) Economic expansion averaged 64 per cent per year between 1992 and 2003 and never fell below 40 per cent even during the years of the Asian economic crisis (Figure 21) In 2000 with the Asian crisis fresh in the memory the Lao government could still report to donors at the annual round table gathering in Vientiane that lsquothe government will [continue to] do its utmost to carry out further the economic reforms undertaken under the NEMrsquo (Lao PDR 2000a 20) There are few if any in the leadership who believe that it is either possible or desirable to return to the policies of command and control that characterised the decade from 1975 to 1985 Rather the debate in Vientiane is about how the NEM should be extended and fine-tuned not whether it requires rethinking and retooling in any fundamental sense

Figure 21 Economic performance Lao PDR (1992ndash2004)

Sources UNDP 2002 Lao PDR 2002 World Bank 2004

This then is the big picture as seen from the centre What though of the translation of these policies and initiatives on the ground It is here where things become more interesting more problematic and less clear The introduction to a book on managing foreign investment in Laos published in 1995 states that the lsquo[Lao] governmentrsquos reform campaign has been fully integrated monitored and analyzedrsquo (Sunshine 19952) This statement may be true in a very restricted sense but in many respects it is both reductionist and misleading The reform programme has not been fully monitored except (possibly) among and between decision-makers and investors in Vientiane and it has not been analysed in any substantive sense More particularly there has been little systematic attention paid to the manifold ways in which reform and the policies associated with reform have impacted on livelihoods5 It is in these ways that the gaps in our knowledge and appreciation of the politics and economics of reform on the one hand and the developmental implications of reform on the other become clearest

Economics or development creating or ameliorating poverty

While there may be satisfaction in some quarters at the national economic picturemdashreflected in the World Bankrsquos rather glib take on progress in Laos quoted abovemdashand a real sense of lsquono going backrsquo this is more than counterbalanced by growing concern at how economic growth is being translated into lsquodevelopmentrsquo at the local level The NEM as it is often discussed in government documents and other reports becomes a

disembedded and disembodied reform strategy Disembedded in the sense that the way these policies intrude into geographical spaces is only cursorily considered and disembodied to the degree that the human impacts are rarely addressed We have therefore a vision of the economics of modernisation but not the progress of development

The inequality-widening effects of market integration are explored at greater length in later chapters However it is worth noting at this stage the sense in many quarters that in pursuing reform and in embracing policies of market integration some problems are becoming more serious and intractable just as others are ameliorated

The government recognizes that the modernization itself [connected with the NEM] particularly the commercialization of agriculture and forestry could create social changes that would leave some people unable to benefit from the NEM and even worse off

(ADB 1999a6)

The tendency though is to read-off lsquosuccessrsquo from the aggregate statistics of sustained economic growth and falling poverty since the mid-1980s growth has been achieved poverty has fallen and indicators of human well-being have been on an upward trend This has tended to disguise however the underside and side-effects of economic expansion particularly when the necessary detailed ethnographic studies are (relatively) few in number and not easily accessible Compared with neighbouring Thailand where there has been a long and sustained critical take on the fast-track industrialisation strategy pursued by successive governments the picture from Laos is on the whole one-dimensional lacking in both alternative narratives and nuance

Envisioning lsquooldrsquo poverty and lsquonewrsquo poverty

Old poverty depicting dearth and creating the space for intervention

Old poverty is centred on a characterisation of lives and livelihoods that regards people living simple and meagre lives as necessarily poor In the most part these communities often comprising ethnic minorities are to be found in the more remote areas of the Lao uplands separated physically and mentally from the mainstream Their engagement with the market is limited and their livelihoods are subsistence-oriented These characteristics whether explicitly stated or implied are regarded as problematic from a development standpoint In other words they are a lsquoproblemrsquo requiring development intervention This problem has various facets including the lsquoproblemrsquo of shifting cultivation the lsquoproblemrsquo of lack of market access the lsquoproblemrsquo of an absence of government services and amenities the lsquoproblemrsquo of low incomes the lsquoproblemrsquo of high infant mortality rates and the lsquoproblemrsquo of adult illiteracy In this way very different issues are conflated into a single development lsquoproblemrsquo to be rectified6 Somemdashsuch as high infant mortality ratesmdashwould be regarded as problematic but most if not all other lsquoproblemsrsquomdashsuch as high levels of shifting cultivation or lack of market accessmdashare not so easily categorised

Characterisations of poverty and the key policy prescriptions to deal with poverty in Laos invariably entail a call for market integration and state engagement This is one of the core logics enshrined in the governmentrsquos lsquopoverty-focused agricultural development planrsquo (Lao PDR 2003)7 Regarding the uplands the document argues that lsquoUpland areas are often remote and dominated by more fragile ecological conditions that demand more intensive management of natural resources and in the context of Lao PDR a reduction of shifting cultivation both of which are required if poverty is to be reducedrsquo (Lao PDR 20036) This is the wider view from Vientiane but it is restated in various forms in documentation related to individual projects and programmes In one study of twelve districts and three provinces (Bolikhamxai Khammouan and Savannakhet) in the central region the consultants identified ten main causes of poverty (JICA 2000iii and 1100ndash1)

1 Low agricultural productivity 2 Unstable agricultural production due to environmental factors 3 Limited access to physical resources for production (land and water) 4 Limited access to information to improve farming methods 5 Vulnerability of organisations 6 Limited access to credit 7 Limited job opportunities (low off-farm income) 8 Low education levels 9 Poor health facilities 10 Poor social infrastructure

The narrative in this document is one of dearth lack of knowledge lack of technical support lack of assets lack of credit lack of market access lack of income earning opportunities and lack of agricultural inputs In such a manner a context is created from which certain development interventions are justified and given legitimacy

This logic of problem identificationdevelopment intervention may also be seen at work in Pandey and Sanamongkhounrsquos (1998) study of fifteen villages in the southern provinces of Champassak and Saravan Here rice is by far the most important crop and off-farm activities contribute between 4 and 29 per cent of total income At the same time however only 58 per cent of households grow enough rice to meet their annual needs Put another way 42 per cent of households are in rice deficit The solution is clear to the authors of the study raise rice production through the dissemination of new technologies and in particular fertilisers and modern varieties of rice Furthermore because this was already occurring spontaneously in those areas with good market access the key to boosting yields and production was seen to lie in providing the physical infrastructure (roads) to secure market access In the absence of such market access even in those areas with an efficient extension system the desired production outcomes were they concluded unlikely to be achieved (199845)

While traditional lowland wet rice systems in Laos are low productivity compared with neighbouring Thailand and Vietnam it is with respect to upland shifting cultivation systems that this narrative of poverty created by low productivity is most fully developed The plan for a joint Lao PDR-EU project in the northern province of Phongsali for instance provides the following justification for its work

Shifting upland farming being a lsquolow inputmdashlow outputrsquo system is characterised by generally providing an inadequate diet in terms of both quantity and quality with no marketable surpluses Villages supplement diets by use of forest products some of which are sold for cash

(Lao PDREU 19994)

On the Nakai Plateau with its poor soils it has been suggested that even in the context of land abundance lsquorice deficiency has probably always been a fact of lifersquo (Sparkes 19983)8 It is partially on these grounds that the eradication of shifting cultivation has been marked out as a key priority in successive development plans (see page 64)

These provincial-level perspectives are mirrored at national level in the Lao governmentrsquos lsquostrategic vision for the agricultural sectorrsquo (Lao PDR 1999) In a section entitled lsquoThe link between rural poverty and rural infrastructurersquo the report notes that lsquoinfrastructure is strongly related to the development of off-farm employment farmersrsquo integration into the market economy and increased agricultural productivityrsquo (199917ndash18 Plate 21) The governmentrsquos investment strategy since the mid-1980s has focused on integrating marginal communities through investment in physical infrastructure Between 1991 and 1995 51 per cent of total public investment was allocated to physical infrastructure (199918) and in 1998 it rose to a peak of 62 per cent (Lao PDR 2001b37) The public investment plan (PIP) for 2001 to 2003 projected a lower level of spending on physical infrastructure but it still represented as an average over the three years of 35 per cent of total investment (Lao PDR 2001b37 and see Figure 61) This is a huge and sustained government commitment of scarce resources to one area of development intervention in the belief that it plays a pivotal role in the achievement of economic expansion and poverty reduction

Even with this investment there is no doubt that physical access is limited in many parts of the country and the Integrated Rural Accessibility Planning (IRAP) project has as its central objective the reduction of poverty through alleviation of poor access on the basis that this is an underlying cause of poverty (Lao PDR 2000b229) An assessment conducted in seven northern provinces in 1999 found that while close to 90 per cent of Tai-Kadai villages had road access for Mon-Khmer Hmong-Mien and Sino-Tibetan (ie minority) communities who dominate these provinces the figures were 53 per cent 35 per cent and 50 per cent respectively (ADB 2000a) (see Box 21) At the national level at the turn of the Millennium of 8884 km of lsquoprovincial roadsrsquo crucial for developing market access in rural areas just 22 per cent were all-weather and passable twelve months of the year while 76 per cent were impassable by motorised vehicle for six months or more (Lao PDR 2000b11)

Plate 21 The market comes to Sang Thong (2001) For the government and many development agencies lack of market access is seen as a key reason why communities are poor

Not only are traditional systems seen as perpetuating poverty at the household and community levels but they are also perceived to be holding the country back at a national level A consultancy study for the ADB finalised in 1998 talks of farming systems in Laos as being lsquovirtually autonomousrsquo The autonomy and self-reliance of most rural households is recast in this document as a problem to be tackled on the basis lsquothat such systems cannot respond rapidly enough to the needs of a growing population which is increasingly urbanized and divorced from the means of food and other material productionrsquo (ADB 19982ndash3) The countrysidersquos role becomes one of supplier of food and other commodities to the growing urban population and industrial sector For the country autonomous subsistence-oriented communities are simply failing to fulfil their national responsibility of delivering the goods as part of a market-driven process of agrarian transition The means to tackle this so-styled problem once again is through

market integration and the support of modern methods of production by revitalising the education research and extension systems

The tenor of the discussion in this section has been implicitly critical of some of the leaps of logic involved in the construction of old poverty Be that as it may the very low levels of human development in the country are not conjured constructed or imagined into existence by the development industry and the discourse of development they are very real Fewer than half of Lao women can read and write and among the Hmong-Yao (Hmong-Mien) minority group this falls to fewer than one in ten There are just twenty district hospitals which may be regarded as fully operational while only 35 per cent have running water and 44 per cent sterilisation equipment Male life expectancy in 2000 was just 57 years (see Table 23)

Disturbing trends are apparent in a number of health indicatorshellip Maternal mortality rates are high child health is poor and the gap between service demand and availability is significant Basic hygiene and sanitation are serious concerns in many rural and remote villages

(ADB 2000b62)

Village surveys provide an even more convincing case to support the position that subsistence affluence is a rhetorical device which disguises very real and corrosive levels of underdevelopment (see Table A21) However the government and the development industry may justify the interventions they recommend and promote there is no question that there is more here than mere lsquodiscoursersquo

New poverty creating the poor through development

It is perhaps warranted to assume that in the majority of cases those groups who are living more or less traditional existences based on subsistence agriculture have ample nourishment and lead normal lives by their own standardshellip It may likewise be assumed that those who are diagnosed as extremely poor or starving have been victims of manmade social or environmental upheaval not infrequently in the name of rural development

(ILO 20009)

For scholars such as Chamberlain and Phomsombath (2002) and Raintree (2003) the uplands of Laosmdashthose areas identified by most studies as harbouring the greatest concentrations of lsquopoorrsquomdashface no population-induced production crisis There is ample land to sustain livelihoods and traditional rotational swidden systems are sustainable and productive It has been the

Figure B21 The peoples of Laos represented on the 1000-kip note

The 1995 Lao census lists forty-seven ethnic groupsmdashin terms of numbers around one-fifth of the total identified by anthropologists of 200+ndash of which the largest are the Lao comprising 525 per cent of the total population The provincial censuses however initially provided a list of fifty-five ethnic groups later reduced to forty-nine It is worth noting that the Lao represent barely more than one half of the population and in that sense Laos is truly a nation of minorities

The shifting sands of ethnic classification in Laos have also produced a degree of confusion among the population in terms of how they should describe themselves Vatthana Pholsena (2002187) recounts a conversation with the representative of the Lao Peoplersquos Revolutionary Party in a minority (Ngegrave) village in Sekong in the south

Question What is your national group (sogravensat) Answer lsquoLao Theungrsquo the man replied at once He then started enumerating the different

national groups lsquoThere are the Lao Theung the Lao Lum the Lao Khonghelliprsquo He stopped looking hesitant and then mumbled a few more words I was unable to understand

Question What is your nationality (sagravensai) Answer He replied without hesitation lsquoLaorsquo16 Question What is your ethnic group (sogravenphaw) Answer lsquoNgegraversquo He then specified lsquoWe belong to the sixty-eight ethnic groups like the

Lao Sung the Megraveohelliprsquo He stopped and mumbled inaudibly again

Ovesen (200280 4) shows how ethnic categories in Xepon district in Savannakhet

province however inaccurate take on significance and gain legitimacy over time Reference to the Lao Loum Lao Theung and Lao Soung may be rejected from an academic standpoint and even by some government officials but this classification none the less shapes the perceptions self-identities and actions of the people in the area State discourses and the terminologies of administration and development have been so effective in some areas that lsquothe spontaneous answer of the Mon-Khmer-speaking peoples [of the Xepon area] to the question of ethnicity is usually ldquoLao Theungrdquorsquo (200289)

Table B21 The peoples of Laos and their classification

Superstock language family

Pre-1991 classification

Selected ethnic groupsa

Population (1995 census)

of total population

Tai-Kadai (or Lao Loum Lao Phou-Tai 3029 million 662

Lao-Tai Lao (lsquoLowland TaiThai Lue

Phou Tai) Laorsquo) Tai Neua

Austro-Asiatic Lao Theung Khmu Pray 1042 million 228

Mon-Khmer (lsquoMidland Lamet 1037 million 227

Viet-Muang Laorsquo) Makong (Brou Bru) Katang Khmer

0005 million 01

Hmong-Mien Lao Soung Hmong Iu 0338 million 74

(Hmong-Yao) (lsquoHighland Mien (Yao)

Hmong-Mien Laorsquo)

Sino-Tibetan Lao Soung Akha Lahu 0131 million 29

Tibeto-Burman (lsquoHighland 0122 million 27

Hor-Han Laorsquo) 0009 million 02

Others 0034 million 07

Total 4574 million 100

Notes a Chamberlain and Phanh Phomsombath (2002) divide Laosrsquo ethnic minorities into language families (four corresponding to those listed above) major ethnic groups (of which there are forty-two) subgroups (numbering eighty-three) and also provide a further 167 local names for ethnic minorities in the country Sources ADB (2000b) Chamberlain et al (1995)

Table 23 Laos health and education profile

Incidence of poverty (199798) 39

Life expectancy at birth years (2000) 61 (female) 57 (male)

Infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births 2000) 82

Under-5 mortality rate (per 1000 live births 2000) 107

Maternal mortality rate (per 100000 live births 2000) 530

Houses with piped water or protected well 50

Adult literacy rate (1998) 55 (female) 82 (male)

Average number of years of schooling (199798) 3 (female) 4 (male)

Secondary level gross enrolment ratio (19992000) 351

population aged 6+ who have not completed any basic education (1995)

Villages with complete primary school (199798) 43

Villages with lower secondary school (199798) 11

Source UNDP (2002)

engagement of people with the market and the state that has made them lsquopoorrsquo (ADB 2001b) It is in this way that poverty in Laos is depicted by some scholars and development practitioners as lsquonewrsquo It is significant that few of these people would describe themselves as lsquopost-developmentalistsrsquo or by implication as anti-development even though their arguments and views overlap to a significant extent with the more radical end of the scholarly development community

The lsquonewrsquo poor are being created both mentally and instrumentally On the one hand the culture of modernity propelled not only by government policies but also by traders and television and radio is creating a mental context where the products of modernisation become valued and sought after Even in the absence of the development lsquodiscoursersquomdashthe effects of market integration are far more powerful and pervasivemdasha sense of insufficiency paucity and dearth is being created both mentally and experientially It takes only a short step and a small leap of the imagination for those suffering from insufficiency to regard themselves as poor The way in which a particular vision of poverty and the poor can insinuate itself into the mental landscape is seen in the UNDPrsquos definition of poverty in Vietnam a definition that resonates with much mainstream work on Laos lsquoPoverty is a lack of ability to participate in national life most especially in the economic spherersquo (UNDP 19955) Such a view of poverty immediately categorises subsistence farmers as poor irrespective of the conditions in which they live

At the same time the poor are being instrumentally created through the unintended outcome of government policies and in particular through the operation of area-based development programmes This has restricted hill peoplesrsquo access to their traditional

swidden fields drawing them down to the valleys where the most productive land is already claimed From a situation of land abundance and sustainability many hill peoples find themselves struggling to meet their subsistence needs with declining rotation cycles and falling yields (see Chapter 5) More widely the inequality widening effects of market integration is pushing some people into poverty just as it assists in permitting others to accumulate wealth

The degree and intensity with which modernisation and economic development have created a class of losers varies At one extreme is the catastrophic effect of the resettlement of Vietic-speaking nomadic foragers (Atel Makang Mlengbrou Cheut and Themarou) in connection with the Nakai-Nam Theun Biodiversity Conservation Area project These groups have been unable to adapt to their new environment and lifestyles even after twenty years In some cases having been extirpated from their traditional lands they have been virtually extinguished as distinct cultural groups An ILO report notes that the number of Atel families has declined through death from twelve to five and the Mlengbrou from twenty-five to two (ILO 200010) The report states

That the policies were not enacted out of malice is of little consolation It is a poor reflection on the ways in which Western concepts of economic development have influenced decision-makershellipthe idea of cultural evolution or successive modes of production is firmly embedded in the governmentrsquos political and economic thought

(ILO 200011)

For the most part the effects of market integration have been rather less catastrophic although their scale is undoubtedly greater An EU survey of 6000 households from 342 rural villages in four districts in Luang Prabang found that accompanying the progress of development was a process of lsquosocial discriminationrsquo This was leaving behind lsquoweakerrsquo elements of rural society and in particular upland minority groups (EU 1997iv) While the study found that market access was positively correlated with levels of prosperitymdashvillages with better access were richermdashit also found no link between food security and remoteness (EU 199720) In other words while remote villages may have been poor in this study it was not possible to read into this that remote villages were food insecure lsquoOn the contraryrsquo the report asserts lsquoit appears that villages closer to a communication axis tend to have more food security problemsrsquo (EU 199720) The minority uplanddwelling Lao Theung are likened in the study to a lsquorural proletariatrsquo whose living conditions are lsquosignificantly lower than those of other ethnic groupsrsquo (EU 199727) Extracted from the land and redeployed as wage labourers they have become the new poor

For some radical scholars of development poverty has been conjured into existence by the development project Deficiencies are identified lines are drawn the poor are counted and in so doing the spaces for development intervention are created The view taken here is that while there is no doubt that lsquopovertyrsquo is constructed through various policies and programmes and through particular ways of thinking about well-being and deprivation it is not possible from this to impute that poverty and the poor do not exist in Laos However it does serve to highlight the partial and contingent way in which debates policies world views opinions and positions create a mental context where

poverty is defined demarcated and delineated in a particular manner At one level poverty is real and corrosivemdasha blight to be erased At another the poor are socially constructed There is an objective poverty and at the same time a poverty which is defined and measured in terms of certain value judgements This may be seen to lie in government policies and research methodologies and in the documentation produced by multilateral agencies and in the reports of researchers It also thoughmdashand this is crucialmdashlies in the minds of local people The fact that poverty is socially constructed in short does not mean that poverty is not real

Livelihoods stasis and transition

Agriculture dominates the economy of the Lao PDR contributing 53 percent of GDP and absorbing an estimated 80 percent of the labour forcehellip Rice farming is the single most important national economic activityhellip An estimated 83 percent of the population resides in rural areas of which approximately 66 percent rely on subsistence agriculture

(Lao PDR 20035)

This quote is extracted from the Lao governmentrsquos 2003 poverty-focused agricultural development plan It paints the following summary picture of economy and livelihoods in Laos

bull Agricultural 80 per cent of the labour force and 52 per cent of GDP bull Rural 83 per cent of the population bull Rice-based 68 per cent of land is devoted to rice and 75 per cent of farm holdings

cultivate rice bull Subsistence 66 per cent of households are defined as subsistence

Taken together these terms highlight the defining features of the country Laos remains a place where agriculture provides the means of living for the bulk of the population But such a characterisation of the country does have one significant drawback it gives an impression of stasis Livelihoods have always been focused on agriculture and farming and the implication would seem to be will likely remain so for some time to come Food security becomes the bottom line in determining the haves from the have-nots and this in turn is viewed in terms of own-account farming Even without having to take the risky course of predicting the future it is evident that patterns of life are undergoing change profound in some places and cases

At a community level this may be seen in the bare bones of the time lines constructed for four villages two in Tulakhom district 60 km north of Vientiane and two in Sang Thong district 60 km west from Vientiane on the Mekong (Table 24) The time lines reveal the

Table 24 Village histories time lines for villages in Tulakhom and Sang Thong districts Vientiane Province

Date Ban Phon Hai (Tulakhom District)

Ban Nam Ang (Tulakhom District)

Ban Ang Not (Sang Thong District)

Ban Kop Pherng (Sang Thong District)

1700 Village established

Village established

1968 Village established forty families settled from Nam Ngum Dam site

Village established forty families settled from Nam Ngum Dam site

Mobility limited due to clashes between Pathet Lao guerrillas and Royalist troops in the surrounding countryside

1969 Track cut to village school built in Ban Nam Ang to be shared with Ban Phon Hai

Three-room school built to be shared with neighbouring Ban Phon Hai

1972 First motorcycle in the village fifteen households leave for Ban Naa Phork Don Ban looking for land they fail and return the same year

1970ndash75

Surrounding area under RLG control

1970 Serious food shortage as harvest fails three ID cards introduced

1975 Lao PDR established

Lao PDR established Lao PDR established Radio comes to the village

Lao PDR established

1975ndash1980

Travel outside village risky because of bandit activity

1994 Rice bank established lsquosolvesrsquo the problem of periodic rice shortages

Pest attack destroys much of the rice crop

1976 Agricultural extension office makes contact

fertilisers and pesticides introduced cooperative established

1980 School expanded in Ban Nam Ang road improved

Two more rooms added to school road upgraded cooperative fails and is disbanded first TV and health care introduced

1984 First television introduced

1985 First rot tok tok (rotavator)

Cooperative established (but fails)

First TV glows in the village Regular songthaew service to Vientiane commences

1986 Beginning of economic reform

Beginning of economic reform ten households leave the village for Ban Khut Sambhat

Beginning of economic reform

1987 First rot tok tok (rotavator) introduced villagersquos primary school built

1989 Ten households leave the village for Ban Khut Sambhat

1990 First regular road transport service to Vientiane

1992 Rat infestation and rice crop failure most villages take up wage work off-farm

First migrant worker travels to Thailand

1995 Regular songthaew service from the zoo 5 km away starts operation

Regular songthaew service from the zoo 5 km away starts operation young people begin to work away from the village

1997 First bicycle in village

Road improved electricity arrives in Ban Kop Pherng irrigation project comes on stream

1997ndash1999

Short-lived cassava boom based on trade with Thailand

1998 First TV and electric light powered by batteries IVs introduced

Land allocation in the village complete

1999 First rot tok tok three to four villagers begin work in Dansavanh resort technical support for agriculture begins

Agricultural bank opens in Sang Thong providing loans to farmers electricity comes to Ban Ang Noi

Agricultural bank opens in Sang Thong providing loans to farmers

2000 Electricity arrives IVs introduced first young person works at Dansavanh resort

Flooding Flooding

2001 Rice mill begins operation

Improved varieties of rice introduced

lsquoDaughterrsquo village established 4 km north

2002 Six motorcycles purchased electricity due to arrive

Source Field surveys Sang Thong district 2001 Tulakhom district 2002 Note IVs=Imported Varieties of rice

degree to which over the past three decades the villages have responded to an array of influences opportunities and policies from market integration to resettlement

Traditional lands have been lost roads and schools built new technologies disseminated markets and middlemen have arrived banks have opened households have left the villages while others have settled electricity has come on line roads have been built and upgraded and new non-farm opportunities have become available Moreover these changes have infiltrated communities in uneven ways providing some with the means to prosper more than others The populations of these villages may not mentally gather these changes together into the grab-bag of lsquoreformrsquo which is so easily wielded by academics development practitioners and government officials but they none the less realise that economy and society are on the move

A short look across the Mekong to Thailand and from there to some of the other countries of Southeast Asia illustrates the extent to which rural areas and rural livelihoods in fast-changing Asia can be reworked over just a single generation Some lsquorice-growingrsquo communities have become disengaged almost entirely from agriculture9 More common is the evolution of hybrid households and communities where farm and non-farm are harnessed to create diverse portfolios of activities Such occupational multiplicity part of an ongoing process of lsquodeagrarianisationrsquo has become the norm in many parts of the region from the central plains of Thailand to Java in Indonesia Luzon in the Philippines and peninsular Malaysia (see Box 22)

In Laos farming maintains its core and key role in livelihoods but numerous studies have also shown the degree to which such systems are coming under pressure10 A combination of population growth resource decline (whether land forest or river) and growing needs has ensured that farm-based systems are increasingly failing to deliver the necessary livelihood returns At the same time though the opportunities provided by the developments illustrated in the time lines means that it is not just a question of a squeezing of traditional livelihoods This has been accompanied by an opening up of new possibilities The important point (and this is explored at length in later chapters) is that as a result poverty is being produced and reproduced in new ways It is not a case of poverty becoming entrenched or perpetuatedmdashas it is so often depicted in the literaturemdashbut of the very nature of poverty changing as development proceeds and livelihoods adapt It is for this reason that the above depictions of lsquooldrsquo and lsquonewrsquo poverty should be treated only as devices and not as reflections of different competing realities

Box 22 Structural change evolving livelihoods and poverty in the Philippines and Thailand

One of the fullest accounts of village-level social and economic change in Southeast Asia comes from Yujiro Hayami and Masao Kikuchirsquos study of East Laguna village in the province of Laguna in the Philippines The village has been studied continuously since Hayami set out from the International Rice Research Institute in Los Bantildeos in September 1974 to find a lsquotypical rice villagersquo Since then it has been buffeted by manifold forces and developments the closure of the land frontier rapid population growth new rice technologies the infiltration of urban mores public investment in infrastructure such as roads and schools rising levels of landlessness and the introduction of manufacturing activities in the village Over two decades the contribution of farming to household income has declined from 87 per cent to 36 per cent while the share of non-farm income has risen from 13 per cent to 64 per cent (Hayami and Kikuchi 2000)

Much the same sequence of change may be seen in the central plains of Thailand where Franccedilois Molle and his colleagues have been working over several years In their field survey of forty-five sites in the central plains undertaken between 1994ndash1995 57 per cent of farm households surveyed by the team had multiple occupations that included an occupation outside of agriculture (DORAS 1996160) In their more detailed survey of three villages in the provinces of Suphanburi Lopburi and Ayutthaya undertaken between 1998 and 2000 the percentage of households whose main occupation was farming ranged from 60 per cent in Suphanburi to 43 per cent in Ayutthaya (Molle et al

200129) The authors conclude that the lsquooverall picture emerging from these data is that in the three environments and in the three villages which can still be considered as rural and agricultural villages the income from crop production is unlikely to exceed one half of the total net incomersquo (Molle et al 200149) There has been a progressive delinking of livelihoods (and therefore poverty) from farming In 1966 in East Laguna village the top quintile of the population owned 51 per cent of the village stock of land In 1995 that figure was 99 per cent but while land was becoming increasingly unequally distributed income shares remained largely unchanged In 1974 the top quintile earned 56 per cent of total income Two decades on in 1995 this figure was still 56 per cent The same was true of the income share of the bottom quintile 4 per cent in 1974 and 4 per cent in 1995 It was the diversification of livelihoods that permitted the landless and land poor to maintain their relative position and with generally increasing incomes to improve their standard of living Nonfarm work (in situ but also ex situ) in East Laguna village may be said to be inequality narrowing and paradoxically community preserving Such work has maintained the image of agrarian continuity by shoring up the income of landless households and those with sub-livelihood plots and keeping them in the village even if they are not increasingly on the land Hay ami and Kikuchi (2000243) conclude

the experience of East Laguna Village since the 1960s suggests strongly that the misery of the poor would have been magnified further by rapid population growth with closed land frontiers if the village had continued to rely on traditional agriculture in isolation from urban market activities

The lessons of the Thai example are similar Molle (200320) writes of a lsquopost-agrarianrsquo rural society where households are increasingly delinked from the land In the process firmly founded assumptions about the relationship between land and livelihoods have been challenged The assumption for example that large landowners will be better off than small landowners small landowners than partial tenant farmers and partial tenants than full tenants no longer stands up to scrutiny

There is a strong case for thinking that it is nowadays misleading to judge the precariousness of small farms based only on the sole [indicator of] farm size intensification (triple cropping) diversification (high value-added crops) multiple-activity and multi-incomes (including remittances) outline a complex family economy which cannot easily be grasped

(Molle and Thippawal Srijantr 1999136ndash7) In an increasing number of cases it is no longer possible to draw any clear associations

between the strategies that individuals and households adopt and their socio-economic position In other words the abandonment of farming may be an indicator of economic hardship and the poverty-creating side-effects of agricultural modernisation Or conversely it may be the outcome of the higher educational achievements of the children of middle and rich farmers who are then able to access higher return non-farm work

Turning once again to the experience of other Asian countries demonstrates the necessity of viewing poverty as in a state of permanent revolution During the 1970s and 1980s analysts and scholars were generally pessimistic about the prospects for the less well-off in rural areas of Asia Population growth in the context of limited land was raising the spectre of a Malthusian squeeze on livelihoods while economic differentiation propelled by modernisation was seen to be likely to lead to a further marginalization of the poor11 In Thailand Indonesia India and the Philippines however the more pessimistic scenarios have not in the main turned into reality Rural livelihoods have improved rural poverty has declined and food insecurity in the countryside has been ameliorated even as rural resources (in particular land) have become more unequally distributed As discussed in more detail in Chapter 7 this has been achieved in part through the introduction of yield-enhancing technologies Also important thoughmdashand increasingly somdashhas been the contribution made by the diversification of rural livelihoods

In Laos we have a context in the early years of the twenty-first century whichmdashwithout wishing to sound lamemdashis at the same time old and new static and changing Poverty in the country certainly reveals features of an inherited past It also though reflects the social and economic outcome of present processes Households in constructing their livelihoods hold fast to some elements of their lives while enthusiastically embracing new developments Thus subsistence rice farming is not progressively displaced by other new activities but rather is allied with commodity crop production or factory work Just as it is not easy or desirable to categorise poverty as being of one type or another so it is equally difficult and problematic to pigeon-hole people and their livelihoods

3 Subsistence affluence or subsistence

struggle Unpicking tradition and illuminating the past

Introduction

As the discussion of lsquooldrsquo and lsquonewrsquo poverty in Chapter 2 illustrated one of the more contentious and problematic areas of debate involves the issue of what lsquotraditionalrsquo livelihoods were like lsquoLikersquo here refers not only to how they were structured and what they comprised but also what they delivered For some scholars and development practitioners traditional communities were robust and self-reliant and depended on production systems that were broadly sustainable in the long run For others they were characterised by low productivity were susceptible to environmental shocks and permitted households only to lsquobounce along the bottomrsquo in livelihood terms with little scope for wealth accumulation or sustained improvements in well-being

In unpicking and interrogating lsquotraditionalrsquo rural livelihoods this discussion artificially divides activities While technologies may become available only at particular points in time the meanings that technologies bestow have no such temporal fixity To put it another way the dissemination and uptake of the technology of the Green Revolution is often taken as indicative of a growing engagement with the market and commodity production and in parallel of a growing dependence on extra-community structures and institutions Market integration and growing dependency can however occur independently of the technology of the Green Revolution Thus we should carefully distinguish between what households or individuals do and what this might mean reading off the latter from the former is problematic

The evolutionary ideal that imprints itself so easily on all discussions of development and change is equally relevant here lsquoTraditionalrsquo and lsquomodernrsquo are categorised as emblematic of certain conditions their key characteristics are set out and then a line is drawn between each state This line importantly both links and separates The modern and the traditional become mirror images Such a teleology however tempting it may be overlooks the degree to which multiple outcomes are possible ignores the extent to which development is culturally environmentally and historically contingent and plays down the presence of the lsquomodernrsquo in the lsquotraditionalrsquo and vice versa

Problematising the past

It is tempting to see the Lao past as an era of self-reliance and the present as one of dependency The past in these terms was subsistence-oriented in almost every respect

Peoplersquos lives and livelihoods were focused inwards production systems were almost entirely channelled to meet the subsistence needs of the village few resources and commodities infiltrated the village and little seeped out Moreover the state (and higher levels of authority more generally) in this interpretation of the past had only a very limited presence in the village There is also a moral or ethical component to such a characterisation Villages were egalitarian and activities were structured at a communal rather than at an individual level Indeed for some scholars the words lsquovillagersquo and lsquocommunityrsquo are not interchangeable A village is a unit of administration a community is an organic system of relations that defines and structures a group of people in social terms and which may also have a geographical logic Systems of reciprocity and sharing were central to the operation of the community and the key mechanism by which the survival of its inhabitants was guaranteed In writing of peasant rebellions in Southeast Asia Scott states

We can begin I believe with two moral principles that seem firmly embedded in both the social patterns and injunctions of peasant life the norm of reciprocity and the right to subsistence There is good reason for viewing bothhellipas genuine moral components of the lsquolittle traditionrsquo

(Scott 1976167 emphases in original)

Subsistence for Scott becomes a fundamental social right The modern era by comparison is portrayed in contradistinction to this

characterisation of the past Villages become increasingly unequal and individualistic Subsistence security is sacrificed to the market Dependency replaces self-reliance And the lsquocommunityrsquo as a social unit metamorphoses into a lsquovillagersquo an administrative unit created and patrolled by the state and its henchmen in the interests of control

Beyond Laos there has been a long and sometimes heated debate over these images and characterisations of the past and the present Scholars have questioned their historical veracity They have reacted against the crude binaries involved And they have challenged the very notion of the lsquomoralrsquo in certain community activities1 In her discussion of the Philippines and Indonesia Li reacts against the tendency for scholars and others to lsquotruncate historyrsquo whereby pre-modern autonomous communities are regarded as being quite suddenly transformed under the exigencies of the modern market As she says the historical record shows something more complex lsquoCommunitiesrsquo were often creations of the colonial and postcolonial state and in the pre-colonial era market relations were more developed and important than the lsquoautonomous communityrsquo paradigm asserts

In the case of Laos this debate over the nature of the past and the transformative process that results in the present has been much more restricted and limited This though does not detract from the fact that the core issuemdashlsquowhat were traditional systems likersquomdashremains highly pertinent when it comes to contextualising the present situation in the country If we are to understand the pattern and tempo of agrarian change we need to begin by setting down some sort of marker from which we can measure and assess change however problematic that may be As Thayer asks in the context of Vietnamrsquos reforms the country is clearly in a state of transition but lsquofrom what [and] to whatrsquo (Thayer 199559) This is not easy when the past is so shrouded and when we are in

Subsistence affluence or subsistence struggle 41

reality considering multiple pasts and numerous ways of making a living all set against a backdrop of change The past of upland shifting cultivators is very different from that of lowland settled wet rice cultivators Among these two broad categories of living (lsquouplandrsquo lsquolowlandrsquo) there is also enormous variation and variety But while characterisations of the past are necessarily truncated and partial it is none the less possible to show how vibrantmdashsurprisingly somdashrural areas of present-day Laos were in the pre-modern period

Markets migrations and mobility mapping the past

Laosmdashor the geographical space that modern Laos now occupiesmdashhas been treated as marginal and remote for centuries a commercial vacuum waiting to be exploited The French view of Laos during the colonial period was of a resource-rich annex and larder for the colonies of Vietnam inhabited by a population of childlike innocents unable to rule themselves and requiring the protection of a paternal colonial state (see Goscha 1995 Ivarsson 1999 Jerndal and Rigg 1998 Stuart-Fox 1996) Earlier still the Siamese (Thai) view of Laos was if anything even more domineering and demeaning For Charles Keyes the manner in which the victorious Siamese treated King Anou after his capture in 1828mdashhe and thirteen other captives were caged so they could be insulted and spat upon by the ordinary populace of Bangkokmdashlsquosymbolized the Siamese view that the Lao were less than humanrsquo (2000209) The Lao and the space of Laos became objects whether for domination subjugation or lsquoprotectionrsquo

Perhaps it is because of this pre-colonial and colonial history that Laos has so often been depicted as a lsquoforgottenrsquo country as if it has somehow fallen off the edge of the map and of global consciousness2 Neher and Marlay describe the country as the lsquoforgotten land of Southeast Asiarsquo (Neher and Marlay 1995163) while a Rand Corporation report written in 1970 went so far as to suggest that Laos was lsquohardly a country except in the legal sensersquo (quoted in Freeman 1996431)3 While Laosrsquo history in the wider context of mainland Southeast Asia provides part of the explanation for this state of affairs there are other factors and influences at work the countryrsquos small size and low international visibility the manner by which the country was implicated in the wider struggle in Indochina and then cut off from the mainstream from 1975 through to the early 1980s and the prevalent belief that it only became a nation state in the modern sense in the early 1950s For Steinberg et al (1985383) in their influential modern history of Southeast Asia there was no political entity lsquoLaosrsquo until that time while in similar vein Stuart-Fox writes that lsquoLaos in the early 1950s was not yet a nation statersquo (199640) Neher as recently as the early 1990s continued to describe Laos as a lsquoquasi-nationrsquo (1991197)

It is partly due to this recurring set of images of Laos as a forgotten lost half-formed and remote land (and notwithstanding the countryrsquos tragic engagement with the war in Indochina) that it is so easy to see the inhabitants as insulated from the market living self-sufficient and self-reliant lives in archetypal lsquoautonomousrsquo communities Even lowland areas quite close to the capital were in some ways dislocated from the centre The district of Sang Thong just 60 km upstream from Vientiane was only linked year-round overland to the capital in 1990 Before that time the district was effectively cut off by road during the rainy season by all but four-wheel-drive vehicles and river transport was for many the only practicable means of reaching Vientiane It was far easier to

reach the Thai provincial town of Nong Khai than it was to get to the Lao capital For upland areas issues of access weremdashZand remainmdasheven more acute and remoteness was not only a state of mind but a reality that placed significant limitations on what people could do

All this does not mean however that lowland and upland peoples were entirely dislocated from the market There is considerable evidence that markets have long had a role to play in the uplands of Laos and that the desires of distant others had local ramifications There was a degree of specialisation and division of labour even in the pre-modern period Traditional swidden systems in combination with other activities particularly the collection of non-timber forest products (NTFPs see below) probably resulted in a considerable surplus in many upland villages At the same time there were goods and commodities that upland peoples had to source from the lowlands The result was a modicum of trade activity that reached into most areas and in some places could be described as comparatively intense

Luang Prabang became a regional centre and trade networks linked the highland areas that span present-day northern Vietnam northern Thailand southern China the Shan states of Burma and northern Laos (ADB 2001b25) Reid quotes the report of two Dutch factors who visited Vientiane in 1642 and who were told by a Malay trader that if they brought lsquofine coloured cloths and white cottonsrsquo the market in benzoin4 gum lac and gold would be theirs for the taking (199353) Dutch East India Company (VOC) documents record that one of these Dutchmen Gerrit Wuysthoff estimated that Chinese traders were collecting 23000 deerskins and eighty piculs of wax each year travelling up river as far as Muang Kha and exchanging these forest products as well as rhinoceros horn and ivory for cowry shells iron copper gongs and salt (Terwiel 200412) Caravan routes criss-crossed the northern uplands of Laos and mule trains of 100 pack animals or more were common (see Reid 199358) In his account of trade and economic activity in northwest Laos Walker (1999a) challenges as others have done for Thailand (see Box 31) the lsquomyth of the subsistence economyrsquo Trade was not only in luxury products Subsistence producers were implicated in a system of exchange that channelled goods such as cloth and salt to rural communities in exchange for rice forest products and other rural commodities (Walker 1999a25ndash63) Walkerrsquos aim is to lsquorediscoverrsquo (p 62) a history of the region that has been lost from view by the anomalous conditions that prevailed in the country during a very short period from the end of the war in the mid-1970s through to the opening up of the economy from the mid-1980s

Opium was probably grown in northern Laos from the eighteenth century and from there found its way to China to feed that countryrsquos growing habit More widely NTFPs were channelled from the forest-rich north of Laos to the lowland centres of Thailand Vietnam and China (Plate 31) Cardamom benzoin damar resin rhinoceros horn ivory animal skins lacquer aromatic woods pangolin scales tiger bones and more found their way via the hill peoples of the area to the lowlands These products were exchanged not only for goods that were scarce or absent in the uplandsmdashsalt metal implements weapons and porcelainmdashbut also for silver (see ADB 2001b25) The legacy of this trade (and its continuation) may be seen stored in accumulated heirlooms porcelain swords bronze drums and jewellery for example There was also an upland-lowland trade in some agricultural products particularly livestock In his study of the province of Luang Namtha Evrard writes

Luang Namtha has for centuries been a place for trade and movement to and fro Numerous mule trails nowadays simply footpaths once criss-crossed the province linking Siamese Burmese and Chinese border posts together with those of [neighbouring] Oudomxai province French administrators in charge during the time of the protectorate stressed the important part played by these local lines of communication

(Evrard 199712)

The crop that did most to bring wealth into the uplands of Laos was opium (see Lemoine 200224) The Swiss geographer Epprecht who undertook a survey in Muang Sing in 1997 describes opium as the lsquoidealrsquo cash crop (quoted in Bechstedt 200046)5 and ecological and geographical conditions in the north are highly suited to its cultivation Chamberlain and Phanh Phomsombath remark that just as shifting cultivation is hard to replace as

Box 31 Rediscovering the past in Thailand

In the beginning things had no price (Chatthip Nartsupha 199916 quoting a Thai villager)

In his influential book The Thai Village Economy in the Past (Sethakit mubaan Thai nai odiit) (19841999) Chatthip Nartsupha constructs an image of the Thai past in which rural communities had very little engagement with the world beyond the confines of the village and its fields

The Thai village economy in the past was a subsistence economy Production for food and for own use persisted and could be reproduced without reliance on the outside world Bonds within the village were strong Control of land was mediated by membership of the community Cooperative exchange labour was used in production Individual families were self-sufficient Agriculture and artisan workmdashthat is rice cultivation and weavingmdashwere combined in the same householdhellip There was no class conflict in the village

(Chatthip Nartsupha 199973)

Chatthiprsquos views have been influential not only in academia but also more widelymdashand in many ways more importantlymdashin the NGO community Even the King of Thailand in the wake of the economic crisis of 1997 called for Thais to create a lsquoself-sufficient economyrsquo (sethakit phor piang) based on integrated agriculture In the Kingrsquos seventieth birthday address in December 1997 he said

Being a [economic] tiger is not important What is important is to have enough to eat and to live and to have an economy which provides enough to eat and livehellip If we can change back to a self-sufficient economy not complete even not as much as half perhaps just a quarter we can

survivehellip We need to move backwards in order to move forwards (Quoted in Pasuk Phongpaichit and Baker 2000193)

This lsquolocalism discoursersquo refocuses development on the village as a community not as a mere site for the operation of global economic forces (see Hewison 1999 2001) As Chuchai Supawong argued during the crisis lsquocommunities are the heart and the answer [to the economic malaise] If they are strong the country will surviversquo (Bangkok Post 1998) The trouble with Thailand proponents of the new localism have asserted lies with the countryrsquos incorporation into the global economic context The answermdashalthough there is a great deal of muddle over what the terms meanmdashis to rediscover the spirit of self-reliance and self-sufficiency that is said to have characterised the past In this way visions of the past are being used to map out a sustainable future for the Thai countryside The difficulty is that many scholars believe those visions to be false or Utopian (see Reynolds 2001 Rigg and Ritchie 2002)

Plate B31 The Lao rural idyll Ban Pak Chek Pak Ou district Luang Prabang (2002)

a subsistence food production system so lsquoopium is [as] difficult to replace as a cash croprsquo (20029) The government though has been intent on eradicating the crop since the 1980s bringing considerable hardship to those households and villages who have depended on it as their sole or primary source of income in an increasingly income-intensive Lao world A study of seven Hmong resettlement villages undertaken in 1989 found this to be a common theme incomes fell by between one half and two-thirds following the outlawing and local eradication of opium cultivation In these villages opium was described as providing lsquosecurity against misfortunersquo (UNDP 199168)

A leitmotiv of historical studies of Southeast Asia has been the notion that as a land-rich but people-poor region rulers were not interested in the control of territory per se but

in the control of humans lsquoas it was in followers that power and wealth were primarily expressedrsquo (Reid 1988120) In his

Plate 31 Elephant tusks being carried to market depicted in the late nineteenth-century murals of Wat Phumin in the northern Thai town of Nan Nan a locally important principality was integrated into a trading network linking central Thailand with present-day Laos Yunnan (China) and Burma

History of Laos Manich states that lsquoland does not count much if there are no people in itrsquo (196745) In 1827 when the army of King Rama III of Siam defeated King Anou of Laosrsquo troops near Nong Bua Lamphu in present-day Northeast Thailand the Siamese king did not annex the lands of the vanquished king but those of his people (Wyatt 1982172) Vientiane was largely razed and effectively abandoned and the population of the Vientiane plain forcibly relocated to northeastern Thailand where they became the seed corn for a series of new muumlang (settlements) Grabowsky has hazarded that lsquoforced resettlement campaignshellip[were] an important aspect or even the main rationale of wars in traditional Thailand and Laosrsquo (19932) and quotes the old Northern Thai (Yuumlan) proverb kep phak sai sa kep kha sai muumlangmdashlsquoput vegetables into baskets put people into townsrsquo

In the light of the evidence from neighbouring countries we can temper the view of traditional Laos as comprising a patchwork of independent lsquolittle republicsrsquo each village

very much a world unto itself The market played a role even in the remote highlands there was probably more human mobility than has hitherto been imagined and villages were loosely integrated into wider networks of exchange Be that as it may this does not detract from the fact that the invisible hand of the market rested lightly on the shoulders of most villagers

Markets migrations and mobility past to present

For Walker (1999a) the years immediately following the victory of the Pathet Lao over the Royal Lao government in 1975 were atypical and anomalous They reflected an attempt by the government to limit human mobility and private trade with the result that people hunkered down andmdashin generalmdashwithdrew from the marketplace6 The closure of the border with Thailand and later with China further limited opportunities for commercial activity and it has been suggested many small-scale traders simply opted out and relied on subsistence production The lsquosubsistencersquo characterisation of the Lao peasantry in the mid-1970s may be seen reflected in a study undertaken in 1973

Isolated settlement and the peripheral location of all but the southern-most part of Laos have kept most peasant families out of the monetised economy and in a state of very near self-sufficiency Village economic independence and non-monetisation need not however rule out family interdependence and barterhellip But throughout the rural areas people build their own houses and make their own furniture from wood and bamboo weave their own clothes from cotton and silk and make their own baskets and mats

(ARTEP 197311ndash15)

Ongoing improvements in physical infrastructure have permitted this low level of human mobility to intensify (Plate 32) In addition social change is having a significant effect on the cultural context within which migration occurs Formerly mobility was largely limited to men increasingly now young women are leaving their villages to work sometimes travelling over long distances and staying away for considerable periods of time

Information on mobility in Laos is thin but there is the suspicion that there is a great deal more of it about than imagined Two studiesmdashof the very few availablemdashindicate as much The first was undertaken in 2001 in eight villages in the provinces of Xayabouri and Saravan in the north and south respectively (Lao PDR 200 1c) The second was conducted in late 2000 in thirteen villages in seven districts in the three border provinces of Khammouan Savannakhet and Champassak in the centre and south of the country (Inthasone Phetsiriseng 2001 see p 155 for a fuller discussion) The first survey records that in Saravan between 12 and 20 per cent of villagers had or were working in neighbouring Thailand (Figure 31a) In Xayabouri the figures were lower and ranged from 1 to 10 per cent The second study showed similar levels of mobility with between 3 and 12 per cent of the population working in Thailand at the time of the survey Significantly there were more female than male migrants recorded in both studies (Figure 31b) It has been suggested that in certain villages in some

Plate 32 Transport in Sang Thong district (2001) Until quite recently the road from Sang Thong district town to Vientiane was impassable for much of the year except by four-wheel drive vehicles

areasmdashfor example in lowland portions of Savannakhet provincemdashmigration to Thailand has become so much a part of the operation of the village both in social and economic terms that it may be viewed as having become institutionalised within the village setting (Wille 200126ndash7) However while the physical and cultural constraints to mobility are easing physical access still remains a real issue in many areas A survey of 6000 households in four districts of Luang Prabang province revealed that in one district the mean travel time to the nearest place with motorised transport was close to seven hours (see Figure A31)

The most prevalent forms of mobility cannot be confidently identified It is likely however that rural-rural mobility and in particular the relocation of households and whole villages (both voluntary and involuntary) to the vicinity of roads has been the dominant form of movement over the recent past However rural-urban movements permanent and circular are rising as too are the sorts of international flows noted above as poor villagers access relatively better paid work in neighbouring Thailand With progressive improvements to Laosrsquo road infrastructure so the country is becoming increasingly closely integrated into the wider Greater Mekong Subregion and the dynamic human resource context that characterises the region (Figure 32) It is tempting to see this creating a two-speed Laos where the borderland provinces close to the Mekong and Thailand become increasingly closely tied into the wider regional context while the pace of change in more remote areas is slower7 We can expect that wholesale village

movements will become less important as these other forms of mobility increase in significance

The challenge is not only to identify the rates and types of movement but also the drivers in the process This is explored in detail in Hardyrsquos (2003) historical study of migrants and migration in Vietnam focusing on movements of people to the uplands He identifies in turn the policies of the French colonial state and the post-independence Vietnamese administration perceived lsquooverpopulationrsquo in the core areas of the Red River Delta and associated landlessness the colonial discourse (which has fed into postcolonial assumptions) of the character of the Vietnamese village and the lsquoimmobilersquo Vietnamese peasant tied to his or her land displacement associated with the revolution malaria and the struggle to make a living in the uplands and modern cultures of mobility A waitress in the upland town of Ban Me Thuot a migrant from the Red River Delta told Hardy lsquoeveryone wants to leave Those who have the right conditions leave Those who donrsquot stayrsquo (Hardy 200327) Her comments highlight in addition the need for a biographical approach to understanding mobility For Laos a similar amalgam of factors may be identified cultural (cultures of mobility) economic (the necessity to make a living) political (the policy context and the shifting context of international relations) historical (the war) and

Figure 31a Percentage of surveyed villagers who have or are working in Thailand Saravan and Xayabouri provinces (2001)

Source Lao PDR 2001c8 and 9

Note Non Kho Nong Ngong Na Mouang Nhay and Na Pong are in Saravan Meuang Phiag Na Pong Meuang Va and Boua Bane in Xayabouri

Figure 31b Number and sex of surveyed villagers who have or are working in Thailand Saravan and Xayabouri provinces (2001)

environmental (land degradation and environmental decline) The role of each though is in flux and at a household and individual level they will combine in unique ways

Rural livelihoods abundance and scarcity

For the great majority of the population of Laos livelihoods are focusedmdashas they have always beenmdashon agriculture The 1995 census recorded that agriculture was the main occupation of 86 per cent of the population aged 10 years and older (UNDP 200221) While an important part of the rationale of this book is to place farming within a wider livelihoods context and to highlight the degree to which farming is being dynamically reworked even re-engineered in the context of evolving livelihoods this does not detract from the central importance of agriculture

Many studies divide rural livelihoods into lowland and upland systems Lowland systems are dominated by rain-fed wet rice agriculture (although the area of irrigated land is slowly increasing as investments in rural infrastructure grow)8 Upland systems are more varied but generally include the cultivation of dry rice often using some form of shifting cultivation There is also a broad ethnic divide here most lowland wet rice farmers

Figure 32 The regional human resource economy migration routes in the Greater Mekong Subregion

Sources Rigg 2003 Save the Children 2001

Plate 33 Lowland wet rice fields and upland dry fields Pak Ou district Luang Prabang (2002)

are Lao while upland farmers often belong to one of the countryrsquos minorities In total while the Lao-Phou Tai cultivate over six times more lowland than upland for all other minority groups (combined) upland cultivation predominates (see Figure A32)

This characterisation of livelihoods is useful as a starting point Such a division however disguises the degree to which households embrace multiple farming systems and mixed livelihoods Individual households will cultivate wet rice fields and upland plots (Plate 33) They will intercrop their upland rice with an assortment of other cultivars such as cucumber and chillis They will plant diverse home gardens consisting of fruit trees herbs and vegetables Households will also raise livestock collect NTFPs and engage in various non-farm activities In other words rural households are pluriactive and while rice may be the main crop for many households it is far from beingmdashin household termsmdasha mono-crop economy and livelihoods are anything but single-stranded (Table 31) Schiller et alrsquos (2000) survey of two rain-fed lowland rice-growing communities in Vientiane and Champassak provinces illustrates the degree to which household income at least in some villages flows as much from non-farming as from farming activities Between 34 and 44 per cent of total household income in these villages is derived from farming (and just 17 to 25 per cent from rice sales) while non-farm and off-farm activities contribute more than half total income Just as it is a simplification to write of upland and lowland systems and to expect that such a binary categorisation reflects the complexities of the real world so too with the statement that rural households are pluriactive and exhibit occupational multiplicity Beneath this overarching generalisation is a great deal of variation Moreover this variation is significant and highly important when it comes to

understanding threats to livelihood and in identifying productive areas for intervention Figures 33a and 33b provide a summary breakdown of livelihoods by income class based on surveys undertaken in two districts in the provinces of Oudomxai and Savannakhet (ILO 1997) The figures show that poorer households have more diverse sources of income and generally speaking rely less on farming The study also emphasises the importance of livestock in income generation

Table 31 Mr Phimponersquos household Ban Nam Ang Tulakhom district (2002)

Activity Income earning

Lowland rain-fed rice production Fruit production (mostly melons) Vegetable production (mostly cucumber)

Assorted small livestock Agricultural wage labouring Non-farm

Weaving (wife) Off-farm Two daughters work as caddies at the Dansavanh Resort Source Field survey Ban Nam Ang Tulakhom district (2002)

Slightly different in terms of both methodology and the lessons that may be drawn from the data is Shoemaker et alrsquos (2001) survey of the Xe Bang Fai River basin in central Laosrsquo Khammouan province (Table 32) While the villages studied relied to a significant extent on natural products particularly the capture of wild fish this is combined with rice production the collection of other NTFPs and non-local wage labouring particularly in Thailand The twenty-four villages surveyed were also found to be mutually interdependent rather than self-reliant Traditionally villages close to the river would produce a surplus of fish and vegetables (the latter irrigated by water drawn from the river) and these commodities would be bartered for rice and rice whisky from villages situated further away from the river (200143) The work shows the existence of locally oriented networks of exchange based on villages different ecologies and natural resource contexts in addition to the rather wider marketing networks noted earlier in the chapter These clearly are coming under pressure as resource scarcities intensify and as road improvements permit higher levels of exploitation and exchange In Ban Nao Neua Ban Boung Boua Thong and Ban Som Sa-at all in Xaibouri district wage labour in Thailand is now the major source of village income (200151) The trend is explained in terms of growing population declining resources and increasing materialism and consumerism (much of the latter generated through contactmdashby televisionmdashwith Thai culture)9 Taken together the ILO study in Oudomxai and Savannakhet and Shoemaker et alrsquos work in Khammouan reveal the importance of intravillage and inter-village variation in terms of patterns of livelihood It is true that there is a broad uplandlowland division and it is also true that households rely on a mixture of activities to meet their needs but as so often the devil is in the detail

This need to be more nuanced and agile in how we think of ethnic and production categories is borne out in Andrew Walkerrsquos paper on the Karen in northern Thailand (Walker 2001) In essence Walker challenges the accepted wisdom of the Karen as sustainable and self-sufficient managers of the forest environment using their local wisdom subsistence orientation and communal social relations to work with rather than dominate the forest They are in the popular view archetypal lsquopeople of the forestrsquo (see Tomforde 2003 Yos Santasombat 2003) He also questions the view that the subsistence crisis facing many Karen today in Thailand has been externally imposed by the combined effects of market and state integration In particular he observes

Figure 33a Sources of income by income class Hune district Oudomxai (1997)

Source ILO 1997

Note These graphs show the distribution of sources of income by class They hide however the very different levels of income between classes The lsquopoorrsquo in Khathabouri district have an income one-fifth of that of the lsquowealthyrsquo while in Hune district it is one-ninth The lsquodestitutersquo in Hune earn even less

Figure 33b Sources of income by income class Khanthabouri district Savannakhet (1997)

Source ILO 1997

that many early studies of the Karen noted the unsustainability of their traditional livelihood systems and their dependence on non-local resources The state to be sure has squeezed livelihoods but to assume that prior to this there were no pressures on the

Karen is not he says borne out by the evidence Furthermore there is ample reason to suggest that the Karen have gone through a process of adaptive intensification as they have had to contend with emerging pressures In particular the Karen have not always cultivated hill rice using swidden systems in all likelihood the Karen were also involved in paddy (wet rice) cultivation Finally Walker questions the normal view that the Karen are anti-commercial and argues that their engagement with the market has been historically deep spatially wide and economically significant In presenting his argument Walker is concerned to highlight the degree to which this type of depiction of the Karen has marginalised them from the mainstream He concludes lsquoultimately the political mobilisation of Karen self-sufficiency and ecological friendliness may

Table 32 The relative importance of different livelihoods in six villages in the Xe Bang Fai River Khammouan Province (2001)

Village Na Khieu Keng Pe Xe

Pheet Si Khai

Som Sa-aat Kouan Khwai

Nao Neua

District Mahaxai Bang Fai Nyommalat Xaibouri Nyommalat Xaibouri

1 Fish 1 Fish 1 Vegetable gardens

1 Labouring in Thailand

1 Rice 1 Labouring in Thailand

2 Forest products

2 Vegetable gardens

2 Chickens and pigs

2 Rice 2 Forest products

2 Livestock

3 Vegetable gardens

3 Forest products

3 Fish 3 Bamboo rice tying bands for sale to Thailand

3 Fish 3 Fish

4 Local labouring

4 Buffaloes 4 Chickens and pigs

4 Vegetable gardens

5 Rice 5 Vegetable gardens and fish

5 Trading

6 Foreign

remittances

Source Shoemaker et al (200144)

represent a much less potent critique of modernity than a campaign which vigorously asserts their legitimate role within itrsquo (2001162) With regard to the situation in Laos Walkerrsquos work reminds us of the need for a degree of circumspection when we are tempted to ascribe certain defining characteristics and characteristic livelihood systems to particular ethnic groups or people living in particular geographical contexts

Lowland systems

The productivity of lowland rice systems is generally poor (Plate 34) Most farmers continue to grow traditional varieties of glutinous rice in rain-fed conditions (Table A31) The use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides is limited and mechanisation is not extensive In consequence yields are characteristically very low around 11 tonnes per hectare against figures of 175 tonnes per hectare for main season rice in northeastern Thailand (a region with poor soils and intermittent rainfall) and more than 30 tonnes in the central plains of Thailand (MOAC 200019 UNDP 200276)

It is difficult to conclude with any degree of confidence whether traditional rice-based lowland systems delivered rice security This has certainly been the established view However the degree to which contemporary surveys reveal rice insufficiency at the household level as the norm puts a question mark against such an assumption of rice subsistence security Of course there are possible explanations for the current prevalence of rice

Plate 34 Lowland rice fields Ban Nam Ang Tulakhom district Vientiane (2002)

insufficiency and these are explored in later chapters The role of market integration in propelling social differentiation in rural areas and the part played by government policy are both important None the less the possibility that we should see rice production as one element in a mosaic of production activities from the combination of which food security (rather than rice security) is achieved is persuasive Furthermore we should probably not be too inured to the notion that rice security should be measured and

assessed at the household level Households might specialise and as the Khammouan study (Shoemaker et al 2001) noted above indicates there are also local resource economies that link villages as well as households within villages

In 1996 Pandey and Montry Sanamongkhoun surveyed fifteen largely ethnic Lao villages in Champassak and Saravan provinces in the south (Pandey and Montry Sanamongkhoun 1998) Rice was the most important crop and agriculture the mainstay of local livelihoods in these villages with farming activities contributing between 71 and 96 per cent of total household income but just 58 per cent of households produced sufficient rice to last the year It was food from other sources and income from livestock sales and various off-farm activities (which combined accounted for one-third of total income) that permitted households to make up this short-fall Other studies from different areas of the countrymdashadmittedly not a representative samplemdashalso show the prevalence of rice insecurity when measured in terms of own account production at the household level (Table 33) This sometimes has an important ethnic component in terms of the patterns that are revealed (Figure 34)

The last few paragraphs indicate that household rice insecurity even village rice insecurity should not be taken as a foolproof indicator of poverty There has always been a degree of livelihood specialisation at the household and village levels and an active and significant exchange of products Furthermore (and this is explored in Chapter 6) market integration economic differentiation and the delocalisation of work has further fractured the link between poverty and rice security

Upland systems

While there are important questions regarding lowland systems undoubtedly the most contentious areas of debate concern upland systems of shifting cultivation (hai) (Plate 35) Unlike other countries of the region where shifting cultivation has tended to be a system restricted to marginal areas and peoples it would seem always to have played a central role in livelihoods in Laos It is the traditional way of life of more than half the population and around 80 per cent of the land area of Laos is classified as upland suited to such swidden systems This is not to say however that all minority ethnic groups are swiddeners or that all swiddeners are from an ethnic minority or for that matter that all agriculture in the uplands involves swiddening

While the numbers involved are the source of some dispute around 300000 households or 19 million people comprising more than 40 per cent of the rural population probably engage at some level in shifting cultivation (Table A32)

The debate over shifting cultivation is often reduced to a binary discourse between those who view shifting cultivation as environmentally benign and productive from a livelihoods perspective and those who see it as destructive of the environment and unable to deliver sufficient output to sustain livelihoods at a reasonable level

Swiddening as productive sustainable and benign [I]t is safe to assume that traditional rotational swiddening remains one of the most efficient farming systems and would be difficult to replace

(Chamberlain and Phanh Phomsombath 20029)

Table 33 Rice security or rice insecurity

Date of survey

Survey summary Rice secure Source

1994 Twenty-three rice-growing villages in Xayabouri province

lsquoMostrsquo villages lack rice for three to four months of the year

SCA 1994

1996 Fifteen lowland Lao rice villages in Champassak and Saravan

58 of households produce sufficient rice for the year

Pandey and Montry Sanamongkhoun 1998

1996() Six minority villages in Nam Theun II reservoir area

Fifty-five out of 407 households rice secure (14)

Chamberlain et al 1996

1997() Survey on the Nakai Plateau 17 of households surveyed are rice secure 49 are rice insecure for six months or more of the year

NTEC 1997

1999 Survey across seven northern provinces Houa Phanh Phongsali Luang Namtha Luang Prabang Oudomxai Bokeo and Xieng Khouang

41 of households did not have sufficient rice in the previous year to meet their needs

ADB 2000a

2000 Fieldwork in eighty-four villages and forty-three districts in every province

Rice sufficiency among poor villages sampled averaged 68 months

ADB 2001b

Figure 34 Rice sufficiency on the Nakai Plateau by ethnic group (1997)

Source NTEC 199746

Many outsiders did not clearly understand the system of shifting cultivation so they blamed shifting cultivators for destroying forests We have been living in the village from generation to generation and yet forests still covered the land around the village

(A villager in Tang Ngeuy La District Oudomxai (Kheungkham Keonuchan 2000207))

Swiddening as poverty creating environmentally destructive and unsustainable The main type of agriculture in the district is shifting cultivation which provides only a marginal subsistence and is as far as the Hmong variant is concerned extremely destructive to the forest and hence to restoration of soil fertility

(UNDP 19865)

Plate 35 Shifting cultivation and cleared hillsides Pak Ou district Luang Prabang (2002)

Shifting cultivation remains one of the major factors [for] the depletion of forest land

(UNEP 200139)

the swidden system seldom promises a rice surplus (MSIFSP 199527 and 29)

Drawing the argument over the sustainability and productivity of swidden systems in this rather stark fashion does have the attraction of clarity It is also however reductionist in a number of important respects In particular it collapses diverse systems into broad

categories And second it tends to glide over the degree to which such systems are in a state of perpetual change and adaptation

While some scholars and others vigorously defend certain forms of shifting cultivation the policy of the Lao government since 1976 has been to eradicate the practice (Pheng Souvanthong 199519) (Table 34)10 The long-term agricultural development plan has identified the stabilisation or eradication of shifting cultivation by 2010 as one of its key goals and much government policy is directed towards this end11 It is taken as self-evident in many quarters of government that settled wet rice-based farming systems are superior in terms of their sustainability and productivity As a result the geographical focus of agricultural developmentmdashas a means to maintain national food securitymdashis targeted at the well-watered lowlands with irrigation potential (what are referred to in planning documents as the lsquoseven large plainsrsquo) This creates a dualism in government policy towards agricultural communities On the one hand highland shifting cultivators find their traditional livelihood systems fundamentally transformed through a process of sedentarisation Lowland communities in areas with relatively high levels of natural resource capability meanwhile are bolstered through investments in irrigation and associated technologies The lowlandsuperior productive versus highlandinferiorunproductive dualism is founded not only on lsquoevidencersquo but is also a product of a particular mindset Most of those in positions of authority are Lao and the superiority of settled wet rice-based systems is taken as a given

Official views of shifting cultivation in Laos are mirrored across mainland Southeast Asia In Thailand Vietnam and Burma shifting cultivation has been demonised and shifting cultivators sometimes criminalised for similar reasons Indeed it could be argued that in Laos the view of and approach to shifting cultivation has been rather more moderate and accommodating12

None the less in all these countries including Laos it is important to appreciate not only the arguments themselves but also the power context within which the debate is occurring Uplanders are in the minority They are often excluded from mainstream political debates and are also economically weak The prevailing wisdom is one that is constructed in the lowlands by lowlanders and more particularly in the ministries of Bangkok Rangoon Hanoi and Vientiane As Rambo says of the Vietnamese case lsquoThe Vietnamese ethnic national community may constitute as one Kinh ethnologist has written a garden in which a hundred flowers of different colors and perfume bloom but the overall plan for the garden is exclusively determined by the head gardener (ie the state)rsquo (Rambo 1995xvii) This could certainly be applied to the case of Laos The 1991 Constitution provides a clear statement of the countryrsquos multi-ethnic character and makes it plain that all ethnic groups are equal Article 8 of the Constitution reads The state will carry out a policy of unity and equality between the various ethnic groupshellip Discrimination between ethnic groups is forbiddenrsquo (quoted in Chamberlain et al 1995) Yet the reality is that minorities are thinly represented in government have significantly worse health and education profiles than the Lao and are de facto if not de jure socially politically and economically excluded (see p 78)

The uplands of mainland Southeast Asia have become contested landscapes in a number of overlapping senses The role of the uplands in livelihoods is contested since

Table 34 Patrolling controlling stabilising and eliminating shifting cultivation in Laos

Date Legislationpolicy

1985 Reduction of shifting cultivation highlighted as a key policy objective in the second Five-Year Plan (1986ndash90)

1991 Sixth Party Congress reaffirms that to achieve the transition from a subsistence to a market economy slash-and-burn practices must be outlawed

1992 Maximum three-year fallow period set

1993 National Forestry Reserves created National Committee for Rural Development sets out to minimise shifting cultivation

1993 Medium-term Socio-economic Development Plan sets out to stop slash-and-burn agriculture by 2000 and achieve the lsquostabilisationrsquo of agriculture

1996 New Forestry Law sets out the elements of the Land and Forest Allocation Programme (see p 103)

2001 Seventh Party Congress (March) calls for the substantial reduction in shifting cultivation by 2005 and its total elimination by 2010

2001 Fifth Five-year Socio-economic Development Plan (2001ndash2005) sets the target lsquoto basically stop pioneering shifting cultivationrsquo by 2005

2003 Poverty-focused agricultural development plan reiterates the desire to lsquostabilisersquo and then lsquoreducersquo shifting cultivation

Sources UNESCOUNDP (199714) UNEP (200140) UNDP (200251) Chamberlain et al (1995) Lao PDR (2003) Evans (1995xxii) Lao PDR (2001d)

lowlanders increasingly see hill peoples as the cause of environmental decline through lsquodestructiversquo practices of shifting cultivation The ownership of land and the resources of the uplands are contested as the state hill peoples and lowlanders struggle over land forests forest products and rivers And the wider place of the uplands in the national economy and in the national psyche is contested as lsquowildrsquo places to be avoided become reconstructed as centres of bio-diversity to be protected and managed

Forests and livelihoods

One theme that is distinctive in the context of Laos distinguishing it from other countries in the region is the degree to which products sourced from wild areas remain a central pillar in the construction of rural livelihoods and in generating income No systematic countrywide survey has been undertaken but it has been estimated that the average rural Lao family consumes the equivalent of US$280 of NTFPs per year equal to 40 per cent of total rural family income (World Bank 2001a11 see also Plate 36) Forests are repositories of village food and wealth and act as buffers during times of crisis Game fish bamboo shoots insects eggs roots and honey are impormulberry are used in local

handicrafts condiments such as cardamom and tant elements in many householdsrsquo diet fibres such as khem grass and paper medicinal and chemical products such as benzoin and damar are consumed

Plate 36 NTFPs in Vientianersquos morning market (talaat sao) (2003)

and sold and bamboo rattan and fuelwood all find their way into the village economy As noted earlier in this chapter in terms of rice production deficits are common and

in many areas the norm These tend to be upland areas where swidden systems of farming predominate Among the eighty-four poor rural villages surveyed as part of the ADBrsquos participatory poverty assessment (PPA) in 2000 the rice produced barely met six monthsrsquo needs (ADB 2001b45) lsquoThe most common form of compensating for [such] rice shortagesrsquo the PPA asserts lsquowas found to be the consumption and sale of forest productsrsquo (ADB 2001b48) A community study undertaken in three villages in Saravan province in 1998 showed that seventy-nine (54 per cent) of food items consumed were foraged fifty-one were cultivated and sixteen were purchased (Denes 19983) In short

the swidden system seldom promises a rice surplus and the people who practice such a system are equally dependent on the forest and their livestock to ensure their overall subsistencehellip The ultimate resource particularly for the traditional Akha communities remains the forest

(MSIFSP 199527 and 29)13

Beyond being a larder to meet subsistence needs the forest is also a source of income Typically in more remote upland areas 40 to 60 per cent of household income is derived from the sale of NTFPs and this rises to 80 per cent in some instances (UNDP 200277) It is important to appreciate the multiple uses of the forest and its role not only during times of subsistence crisis but at most other times too Furthermore it fulfils these roles in many upland villages for most inhabitants and not only for the poor(est)14

Just as shifting cultivation is being squeezed by the combined effects of population growth marketisation and government policies so this is true of the forest resource which is declining in terms of both area and richness Large mammals have disappeared entirely in many areas The time taken to collect a given amount of NTFPs has risen as scarcity has grown sometimes by a factor of eight or ten (see p 139) The decline in NTFPs has serious implications for the livelihoods of natural resource-dependent householders who have to find other ways to meet their needs And in those cases where villages are dependent on natural resource exploitation it may progressively undermine the sustainability of the community An important element in this narrative of decline is the role played by the market If it were not for significant changes to the manner and extent in which the forest is being exploited propelled by market integration then it is likely that this era of dearth would not have arisen (see Chapter 6) It is perhaps significant that in 2004 the Lao government embraced a change in terminology Non-timber forest products have become lsquonon-timber rotational productsrsquo (NTRPs) reflecting the fact that the forest is not to be exploited to destruction but accessed in a sustainable manner over the long term15

Subsistence affluence or subsistence struggle

It has become normal particularly so in the case of upland peoples to depict sustainable and productive traditional systems being progressively interfered with and undermined by the process of market integration and state infiltration This is too easymdashand too simple As the brief exposition in this chapter has tried to show as a prelude to the later discussion the past provides a mosaic of complexities and possibilities that go far beyond any lsquoconsensusrsquo (to use Andrew Walkerrsquos phrase) position on a whole range of issues

The importance of injecting geographical complexity and historical contingency into the debate is to avoid stereotyping the lsquoissuersquo or lsquoproblemrsquo and therefore simplifying the lsquosolutionrsquo It is valuable to identify norms and trends if only to provide a structure of understanding It is in using these as rigid templates that the problems tend to arise One can see this at work in the reports and literature on Laos Nuanced discussions of the complexities of upland (and lowland) systems become squeezed and simplified into executive summaries and lsquolessons for policyrsquo These lsquolessonsrsquo then become exported and reframed in the policies themselves usually denuded of the qualifications and caveats

that were so carefully included in the original reports It is in this way that for example concerns over the environmental effects of some forms of shifting cultivation have become translated into a blanket condemnation of all types of swiddening

There are also some key outstanding questions for which there is either disagreement andor an absence of clear answers

bull What was the historical role of market exchange in different periods and in different places

bull How specialised were villages and households and to what extent were there local and regional exchange economies as well as wider trading networks

bull Was rice security the norm or did households achieve subsistence security through more complex systems of production and exchange

bull Have production systems (upland and lowland) been more variable and varying than the usual depictions permit and how have these operated in practice

bull On the basis of our understanding of the past what is lsquonewrsquo in the changes currently underway in rural areas

These questions come back into play in Part III of the book where the discussion turns to the livelihood impacts of more recent changes in rural Laos As will be evident many of the assumptions regarding the livelihood-eroding or livelihood-enhancing effects of change are predicated on particular visions and interpretations of past livelihoods The fact that these are contested as this chapter has tried to show and that our knowledge is partial should raise doubts about the explanatory gloss provided

4 Poverty inequality and exclusion

Introduction

At the national level it is tempting to see the narrative of poverty in Laos as a simple one The country is predominantly rural the livelihoods of the large majority of the population are built on agriculture and much of this agricultural endeavour may be broadly defined as subsistence oriented Furthermore in rural areas more than 40 per cent of the population are poor and together they comprise 86 per cent of the total poor population In this way poverty in Laosmdashand the poverty challengemdashmay be considered to be centred on rural areas and based on a failure of agriculture to meet the growing needs of the population

Chambers has warned against simplifying poverty and stereotyping the poor (Chambers 1995) Poverty is complex differentiated and dynamic and the causes of poverty vary between people across space and through time One of the driving motivations behind the 2001 World Development Report (lsquoAttacking povertyrsquo) was to give the poor a voice in the conceptualisation and measurement of poverty and in this way to ground poverty in the complex realities of people and place

The poor are the true poverty experts Hence a policy document on poverty strategies for the 21st century must be based on the experiences priorities reflections and recommendations of poor people women and men

(httpwwwworldbankorgpovertyvoicesstudyhtm)

While Laos was not among the twenty-one countries selected for study by the World Bank1 the ethos of the enterprisemdashand of views of poverty more widelymdashis reflected in two participatory poverty assessments commissioned by the Asian Development Bank (ADB 2001b 2001d) The more extensive of these assessments echoes the World Bank in writing that the purpose of the study is to lsquobetter understand the complex nature of povertyrsquo and lsquoto listen to the poor and understand from their perspective what poverty means and how it can be overcomersquo (ADB 2001bviii)

This chapter sets out to identify the layers of explanation that lie behind the headline data on poverty in Laos In addition the chapter widens the debate over poverty into a discussion of social exclusion in the country Just as it is now broadly accepted that studies of environmental degradation need to embed physical processes within a political and economic context so it is also necessary to take a step back from the lsquoeconomics of povertyrsquo and incorporate a wider consideration of the social and political factors that contribute to making people poor Only in this way can we add a fuller explanatory dimension to the debate Many of the themes introduced in this chapter will be explored

furthermdashbut using a livelihoods rather than a poverty approachmdashin the discussion in Part II

How much do we know

In a 2001 assessment of Laosrsquo interim poverty reduction strategy paper the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bankrsquos International Development Association (with a remit to assist the globersquos poorest countries) voiced concern at the lsquolack of information onhellip[the] socio-economic characteristics of the poorrsquo (IMFIDA 20012) There is a certain wringing of hands when it comes to mapping out and understanding poverty (and by extension livelihoods) in Laos much of it due to a perceived lack of information It is certainly true that the sheer breadth of studies available for other countries of Asia does not apply to Laos and it is also the case that detailed ethnographic studies are largely absent To be sure then there are gaps in our knowledge of certain important issues and furthermore valid concerns have been voiced over the methods employed and some of the conclusions drawn from the studies that do exist (see below) But all that said sufficient work has been undertaken to set out at least the framework of understanding poverty including its main socio-economic dimensions The problem rather is that the studies that have been undertaken and the insights they contain have been underused and sometimes ignored2 Missions have tended to use only a handful of reports and given the inertia in the lsquowe know too littlersquo position have concluded that we still know too little In reality however there is a great deal of information from which a picture may be drawn perhaps not with the precision some would like but at least with the surety where the key socio-economic characteristics of the poor can be identified

The national picture of poverty in Laos

Poverty as a concept as something to be measured and as something for government to address and ameliorate has a very short history in Laos The official term for poverty is thuk nyak (suffering+difficult) This term was only formally adopted by the government in 2002 (Chamberlain and Phanh Phomsombath 200262) In embracing thuk nyak the government was saying something admittedly sotto voce about its view of poverty and about the politics of poverty Thuk is the Buddhist term for suffering and as Chamberlain and Phanh Phomsombath say is closer to mental than to physical sufferingmdashlsquoall life is sufferingrsquo Significantly the Lao authorities decided to pair thuk with nyak and in so doing avoided using the most likely alternative pairing thuk+chon Chon or yaak chon is the popular Thai word for poverty and is closer to meaning lsquodestitutersquo than the less extreme and grinding lsquodifficultrsquo

It is tempting to view these word games as an attempt to link on the part of the government poverty with Buddhist metaphysicsmdashrather than with policy or the operation of the market In addition the term is less obviously extreme than some of the alternatives and moreover puts some space between conceptualisations of poverty in Thailand and in Laos Along with the need to embed poverty semantically in official Laos is the challenge of translating the governmentrsquos understanding of poverty into the languages of the ethnic minorities It has been noted for instance that in Khmu lsquopoorrsquo

means lsquounfortunatersquo in a fatalistic sense rather than as an outcome of economic or social processes (ADB 2001b2)

Income and consumption data for the Lao PDR are neither long run nor particularly robust The most influential series of studies is that undertaken by the State Planning Committee with the assistance of the World Bank the Lao Expenditure and Consumption Survey (LECS) These surveys have been conducted twice so far in 199293 (LECS I [1995]) and 199798 (LECS II [1999]) The results of the 200203 LECS III study are expected to be released at the end of 2004 LECS I was limited in coverage and involved the survey of fewer than 3000 households across 147 villages LECS II was rather broader in its coverage and sampled nearly 9000 households in 450 villages It was also more comprehensive in terms of the data collected Even LECS II however has been criticised both in itself and in the way the data have been used to calculate levels and distributions of poverty

Using the LECS II data different agencies have calculated the incidence of poverty to be close to 40 per cent3 Behind this collectively agreed aggregate figure however are a series of additional dimensions to poverty (Tables 41 and 42) It is at this slightly finer level of detail where differences of opinion begin to reveal themselves and the deeper one delves into the minutiae of poverty the more acute these differences become These relate not only to the figures quoted but also to the explanations proffered for the patterns identified

The most significant difference revealed in the summary figures graphically represented in Figure 41 is in the incidence of urban poverty This is variously calculated as ranging from 15 per cent to 27 per cent These differences largely relate to the poverty lines drawn for rural and urban areas and for different provinces The danger is of course that such calculations are used to guide development interventions Using the Lao PDR figures urban poverty becomes significantly less of an issue than it does if the ADB study

Table 41 Spatial and social reflections of wealth and poverty

Rich(er) Poor(er)

Urban Rural

Lowland Upland

Accessible Remote

Non-farm Farm

Commercialised Subsistence

Non-minority Minority

Settled Shifting

is used as a guide4 In an internal review of the World Bank study Van de Walle criticised the methods employed to calculate provincial prices5 and warned that this lsquocould easily result in severe mismanagement of regional poverty levels and relativitiesrsquo

Poverty inequality and exclusion 69

(20005) The World Bankrsquos estimates for poverty in Laos using the universal PPP$1 per day and PPP$2 per day measures reveal a substantial drop in the incidence of absolute poverty (ltPPP$1 per day) but only a very modest fall in the proportion of those living on less than PPP$2 per day (see Figures A41a and A41b) Indeed the number of poor using this second measure has increased significantly from 42 million in 1990 (representing 90 per cent of the population) to an estimated 59 million in 2004 (or 74 per cent of the population)6

The regional (Figure 42) and provincial (Figure 43) distributions of poverty provide a rough textured view of the spatial distribution of the poor The highest incidence of poverty is found in the north of the country while the centre fares best among the three major geographical regions Vientiane as one would expect for the capital city exhibits the lowest incidence of poverty (but see below) It is worth noting the degree to which the four studies represented in Figure 41 agreemdashwith the important exception of rural-urban differentialsmdashon the broad parameters of poverty At a provincial level there are dramatic differences in levels of poverty ranging from 73 per cent and 75 per cent in the northern provinces of Houa Phanh and Oudomxai to just 21 per cent and 26 per cent in Xayabouri and Bolikhamxai While overall levels of poverty have fallen in Laos they have done so to sharply differing degrees and some provinces actually experienced an increase in levels of poverty over the 1990s (Figure A42) Why there should be these marked inter-provincial differences is none too clear and it throws some doubt on the accuracy of both the LECS I and LECS II surveys when the data are disaggregated

One characteristic of the spatial distribution of poverty is clear however the poor are concentrated in upland provinces Those poor districts identified by the LECS II survey map quite closely on to the upland areas of the country (Figure 44) Beneath and behind this geographical observation are three further issues which cut to the core of the poverty debate in Laos First upland areas are generally remote and inaccessible Second upland areas are largely populated by minority peoples And third these minority peoples rely for their livelihoods on shifting cultivation In setting out a poverty profile for Laos the UNDP characterises the poor as being lsquoLargely small farmershellip[who] live in remote environmentshellip[have] undergone several forms of disruptionhellipbelong to the countryrsquos many ethnic

minoritieshelliplive in upland forested areas and practice slash-and-burn shifting cultivationrsquo (200233)

On the basis of this categorisation it is possible to describe the poor in Laos as beingmdashon the wholemdashupland dwelling shifting cultivating minorities However as I will argue in this chapter and then explore in greater detail later in the book the reason why these characteristics coalesce in this manner is not because they are different ways of viewing the same thing The factors underpinning each of these characteristics of the poor and poverty are different We have in short a simple characterisation of poverty and the poor that disguises a complex set of structuring and driving forces Moreover these structuring forces are becoming more differentiated and dynamic as development proceeds

Table 42 Geographical and social reflections of wealth and poverty

Spatialgeographical

Inter-regional The incidence of poverty in Vientiane is 12 the Central region 35 the South 38 and the North 53 (UNDP 200217)

Inter-provincial The incidence of poverty in Houa Phanh and Oudomxai was 75 and 73 respectively in Xayabouri and Bolikhamxai it was 21 and 26 (UNDP 2002151)

Urbanrural The incidence of urban poverty in 199798 was 27 in rural areas it was 41 (UNDP 2002151) Infant mortality rates in urban areas in 2000 were 411000 live births in rural areas 871000 live births (Lao PDR 2001c)

Uplandlowland Households engaged in upland farming are characteristically rice insecure for three to four months of the year for lowland farmers the figures are one to four months (UNDP 200276)

Accessibleremote Poverty among the rural population with access to a road is 35 for those without access it is 50 (Lao PDR 2000e9ndash12)

Social and cultural

Non-minorityminority The dominant Tai-Kadai make up 665 of the population but just 20 of the poor Laosrsquo minorities represent 335 of the population but 80 of the poor (ADB 2001b)

For the dominant Lao-Phou Tai ethnic group average literacy rates are 73 for the Mon-Khmer 37 the Hmong-Yao 27 and for the Tibeto-Burman 17 (ADB 2000axviii)

In terms of health provinces with an ethnic minority population of more than 50 of the total population have a simple average infant mortality rate (per 1000 live births) of 110 for those with a minority population of less than 50 it is 82

Settledshifting In the PPA 90 of identified poor villages were dependent on swidden farming (Lao PDR nd ADB 2001b)

Figure 41 Estimates of poverty in Laos using the LECS II dataset (1997ndash1998) Notes on sources All these estimates are based on the same dataset the LECS II survey The World Bank assessment was carried out by Datt and Wang (2001) the ADB study (2001a) by Kakwani on which the UNDP (2002) also draws while the Lao PDR study (Lao PDR 2000e) was financed by the United Nations World Food Programme and undertaken by the National Statistics Centre Knowles (2002) provides a comparative discussion of the various poverty studies undertaken using the LECS II data

Accessibility and poverty

Numerous reports and studies have identified a strong relationship between accessibility and poverty lsquoIn all sectors the poor in the Lao PDR live primarily in rural communities many of which are in remote areas and difficult

Figure 42 Incidence of poverty by region (1997ndash1998)

Sources Data extracted from UNDP (2002) Knowles (2002)

to accessrsquo (ADB 2001e2) While the incidence of poverty among the rural population with access to a road is 35 per cent for the rural population without access it is 50 per cent (Lao PDR 2000f9ndash12) This line of thinking and argument is common and remoteness thus becomes a key explanatory factor behind the patterns of poverty observed in Laos The governmentrsquos report to the Seventh Round Table Meeting in 2000 divides the country into two broad categories lsquoflat landsrsquo and lsquosloping landsrsquo lsquoSloping landsrsquo the government report states lsquopresent a different set of problems due to their remoteness inaccessibility endemic rural poverty [and] poor credit and capital accessibilityhelliprsquo (Lao PDR 2000a57) Markets are seen to be lsquonot yet working properlyrsquo

in the sloping lands largely because of inaccessibility and roads therefore become a lsquosine qua nonrsquo for development and growth (Lao PDR 2000a64)

However geography is not destiny and the main shortcoming with this concentration on issues of accessibility is to make poverty alleviation very much a technical and engineering challenge build the roads make markets workmdashand poverty will fall One of the outcomes of this narrow vision of the causes of poverty is that a great deal of resources have been channelled into rural accessibility projects without considering in detail how improving

Figure 43 Incidence of poverty by province (1997ndash1998)

Source UNDP 2002151

accessibility has differential impacts on groups in rural society some of whom may be rendered even worse off as a result (see Chapter 6)

Minorities and poverty

These spatial dualisms (uplandlowland accessibleremote) also have importantmdashand politically sensitivemdashcultural and social dimensions The most

Figure 44 Poor districts identified by the LECS II survey and upland areas (1997ndash1998)

Sources ADB 2001b UNDP 2002

obvious of these is the concentration of the Lao PDRrsquos minority peoples in remote inaccessible upland areas of the country Reflecting this the distribution of poverty between the countryrsquos minorities is even more marked than it is between rural and urban areas (Table 43)7 As the PPA notes lsquopoverty in the Lao PDR is inextricably related to culture and ethnicity andhellipits locus is with highlandersrsquo (ADB 2001b25)

Table 43 Incidence of poverty by ethno-linguistic family (2001)

Family poor sample sites population

Mon-Khmer 56 235

Hmong-Mien 15 75

Tibeto-Burman 9 25

Tai-Kadai 13 (Thai-Thay)7 (Lao)

365 300

Total 100 100

Notes Column 1 shows the of poor by ethnic group in the sampled poor sites Column 2 shows the estimated representation of each ethnic group in the total population So while ethnic Lao comprise 30 of the population of the Lao PDR they make up only 7 of the population of poor sites in this survey Source ADB (2001b25)

These incomeconsumption inequalities are mirrored in terms of the health and educational profiles of different ethnic groups8 For the dominant Lao-Phou Tai ethnic group average literacy rates are 73 per cent for the Mon-Khmer 37 per cent the Hmong-Mien (Hmong-Yao) 27 per cent and for the Tibeto-Burman 17 per cent (RTI 2000xviii) One of the largest systematic studies of poverty and ethnicity was undertaken by the EU in 1996 This study surveyed 6000 households across 342 villages in four districts in Luang Prabang province (EU 1997) The study concludesmdashand emphasisesmdashthat from lsquothe list of the explanatory variables it appears that the major part of the differences among the villagesrsquo quality of life are explained by variables related to access remoteness and ethnicityrsquo (p iv) On this basis the study goes on to argue that the data indicate lsquothe emergence of a social discriminatory process [that is] leaving behind the weaker part of the rural societyhellipwhich appears to be Lao Theung [ie minority] in originrsquo (1997iv) The study produces a lsquoquality of life indicatorrsquo based on access to clean water level of opium addiction literacy levels degree of rice self-sufficiency availability of paddy land production of an exportable surplus poverty access to Agricultural Promotion Bank credit and a remoteness coefficient (199750) The results show a clear division between the Lao Loum and the minority categories Lao Theung and Lao Soung (Table 44)

Shifting cultivation and poverty

Chapter 3 noted the degree to which shifting cultivation is viewed at least in official quarters as a system of production and a livelihood that is likely to be poverty-creating Certainly the poor are predominantly shifting cultivators Whether however this is due to the nature of the system or alternatively the result of other underlying factors which are in some way linked but separate from such systems is contested

Table 44 Average quality of life scores by ethnic category Luang Prabang province (1997)

Districtethnic group Lao Loum Lao Theung Lao Soung Mean

Luang Prabang 446 125 036 252

Pak Ou 572 ndash043 000 208

Pak Xeng 331 ndash058 064 014

Phone Xai 200 ndash330 ndash209 ndash261

All 452 ndash119 ndash080 017

Note This report uses the now officially abandoned categories Lao LoumTheungSoung See Box 21 for a discussion of ethnic categorisation in Laos Source EU (199751)

The temptation to see and make a link between environmental processes and poverty is evident in the World Bank Development Research Grouprsquos discussion of the poverty-environment nexus in Cambodia Laos and Vietnam (DECRG 2002) Having identified that the north of Laos harbours high levels of environmental degradation and poverty the authors lsquoconclude that the poverty-environment nexus appears to be strongly defined for the Lao PDR and that the potential synergy between poverty alleviation and environmental policies is highrsquo (DECRG 200227) However more detailed assessment of the link between poverty and shifting cultivation shows that it is strongest in those areas where swidden systems have been lsquotraumatisedrsquo (ADB 2001bxv) Such trauma has traditionally been linked to environmental crises (flood drought pest attack) but is increasingly associated with the operation of the market and the impacts and effects of government policies (see Chapters 5 and 6) The easy conclusion then is to view shifting cultivation as poverty-creating thus legitimating policies of sedenterisation More detailed and reflective studies however would lead one to a rather different conclusion that it is the way in which such systems have been twisted by the market and the state that explains more often than not the concentration of poverty among swidden farmers

The urban poverty dimension in Laos

The concentration of research efforts on understanding rural areas is well founded but this focus on the rural does have its shortcomings Because levels of urbanisation are so low and because the key poverty issues appear to be linked with issues of

underproduction and remoteness in rural areas urban poverty in Laos has received relatively little attention Three emerging issues make this view increasingly questionable

First while Laos may be currently relatively under-urbanised in Asian terms the rate of urbanisation is the second highest in the region with the annual growth rate of the urban population averaging 48 per cent between 1990 and 2000 (ADB 200394) Between 1980 and 1999 the level of urbanisation rose from 13 to 22 per cent (ADB 1999a) Second the links between rural and urban areas are growing and intensifying as market integration proceeds and physical and social constraints to mobility ease Rural-urban migration whether permanent or circular is becoming a powerful means by which rural poverty is being both relocated from rural to urban areas (so that the rural poor become the new urban poor) and being ameliorated in rural areas (through the engagement of rural people in higher return urban-based work and the remittance of income to rural areas) Some commentators of the Lao situation have suggested that there has been little population movement since the end of the war in 1975 for the simple reason that there is no labour market to support in-migrants and therefore lsquothere is currently no advantage in moving to citiesrsquo (Chamberlain and Phanh Phomsombath 200227) This though while true by comparison with countries such as Thailand with dynamic labour markets and highly mobile societies may be questioned on the basis of more recent studies and emerging data These are far from providing a comprehensive national picture but they do indicate that mobility is on the increase (Lao PDR 2001c Save the Children 2001 and see Figures 31a and 31b and Box 71) Furthermore mobility has both intra-national and international dimensions This leads on to the third issue there are real doubts about the accuracy of some of the data on residency and the geographical location of the poor A participatory assessment of poverty in Vientiane found the poor to be lsquoliterally hidden in pockets throughout the cityrsquo out of sight to all but the most assiduous investigator (ADB 2001d1)

It is in the light of these knowledge gaps that there is the sense that established assumptions about the operation of Lao society and by implication spatial economy and livelihoods need to be reconsidered In particular it is becoming increasingly problematic to divide the population of Laos into lsquoruralrsquo and lsquourbanrsquo segments on the assumption that they largely do not mix Views of livelihoods and assessments of poverty need to adopt both a less rigid and a more dynamic vision of the ways in which macro-level changes are being reflected in local level responses

One of the first socio-economic surveys of Vientiane was undertaken between March and April 1988 (UNDP 1988)9 A total of 592 households were surveyed in a city which at that time had a population of 136000 The dislocations of the conflict in Laos and the wider Indochina region led to a high degree of population instability and in 1985 a quarter of the population of Vientiane had arrived in the city over the previous ten years (UNDP 198818) The first urban participatory poverty assessment to be conducted in Laos was undertaken among 750 poor households in seven lsquovillagesrsquo in Vientiane in late 2000 (ADB 2001d) One of the main findingsmdashand in stating this the study reiterates the current received wisdommdashis that lsquothe poor are an extremely heterogeneous group [with] very different capacities and opportunities and a range of different living conditionsrsquo (ADB 2001d17) The study divides the poor into four groups the lsquopoorestrsquo (thuk thiisut) the lsquomedium poorrsquo (thuk pang kang) the lsquosimple poorrsquo (thuk thammada) and those who

lsquojust managersquo (pho yho pho kin) The summary characteristics of each group are set out in Table A41

It was noted earlier that poverty in Laos has fallen over the course of the 1990s and that the great rump of the poor live in rural areas However the rate of decline in poverty has been significantly slower in urban than in rural areas ndash31 per cent as against ndash49 per cent (Lao PDR nd 8) Given that economic conditions in urban areas have generally been more favourable than in rural areas this indicates one of two things First that the distribution of the benefits of growth has been even more uneven in urban than in rural areas or second that there has been a geographical relocation of the poor populations from rural to urban areas and a greater degree of spatial turbulence than hitherto imagined Whatever the case this is yet another reason to look more closely at urban poverty

Growth transition and inequality a primer

Transition leads to an increase in inequality This has been the experience of transition economies in Asia and Europe (Aghion and Commander 1999) The record of the growth economies of Southeast Asia has not been dissimilar (Rigg 2003) (see Table A42) There too economic expansion has generally been accompanied by rising levels of inequality Such an outcome is well established and accepted But while inequality may be the handmaiden of both growth and transition this does not mean that there are not academic and policy challenges to address These essentially boil down to four First what are the longer term prospects for inequality as transition proceeds Second what accounts for the significant differences in levels of inequality and the shape of inequality over time between countries Third what policy interventions may be introduced to minimise the tendency And fourth how are inequalities manifested in spatial sectoral and human terms

Compared with the other countries of Southeast Asia inequality in Laos is not pronounced (see Table A42) Accompanying however the modest but consistent expansion of the Lao economy since the NEM was introduced in the mid-1980s has been a deepening of inequality While this may have been expected given the initial starting conditions and the macro-economic policies pursued since it does not lessen political sensitivities of the process

Notwithstanding the serious methodological concerns noted earlier in this chapter analysts would seem to agree that the LECS data show a marked and worrying increase in inequality over the course of the 1990s All the relative gains have accrued to the top decile of the population (Figure 45) Kakwani et al state that lsquopro-poor growth is clearly not happening in Lao

Figure 45 Distribution of total consumption expenditure per capita (1992ndash1993 and 1997ndash1998)

Source Data extracted from Lao PDR (2000e)

PDRrsquo and go on to arguemdashrather contentiouslymdashthat lsquogreater inequality has increased the depth and severity of povertyrsquo (20018 and 14) The conclusion that there has been a marked increase in inequality in the Lao PDR has also been confirmed in the Participatory Poverty Assessment (PPA) conducted under the direction of the Asian Development Bank (ADB 2001b)

It has been estimated that if inequality had not widened between 1992 and 1998 the annual reduction in the percentage of poor would have been twice as rapidmdash86 per cent rather than 42 per cent (Lao PDR nd 7) The impact of growing inequality on progress in poverty alleviation becomes even starker when a lsquolowrsquo food poverty line is employed This identifies the very poorest in Lao societymdashthe ultra poor Using this measure the percentage of the population living in ultra poverty has remained the samemdash305 per cent in 199293 and 306 per cent in 199798 (Lao PDR 2000e10) To put it another way during a period of modest but sustained economic growth the proportion of the population living in absolute poverty has actually increased albeit by a small and statistically insignificant fraction

Usually inequality is expressed in terms of interpersonal inequality Changes in the proportion of income accruing to different deciles or quintiles are used to illustrate trends and a gini coefficient calculated to present these data in an easily digestible index However and as the discussion so far has shown there are many other ways to view inequality Spatial units (rural urban inter-provincial) social and cultural distinctions (gender generation ethnicity) and environmental indicators (uplandlowland) all have their utility in adding different dimensions of understanding to poverty and inequality

Also important although generally less commented upon are intra-personal inequalities arising from poverty dynamics This refers to the lsquobottom endrsquo churning that occurs as individuals and households fall into and rise out of poverty and make wider economic transitions over time (see p 162) Two particular gaps in our knowledge about Laos are a general absence of information and data on these intra-personal inequalities and (but less pronounced) on differentiation at the intra-community (rather than inter-community) level The latter gap is seen to be particularly significant in the light of market-driven social and economic differentiation (see Chapter 6)10

In the Preface to the second edition of his book Lao Peasants under Socialism and Post-socialism (1995) Grant Evans takes issue with Ing-Britt Trankellrsquos assertion that stratification (social differentiation) is asserting itself in rural Laos11 He does admit that as the peasant economy is drawn into the mainstream it will undergo change but none the less writes

I would argue that there is little potential for commercial agriculture in Laos except in specific crops and in specific areas and even then it will remain debateable whether this is likely to lead to significant social stratification among the peasantry

(Evans 1995xxiv)

Evans ends the paragraph by admitting that this lsquoof coursehelliprequires future empirical studyrsquo

Evansrsquo book is based on fieldwork undertaken on the Vientiane Plain between 1982 and 1987 In 1996 the FAO commissioned a report on land regularisation policy in Laos drawing on fieldwork undertaken in the districts of Xaythani and Naxaythong also on the Vientiane Plain 15 km and 20 km south and north on highway 13 from Vientiane respectively (FAO 1996) This study would seem to indicate that access to land is indeed becoming a real source and cause of social stratification When settlement in the field sites commenced in the 1950s new migrants were sometimes allocated ten or more hectares drawing on the village reserve (uncultivated commons) By the 1980s however village reserve land had disappeared and new households could acquire land only through inheritance or purchase The report identifies a widening social gap Farmers with extensive land holdings (5ndash10 ha) were able to sell a portion at high prices in the process gaining access to productive capital while also retaining a workable area of land Households with just 1ndash2 ha on the other hand were facing problems even meeting their basic needs lsquoIn the present Lao context of greater market integration and gradual economic opening up they [the land poor] will probably find it hard to avoid proletarianizationrsquo (FAO 199618ndash19)

The argument here is that studies undertaken since the mid-1990s indicate that social stratification is becoming more pronounced for a variety of reasons and that Evansrsquo assertion does indeed need re-examination in the light of recent evidence The core questions in this regard are

bull How is inequalitysocial stratification manifested

bull How should inequalitysocial stratification be measured or assessed

bull What is driving social and economic differentiation

These questions are addressed in more detail in later chapters The following markers can be set down at this stage however To begin with there is reason to think that land is becoming a resource in short supply for some rural households even in a country as land-rich as Laos Second the widening and differentiation of livelihoods is gradually de-linking lsquowealthrsquo from lsquolandrsquomdashagain at least for some households in some areas Access to alternative non-farm activities whether local or extra-local is providing an additional driver in differentiation beyond the traditional farm sector Following on from this and third the structure of rural economies and therefore of livelihoods is becoming more complex creating distinct challenges when it comes to measuring assessing and interpreting social and economic stratification

Social exclusion

The particular political and human challenge of reducing poverty among Laosrsquo minorities has already been noted in this chapter It is important to realise however that this is not onlymdashor even mainlymdasha function of market imperfections a lack of access to physical and social infrastructure and the particular difficulties of making a living in upland environments To be sure the upland peoples do face these difficulties and constraints but social exclusion is at least as important Moreover and as Sommers et al recognise the most insidious forms of marginality tend to be cultural and political rather than economic and environmental and to have the lowest visibility (200127)

Social exclusion is lsquothe process through which individuals or groups are wholly or partially excluded from full participation in the society in which they liversquo (the European Foundation quoted in De Haan and Maxwell 19982) In the rich world and particularly in Europe the term lsquosocial exclusionrsquo is often preferred to poverty because the focus is not on material issues concerning consumption income assets and expenditure but on relational issues such as lsquoinadequate social participation lack of social integration and lack of powerrsquo (Room 19955) The Lao PPA takes the perspectives of social exclusion and integrates them into a poverty assessment This is reflected in the central position accorded to culture in the study12

In labelling ethnic minorities in Laos as socially excluded however the grounds for their inclusion are demarcated (see Box 41)13 This in turn provides the justification for state-led policies designed to draw the excluded into the mainstream In the case of Laos because these socially excluded groups largely belong to one of the ethnic minorities there is the danger that the policies are integrative designed to re-engineer the lsquopoorrsquo in the vision of the lowland Lao Minorities are relocated close to roads they are sedentarised and marketised encouraged to grow lowland rice their children are taught Lao and so on The worry is that this government-sponsored process of social inclusion even when undertaken for the best of reasons will have unintended and destructive social outcomes lsquoNobodyrsquo as Lemoine says near the end of his study of the Lao Houay of Luang Namtha lsquowants to live naked in a cultural wildernessrsquo (Lemoine 200240)

There is considerable evidence to support the view that there is an official mindset which depicts Laosrsquo minorities as lsquobackwardrsquo This goes beyond the official views of

shifting cultivation noted in Chapter 3 A widely circulated socio-economic profile of Xayabouri quotes from a speech of the Chairman of the National Rural Development Committee in which he describes rural areas as lsquoareas which are isolated remote and uncivilized in which the ways of living of people are different from others and in which there are high natural and political risksrsquo and where rural people are lsquopoor and backward and unhappy when they lack food and medicinesrsquo (UNDP 1996a14) The keywords here are lsquouncivilizedrsquo and lsquobackwardrsquo Not only does this link minority peoplesrsquo economic poverty with their perceived cultural backwardness but it also denies them common time with the (by implication) civilised progressive and modern lowland population

In accounting for the underdevelopment of thirty-five Khmu and Akha communities in the province of Luang Namtha in the north of Laos Kaufmann writes

Not having any formal education or not being able to speak to read or to write Lao language makes it hard to participate in the on-going economic and social development processhellip The person would not be able to participate adequately in market business and trade to achieve fair prices to understand social services provided to communicate with government employees or to contribute or take part in the development of the village

(Kaufmann 199710ndash11)

Kaufmannrsquos study reveals not only sharp differences in Lao language skills between districts but also significant variations between men and women (Figure 46) Being unable to communicate in Lao restricts an individualrsquos ability to take advantage of the new opportunities that market-opening measures and investments are creating in the countryside It also permits outsiders with these skills to take advantage of such opportunities reducing the impact of market integration on local poverty (see p 91)

Social exclusion also extends to health provision There are clear difficulties connected with access to health facilities in the uplands Furthermore

Box 41 Ban Mae Nam Mai an excluded tribal community in Thailand

Ban Mae Nam Mai is a Palaung (Mon-Khmer) village about 15 km from the district town of Chiang Dao about 70 km north of Chiang Mai in Northern Thailandmdashlittle more than an hourrsquos journey by public transport (Plate B41) The 250 villagers settled here in the early 1980s from Burma and still do not enjoy Thai citizenship The Palaung (or Dararsquoang) of Ban Mae Nam Mai are a classic example of an excluded community caught in a residual political category that circumscribes their movement and activity Because they do not have Thai citizenship they are prevented from (legally) working beyond the immediate area17 Local employers take advantage of the Palaungrsquos tenuous position paying them daily wage rates that are sometimes significantly below the norm (although not all employers do this) Furthermore the village and the surrounding farmland are classified as Forest Reserve adding yet another element of instability and vulnerability to their existence

Yet the dearest wish of most of the Palaung of Ban Mae Nam Mai is to be rewarded with full Thai citizenship and thereby make the transition from denizens to citizens

This would open up new vistas of opportunity and lever the excluded Palaung into the Thai political and therefore economic mainstream However in order to achieve this goal the Palaung have to become Thai In many of the houses in the village there are pictures of the King and Queen of Thailand visible displays of loyalty towards the country where they live but in a sense do not reside It is true that their children go to the local primary school a few kilometres up the dirt-track towards Chiang Dao In the school they are educated in Thai and learn how to become good Thai citizens The headman of Ban Mae Nam Mai has even forbidden anyone in the village to convert to Christianity An irony is that an important source of income for the village comes from tourism A number of villagers have built bamboo and wood guesthouses for visiting tourists who are charged 20 baht (US$050) per night for the privilege of intruding into their community The tourists of course wish to stay here because the Palaung are Palaung and not Thai Palaung women continue to weave their traditional cloth (using non-traditional yarn) and to make hats and other lsquotribalrsquo paraphernalia to sell to the tourists Thus while the Palaung of Ban Mae Nam Mai are keen to become lsquoThairsquo since this is seen as the best way to achieve the goal of citizenship they are also concerned to maintain their ethnic distinctiveness because it makes them attractive to tourists Furthermore being attractive to the tourist gaze by maintaining their ethnic distinctiveness is one of the few ways that they can make a living given their failure so far to be embraced by the Thai state and counted as Thai citizens

Plate B41 Ban Mae Nam Mai Chiang Mai Northern Thailand (2000) The huts under construction are for visiting back-packer tourists

Source Adapted from (Rigg 2003153) the material is drawn from the authorrsquos own fieldwork in northern Thailand in 2000

these can be mapped quite clearly by minority group upland minority peoples experience far greater difficulties accessing health care than do the lowland Lao population (Figure 47) Once again however these physical hurdles are compounded by social and cultural barriers to use (ADB 2000a17) When health centres are staffed by workers from other ethnic groups (generally Lao) non-Lao are less likely to use the centre This was vividly illustrated when the PPA team visited an Akha Chi Pya village in Phongsali in 2000

When the PPA team arrived a baby was dying in the arms of its mother who lived less than 20 meters from a new clinic that had been constructed and staffed by two female nurses who were ethnically Thai Luehellip The villagers explained that they cannot communicate with the nurses because of the language barrier and as a result the nurses do not venture into the village The villagers do not use the clinic either

(ADB 2001b36)

Figure 46 Level of communication skill in Lao (1997)

Source Data extracted from Kaufmann (199711)

Figure 47 Village-level health access by ethnic group across seven northern provinces (1999)

Source Data extracted from ADB (2000a11)

Note EPI=Expanded Programme on Immunization

The educational profile of ethnic minorities is also significantly lower than for the Lao This as with the health discussion above may be partly linked to the lower level of educational provision in upland areas Schools are fewer less well resourced and often incomplete (ie they do not provide the full number of years of education) In addition however schools are largely staffed by ethnic Lao teachers who in some cases do not even learn the minority language thus further hindering participation (eg MSIFSP 199510) That educational attainment and poverty rates are linked is true even in a country like Laos where the utility of education can sometimes be questioned (Figure 48) An ADB report admittedly with little supporting evidence argues that farmers with a primary level education are more productive and better equipped to adopt new technologies and practices than those without (ADB 200 1c106) Education is also said to prepare people for new opportunities when they arise Debates over poverty in Laos are beginning to move on from the more tangible manifestations of povertymdashlack of land lack of income lack of accessmdashto the more intangible including education and

skills David Lockwood for the UNDP stated at the 2000 Round Table meeting of government and donors in Vientiane

The social development impact of growing regional integration and the wider globalisation process brings a new concern in the poverty dialogue

Figure 48 Poverty rates by educational attainment of head of household (2000)

Source Data extracted from ADB (2001c6)

the widening gap between the knowledge haves and have-nots the knowledge rich and the knowledge poor

(RTM 200047)

That Laosmdashin this view at leastmdashshould be making the transition from income poverty to knowledge poverty is striking for a country which can still be counted among the very poorest in the world (Plate 41)

There is an increasing recognition of the utility of education even in poor and remote rural villages This was evident for example in the field research in Pak Ou Sang Thong and Tulakhom districts The five Khmu households who moved from their isolated upland site to the resettlement village of Ban Lathahair in Pak Ou in 1996 were enticed into giving up their traditional lands by the prospect of being near a road and in close

proximity to health and educational facilities In the more prosperous and better connected villages of Sang Thong a locally recognised limitation to young peoplersquos entreacutee into the labour market in Thailand was a lack of skills and education One of the first investments that Mr Bounyong a settler in Sang Thong from the northern province of Houa Phanh was intending to make when we interviewed him in December 2001 was to buy his children bicycles so that they could attend the local primary school Giving his children this opportunity he reasoned would offer them the means to access government and other jobs outside of agriculture

Plate 41 A classroom and pupils Ban Ang Noi Sang Thong (2001) The primary school was built in 1987 and teaches children up to level 5

While the notion that education is the lsquogolden ploughrsquo which will lever poor families into relative prosperity is not as prevalent in Laos as it is in Thailand the needmdashrather than just the attractionmdashof education is infiltrating the minds and the livelihood strategies of increasing numbers of people In a focus group discussion (July 2002) with nine women in Ban Nong Hai Kham a village in the district of Tulakhom there was the recognition that agriculture was unlikely to deliver a sustainable livelihood in the long term for everyone and that many of the next generation would need to acquire the skills and education to (partially) escape from agriculture This was reflected in the household strategy of using income gained through one childrsquos work to fund the education of a second child (see p 166) For poor parents with no land few assets and little money perhaps the most valuable inheritance they can leave (some of) their children is an education

Often the combined effects of geographical isolation and social exclusion can conspire to thwart the best efforts of parents to ensure their children acquire an education If remote villages are fortunate enough to have a school then the difficulty is making sure that it is staffed and then that the teacher stays Two common ploys reported in a study of six villages in the provinces of Khammouan and Luang Prabang were to find the teacher a local wife and lavishing on them gifts of wild meat and fish (Save the Children Norway 2001) But this does not always succeed

In one Makong village parents tried to support their childrenrsquos school attendance but despite their efforts not one child had managed to finish primary school They built a school They sent their children to grade 1 in the villagemdashuntil the teacher left after several weeks of teaching They tried sending their children downriver by boat to the nearest village [with a school] but stopped when they learned that the children were playing around on the boat and risked drowning After a while parents grew tired of trying and many children went back to gathering forest foods looking after younger siblings and playing with friends

(Save the Children Norway 20017)

The key cultural asymmetry is between the Lao-Phou Tai and all other ethnic groups The tendency has been to present this in terms of differences in income land production systems and so on The deficiencies then require a technical or engineering solution be it the provision of cheap credit an irrigation scheme or an improved road The foregoing discussion however suggests that the key differences lie beyond the technical and the economic They are embedded in the relationship between the Lao-Phou Tai and the ethnic minorities and in the state of mind which creates and reinforces that relationship Until at a political and social level this relationship is addressed social exclusion will remain pronounced even in a context of rising incomes and falling levels of poverty

The role of social exclusion also applies to patterns of poverty in urban areas The Vientiane PPA notes

One of the key issues associated with vulnerability in Vientiane appears to be social exclusionhellipirrespective of their relative income within the low income band many are vulnerable because they are excluded Their families are affected by that exclusion from society from the job market from accessing social and physical services

(ADB 2001d 36)

These excluded members of society comprise particularly the elderly and especially elderly women drug users and alcoholics particularly if they are young and the physically and mentally handicapped Female-headed households were also found to face particular difficulties and challenges in becoming part of the mainstream

Gender and inequality

The Lao constitution declares that men and women have equal rights While this may be enshrined in law the experience is rather different From the top of Lao society to the very bottom there is ample evidence of gender inequality The difficulty is that gender roles are socially determined and Laosrsquo ethnic mosaic is more complex than any country in mainland Southeast Asia At the household level power work reward wealth and responsibility are unequally distributed between the genders However beyond this generalised and rather uninformative statement it is difficult to make any concrete observations that stand up to scrutiny at a useful level of detail This is primarily for two reasons First because detailed ethnographic work is lacking and second because the evidence that does exist indicates a very significant degree of variation between the countryrsquos many ethnic groups

It is often said that gender divisions of labour are starkest among the various Mon-Khmer peoples and relatively most equal among the Lao-Phou Tai The Hmong-Mien are said to occupy the middle ground in this regard (Lao PDR nd 17 ADB 2001b70ndash71)14 This is also sometimes extended to implying that the Lao-Phou Tai and Hmong-Mien exhibit greater equality in terms of gender relations However it is also clear that these three broad ethnic categories show a great deal of internal variation This is not to say however that there is no utility in attempting to appraise gender inequalities in the country but rather to sound a note of warning about drawing hard-and-fast conclusions from generalised and often thinly supported observations

The sexual division of labour in agriculture varies considerably between ethnic groups However the broad observation that women work more for less return would seem to apply across the board This is illustrated most tragically in the opium poppy fields of the north where most addicts are male but where much of the work on the poppy fields is undertaken by women (UNDCP 1999) Already carrying a double burden of productive and reproductive work the wives and daughters of opium addicts find that their loads increase further still as their husbands effectively withdraw from productive work

An example is the Sakaw family of Lawmeuy an Akha village in the district of Muang Sing Luang Namtha and one of the poorest in the village Sakaw is 35 years old and an opium addict He does not work on the land but occasionally goes fishing exchanging his catch for opium His wife is forced to work the familyrsquos fields on her own but with an 8-year-old son to raise she cannot cultivate more than a small plot of rice and a few vegetables Even when she works as a wage labourer much of this income is channelled into feeding her husbandrsquos habit She also collects bamboo shoots which she exchanges for rice The family rarely eats meat The household survey report records

Their house is small and shabby and in need of repair it is on the ground The family has virtually no bought items in the house no blankets and only one cooking pot The familyrsquos clothes are dirty and torn and Sakawrsquos wifersquos headdress has almost no silver coins on ithellip In some ways Sakawrsquos wifersquos situation is worse than that of a widow with a young

child in that she must work not only to try to feed the family but also to lsquofeedrsquo her husbandrsquos opium habit

(MSIFSP 199516)

The fullest survey of the status of women in Laos was undertaken in late 1998 by the Lao Womenrsquos Union (Lao Womenrsquos Union 2000) This involved a survey of 2399 households across four provinces The survey revealed that among the countryrsquos two largest ethnic groups the Lao and Phou Tai matrilocal residence is still common and so too is matrilineal inheritance Indeed 30 per cent of land was inherited from the wifersquos family and just 18 per cent from the husbandrsquos (The bulk 52 per cent was either purchased by the couple or allocated by the government) However where ownership was detailed it was more than three times as likely to be in the name of the husband (58 per cent) than that of the wife (16 per cent)15 Evidence of a position of relative equality between Lao women and men particularly when compared with neighbouring China and Vietnam is encapsulated in the female-centredness of the Lao household It is husbands who must fit in with their wivesrsquo social networks rather vice versa limiting it has been argued menrsquos power over women (see Evans 1995131)

The Lao Womenrsquos Union survey also showed however the degree to which gender relations vary between ethnic groups While the Lao and Phou Tai largely maintain matrilocal residency Lamoinersquos 2002 study of a Lao Houay (Lantegravene Yao) community in Luang Namtha province provides an extreme example of gender inequality16 lsquoAt first glancersquo he writes lsquoPa Kharsquos population appears as young and healthyrsquo but the lsquodistribution of population by age groups and genders reveals another storyrsquo Of those villagers aged over 50 nine are men while there is just a single woman There is also a market discrepancy in favour of men in the 20 to 30 age group Lemoine explains

Suicide by self-poisoning in this village has taken a great toll of the generation of married young females [aged] between 20 and 305 out of 15hellip This astonishing proportion of 13 gives a measure of the strain put on young married women who are wont to feel desperately humiliated or jealous being as they are the lowest ranking member of the family in the house of their in-laws

(200221)

There is a sharp gender division of labour in Lao Houay society Weaving gathering firewood and NTFPs cooking and undertaking other domestic chores tending livestock (except buffalo) and raising children are all lsquowomenrsquos workrsquo lsquoin which men hardly give a handrsquo (200239) Clearing and preparing the land hunting house-building raising buffalo slaughtering and butchering animals metalwork and transportation are menrsquos work

Earlier in this chapter it was noted that the provision of education is highly uneven and is particularly poor in upland areas populated by ethnic minorities While this affects all children it hits girls particularly hard It was calculated in 1997 that in the district of Vieng Phou Kha in Luang Namtha a girl had a chance of one in a hundred of completing primary school and no chance at all of graduating from lower secondary school (UNDP 1997c) (Figure 49) In the years since the report was released the situation has improved

but even so girls in upland areas face great hurdles if they are to complete primary school let alone reach lower secondary level

There is also reason to think that the process of transition is changing the nature of gender relations in the country sometimes in a broadly positive direction but also negatively Regarding the latter transition and modernisation have

bull Increased foreign investment in textile factories and increased the risks of female (and child) labour exploitation

bull led to an expansion in hotels nightclubs and bars which have attracted young women to urban areas and created sexual health and other risks

bull increased reliance on the public sector for the delivery of educational and health services (ADB 1996)

bull increased the burden of womenrsquos work as men leave home to gain employment elsewhere

bull begun a process of fracturing of the household to the disadvantage of women

Figure 49 The chances of a girl attaining a basic education in Vieng Phou Kha district Luang Namtha (1997)

Source Data extracted from UNDP (1997c)

While there are as noted good reasons to be cautious about making generalised statements about Lao society it would be reasonable to state that the most disadvantaged

group in Laos are females belonging to one of the ethnic minorities They work harder are rewarded with less inherit little enjoy less prestige and power have a high chance of dying in childbirth rarely benefit equally from education and have few opportunities for advancement The PPA quotes a woman from Bit Village in Luang Namtha lsquoWomen do all of the work and the men just sit around drinking When they run out of whisky we have to sell vegetables in the market in order to buy more for themrsquo (quoted in ADB 2001b69)

Female members of ethnic minorities face a treble squeeze To begin with they often operate within traditional social structures where gender inequalities are pronounced Second these are accentuated by national level policies and instruments which while they do not discriminate against women per se often have discriminatory outcomes Third the process of market integration and transition is bestowing cumulative benefits on men rather than on women

While greater gender equality is evident among the lowland Lao-Phou Tai there is still ample evidence to show that a degree of inequality is the norm In government service in toto women are well represented In 2000 36 per cent of government officials were female However these positions are concentrated at the lower levels of administration At the level of chief of cabinetdistrict division just 180 out of 2424 (74 per cent) posts are filled by women (UNDP 200222) For all levels above this the proportion of women filling positions in each strata is less than 10 per cent (see Figure A43)

Summary

At one level the narrative of poverty in Laos is predictable the incidence of poverty is high and the poor are concentrated in upland rural areas But in telling us everything this rather blithe perspective is in danger of telling us almost nothing Critically such a view tells us little about four aspects of poverty

1 Whomdashspecificallymdashare the poor

2 Why are people poor

3 What are the spatial patterns of poverty

4 What is the dynamic over time

This chapter has provided an overview of the mosaic of underproduction social exclusion environmental marginality and social differentiation that adds some explanatory colour to the bald statistics The intention has been to bring together issues connected with society and space or people and place It is clear that poverty and social exclusion in Laos have a strongly spatial character This in turn exhibits close links with various place-based environmental parameters However while space is clearly implicated it is not sufficient to gain an understanding of poverty The structures of society also play an important role in delineating the architecture of poverty

A second area of debate which this chapter has only touched on but which will be explored in greater detail later in the book are the links between transition and inequality As noted earlier given Laosrsquo initial conditionsmdasha high level of equality (lsquoshared povertyrsquo in Geertzrsquos terms) and a preponderance of subsistence productionmdashit was to be expected that inequality would rise as transition proceeded But where this will peak and whether the spike will take the form of a Kuznets curve so that inequality will settle at some lower level (and what that lower level will be) will depend partly on the policy choices that the government of the Lao PDR makes At an international level the renewed emphasis on pro-poor policies after several decades of unerring focus on pro-growth policies is indicative of this heightened concern for the quality of growth Yet and importantly while the debate may have moved on to the quality of growth what mechanisms and what policies are necessary to improve quality are not well understood

Part II Constructing the case

5 The best of intentions

Policy-induced poverty

Introduction

One of the more surprising debates in Laos is over the degree to which we can see povertymdashin certain areas and in particular respectsmdashas lsquopolicy-inducedrsquo This is rarely explicitly admitted but it is a current that runs through many reports and conversations In the opening chapter of this book a distinction was noted between lsquosystemicrsquo and lsquocontingentrsquo marginality the latter occurring spontaneously through the operation of the market or as an outcome of established cultural norms and the former as deriving from the structures and systems that are put in place to direct interventions and flows of resources (see p 13) It is in this systemic sense that poverty may be interpreted as policy induced

The failure to admit and address the negative albeit unintended consequences of policies is in Laos partly due to a fear that such an admission will fatally undermine the development project as a whole As a country which experimented with but failed in its efforts to achieve socialist reconstruction and development (1975ndash1986) there is some reluctance to countenance the possibility that there could be a dark side to current initiatives An additional issue however is that projects have mixed effects on populations Talking of lsquotargetrsquo groups can overlook those subgroups perhaps in a minority who find their livelihoods squeezed or undermined at the same time as others benefit1

One of the recurrent themes in reports on Laosrsquo development is the notion that there is a lack of lsquocapacityrsquo This is restated so often as to have become a leitmotiv for the country But while few would deny that the country does indeed face a serious gap in terms of both human and physical capacities and capabilities it is sometimes unclear where these are located and what form they take In local areas and in the field of village leadership At district level where decentralisation is raising levels of autonomy and increasing decision-making authority Or at the centre where government departments and research units find they are spread very thinly All these gaps are real and debilitating but they are rarely dissected and explored in satisfactory detail The catch-all lsquolack of capacityrsquo is used to account for every failure every example of inefficiency and every initiative that does not live up to expectations The possibility that there may be more fundamental problems connected with the policies themselves and the assumptions and beliefs that inform them are not generally part of the debate

The following discussion will focus on one broad policy initiative area-based development It is necessary to appreciate however the extent to which area-based

development and the specific policies that have been instituted to bring it about is a keystone in Laosrsquo development efforts The channelling of development efforts to particular locations the concentration of investment in certain sites and the movement and settlement of populations in these sites represent currents of intervention that apply across the country and wash on to the shores of most villages and at the feet of most households They are central in other words to the development project in Laos

POLICIES POVERTY (AND THE MINORITIES)

In Chapter 4 it was highlighted that poverty is concentrated among Laosrsquo minority groups To reiterate these peoples are largely to be found in remote upland areas many meeting their needs through shifting cultivation It was further noted in Chapter 3 that government policies construct and characterise shifting cultivation and by extension shifting cultivators as problematic The reasons for this are a combination of concern over the perceived environmentally destructive nature of shifting cultivation a wish to capture the value of the forests in the interests of the state a desire to exercise firmer control over people both for taxation and security reasons and a commitment towards improving the livelihoods and raising the living standards of swidden cultivators

A country paper on food security in Laos states lsquoin recognition of the importance of the forest for the development of the country the government has adopted rather conservative forest policies [ie conservation-oriented] emphasizing preservation rehabilitation and expansion of forest potentials in order to protect important watersheds and national biodiversityrsquo (Lao PDR 19966 emphasis added) In this way upland-dwelling shifting cultivators are seen as obstructing national development imperatives Side-by-side with the lsquoshifting cultivation as environmentally destructiversquo line of thinking however is the lsquoshifting cultivation as unproductiversquo rationale Therefore shifting cultivation is not only harmful to the environment but it is also unable to deliver sustained improvements in livelihoods and living standards Finally a partially hidden justification for the Lao governmentrsquos development efforts in the uplands is political to make the minorities lsquoLaorsquo With regard to Thailandrsquos hill peoples Isager and Ivarsson write that the lsquominorities came to be regarded as different in the sense of being antimodern and antinational or anti-Thairsquo and in this way became targets of state power wielded through the bureaucracy (Isager and Ivarsson 2002399) The central means by which the Lao government has sought to restructure upland livelihoods and implicitly to make them more Lao is through the Focal Site strategy and more particularly through the Land-Forest Allocation programme

Area-based development the Focal Site strategy and the Land-Forest Allocation programme

The Focal Site strategy in its current form was formally endorsed in February 1998 and has become a central plank in the governmentrsquos rural development programme The origins of the strategy however may be traced back to 1994 when the Office of the Prime Minister issued a directive emphasising the importance of lsquointegratedrsquo rural

The best of intentions 97

development By the end of 1995 most provinces had identified focal sites for development and submitted budgets to the central government The objectives of the strategy were then fleshed out and codified in the rural development programme that was endorsed in 1998 (Lao PDR 1998)

The programme document describes focal sites as lsquointegrated rural development clusters par excellence located in the most deprived areas where presently there are no or only minimum development activities taking placersquo (Lao PDR 19985) lsquoThe focal site strategyrsquo the report later outlines lsquois hence the bringing together of development efforts in an integrated and focused manner within a clearly defined geographical area aiming at eradication of poverty and at promoting sustainable developmentrsquo (Lao PDR 199826) The logic is to create lsquodevelopment centresrsquo or lsquogrowth polesrsquo for rural areas lsquothat will thwart or at least slow down the present trend towards widening gaps between rural and urban areas but also within the rural areas themselvesrsquo (Lao PDR 19986 emphasis in original) Focal sites will in turn help to achieve the broader stated objectives of the governmentrsquos rural development programme (Lao PDR 19987) namely to

bull alleviate poverty among rural populations in remote areas bull provide food security bull promote commercialisation of agricultural production bull eliminate shifting cultivation bull improve access to development services

These benefits are all too clear in the governmentrsquos information campaign where a traditional past lived in the hills and without amenities is contrasted with a lowland future where power clean water schools health centres and ample food are provided to smiling farmers (Figure 51 and Plate 51)

The number of focal sites established has risen from fifty-eight in 1996 to eighty-seven in 1999 (UNDP 200248) While the strategy is not ostensibly focused on the upland-dwelling minorities the criteria for the selection of sites has inevitably led to this outcome The UNDP (200247) groups the criteria into five

1 Criteria related to ethnic minority people living in isolation and poverty 2 Criteria related to development potential 3 Criteria related to the need to stop shifting cultivation and consolidate villages 4 Criteria related to people who participated in the Revolution 5 Criteria related to the need to ensure security peace and stability

The Land-Forest Allocation programme (baeng din baeng paa) was first set out in the new Forestry Law in November 1996 (UNEP 200140) In its original form the programme was designed to grant villagers ownership of local forests to prevent illegal logging The approach was participatory the broad objective a laudable one and the programme was in many respects lsquoexemplaryrsquo (Vandergeest 200350) Over time however it became linked to the Focal Site strategy and the broader initiative of limiting shifting cultivation In this way it metamorphosed into a dual programme embodying elements of territorialisation and deterritorialisation (see below) Its remit it seems also widened substantially as the type of shifting cultivation targeted for attention was broadened from the pioneer swiddening practised by such groups as the Hmong to

Figure 51 The government presents the benefits of resettlement

Source Sparkes 199876

Plate 51 Development project in the form of clean water comes to Ban Huay Luang Pak Ou district (2002)

encompass all forms including the more environmentally benign rotational shifting cultivation systems of peoples like the Khmu (ADB 2001b46) Whether this was by accident or design is not clear Certainly earlier documents made a clear distinction between pioneer swiddening (hai leuan loi) and rotational systems (hai moun vian) This distinction later became conflated into a single designation with the result that shifting cultivation of all types was targeted for eradication This reductionism is characteristic of the way in which shifting cultivation has been packaged as lsquoslash-and-burnrsquo agriculture lsquoSuch discoursesrsquo Instone writes lsquohide the productive elements and negate the dynamic adaptive and cultural qualities of these systems within particular environmentsrsquo (Instone 20032)

Under the programme upland (minority) villagers practising shifting cultivation are resettled in focal sites where government servicesmdashschools health centres (souk sala) and so onmdashare provided as well as market access through better roads The objectives of the Land-Forest Allocation programme are similar to those of the Focal Site strategy to reduce and eventually eliminate shifting cultivation to promote the commercial production of crops and to manage upland areas in a sustainable and environmentally sensitive manner (ADB 2001b46) The livelihood impact of these two programmes however has been significant and in many areas and on balance negative That said and as we will see below the issue is not quite as simple as it is sometimes presented

While both these efforts are comparatively new the notion of area-based development may be traced right back to the establishment of the Lao PDR in 19752 The underlying themes of sedentarisation concentration and the zoning of activities have been recurrent for several decades (see UNDP 1997a) That said it is also necessary to realise that while the themes of resettlement and area-based development have been consistent the details are importantly different both over time and between cases Thus the population movements and displacements in the immediate post-war period (1975ndash1985) had a different rationale (largely post-war reconstruction and nation building) from more recent efforts which are largely driven by rural development imperatives (Box 51) It has been estimated that half of all villages

Box 51 Village histories Ban Lathahair Pak Ou Luang Prabang The inhabitants of Ban Lathahair today comprise members of the Lue (the majority) Khmu and Hmong ethnic groups The village was established by Lue people from Houai Vang 20 km north of Lathahair in 1959 While resident at Houai Vang the inhabitants had suffered prolonged sickness in the village and the water supply from a small creek was insufficient to support the growing community On establishing Ban Lathahair the inhabitants built a monastery and began to clear the surrounding land for swiddening In 1960 to 1961 the villagers fled temporarily into the forest due to fighting between the Royalists (the village came under their control at that time) and the Pathet Lao As the conflict escalated in 1969 the villagers were forced by the Royalists to leave and settle in Luang Prabang and Ban Lathahair was deserted until 1975 when with the final victory of the Pathet Lao the villagers could return On their return the inhabitants built a primary school and health care centre and the temple was renovated (Plate B51) Soon afterwards in 1976 to 1977 the road through the village was upgraded and in 1985 the Lue began the process of converting the lowlands near the village into rain-fed paddy-fields In 1989 a reservoir and water system (with water piped from the mountains) were

constructed The first sanitation facilities were provided in 1995 and in the same year the first video was screened The following year five Khmu and nine Hmong households settled in Ban Lathahair Further improvements came in 1997 when the road to the village was tarred and in 2001 when electricity pylons were erected with the prospect of electricity to come

Plate B51 Monastery at Ban Lathahair (2001)

in Laos moved or were moved during the hostilities (UNDP 1997a10) In addition even today the experiences of individual villages of these programmes are often very different

In 1996 the UNDP funded a study of sixty-seven resettlement villages one of the largest socio-economic studies ever undertaken in the country (UNDP 1997a 1997b) The fieldwork spanned six provinces and included a survey of 1000 households drawn from twenty-five ethnic groups This study represents the first attempt to gain a comprehensive vision of the tensions of resettlement in the country and many of its main conclusions are echoed in later studies

bull land for permanent field agriculture in resettlement sites was scarce bull a significant number of resettlement villages did not have functioning schools bull morbidity increased during the first few years after resettlement reflected in a high

death rate bull paddy-fields were not always successfully established and in the north shifting

cultivation continued despite resettlement bull knowledge of wet rice agriculture was lacking bull draught animals to work the land were scarce bull the dislocation associated with resettlement sometimes led to lsquobrutalrsquo cultural rupture

Territorialisations

The market reforms in Laos as in some other former command economies give the surface impression that the state has partially withdrawn from peoplersquos lives The reality is often quite the opposite and this is particularly true for minority peoples living in marginal areas Evans wrote in 1990 in the Preface to the first edition of his book Lao Peasants under Socialism and Post-socialism

The isolation of a mountain village in Laos in the provinces of Xieng Khouang Sayaboury or Houaphan for example has to be seen to be believed One sometimes wonders Do the villagers really know who is in power in the capital Vientiane

(Evans 1995xxxv)

In Laos a process of territorialisation is occurring whereby the state puts people and activities in their lsquoplacersquo (see Peluso 1995 Vandergeest and Peluso 1995 Vandergeest 1996 Li 2001 Buch-Hansen 2003 Wadley 2003 Roth 2004) so that the economic value of forests (in particular) may be harnessed in the interests of the state and people can be more easily counted and controlled for reasons of security and development (Box 52) At a broad level we can discern in the countryrsquos territorialisation project a shift

Box 52 Defining terms territorialisations

Territorialisation The means and process by which the state extends its control over space the populations who inhabit that space and the natural resources found there People are counted land is measured and resources are allocated and this is given authority through the lsquoscientificrsquo approach adopted and the legal structures that underpin the process (Plate B52)

Deterritorialisation A parallel process to territorialisation by which the state removes local people from the spaces and places they inhabit either in a physical sense (they are resettled elsewhere) or functionally (through the scientific classification of land and its allocation to particular uses) andor mentally (through endowing land types with particular meanings that override local meanings)

Reterritorialisation The process by which people insinuate themselves into new spatial contexts imbuing them with meaning exerting some degree of control over them

and making them lsquohomersquo Counter-territorialisation Attempts by local people to resist the territorialisation

tendencies of the state through a variety of grass-roots efforts including counter-mapping (in which communities provide their own maps to counter the statersquos mapping of people land and resources) and tree ordination (in which trees are sanctified to protect them from cutting) These efforts are often supported and sometimes initiated by NGOs

Plate B52 Territorialisationmdasha map of village lands Ban Kop Pherng Sang Thong (2001)

from the people-focused resource control systems that characterised the pre-colonial period (see p 49) to systems that emphasise the control of land (or space) Evans may have wondered in the 1980s whether some people knew who was in power in Vientiane but by the turn of the Millennium the suspicion is that such ignorance would have largely disappeared

The process of territorialisation is most pronounced in upland areas and among upland communities who have found their room for manoeuvre both spatial and legal constrained andor restructured Land allocation has become a powerful tool by which policy-makers have been able to control and manipulate the uses to which land is put When villages are not relocated the state has codified the use of space earmarking some land as preservation forest some as reserve forest while allocating other parcels for

agricultural activities (see Lemoine 200210ndash11) Even community forests are designated at the behest of the state rather than being a true reflection of local community autonomy and action

At the same time however as upland communities have beenmdashand are beingmdashterritorialised a parallel process of deterritorialisation is underway This is linked to the manner in which people are extracted intentionally or otherwise from their traditional lands The social separation of communities the erosion of access to land-based livelihood systems and the embedding of households in new environmental contexts where the scope for securing a land-based livelihood is constrained are all facets of this process of deterritorialisation Thus there is a dialectical process at work which has its roots in the difference between space and place Swidden cultivators are spatially assigned and regimented while their place in the world is profoundly reworked In its most extreme form this can lead to cultural rupture and psychological paralysis as has been the case with the resettlement of some of the Vietic-speaking minorities (see below) More normally however it leads to a process of reterritorialisation from below Following resettlement groups and individual households need to make a new home for themselves in both a practical (learning how to farm new environments in new ways) and in a mental (imbuing a settlement with a sense of place and belonging) sense Having been either extracted from their traditional lands or having had their traditional modes of access restructured local peoples build new lives and livelihoods within the spatial legal and environmental context that the state has constructed at least in outline This process of adaptive change is crucial to understanding how and why some communities and households lsquosucceedrsquo while others lsquofailrsquo

At root the territorialisationdeterritorialisation dialectic is underpinned by the themes that have dominated state policies towards the minorities First how to modernise the minorities in terms of mind and practice and second how to maintain security and protect state interests in upland areas (see ILO 200019) In focusing attention on these two issues however minorities become implicitly redrawn as lsquovictimsrsquo of state policies and are left largely devoid of agency autonomy or power The reality is rather different

Minorities often leave their homes abandon their lands and rebuild their lives voluntarilymdashif not always willingly Purpose is allayed with energy direction with initiative and intent with resolution In this way there occurs a process of reterritorialisation from below an unscripted and energising transition that takes the resettled and displaced and transforms them once more into villagers albeit lsquonewrsquo villagers

Plate 52 Buat paa in northern Thailandmdashthe lsquoordinationrsquo of trees as a form of counter-territorialisation (2000)

Reterritorialisationmdashbroadly speakingmdashoccurs within the ambit of the state and is not subversive Work in other areas of Southeast Asia has raised the issue of counter-territorialisation as a means by which local people canmdashand havemdashresisted and reworked state-orchestrated territorialisation projects in their own interests sometimes with the support of NGOs Communities counter-map to support their claims to land and resources while tree ordination (buat paa) protects forests from the state and from commercial interests (Plate 52)3 In the case of Laos it is hard to find examples that match those for Thailand Indonesia and the Philippines None the less such resistance in the form of non-compliance and foot-dragging is occurring at a low level as communities make their point and furthermore there is scope for a much greater level of resistance

Policies and livelihoods

Land Allocation implementation has caused severe hardship for many swidden cultivators

(Lao PDR 2001a46)

It is safe to conclude that involuntary resettlement has not been successful and that it has been the cause of much hardship and poverty

A recurring theme in recent studies is the way in which a programme designed to improve the livelihoods of upland peoples has had the reverse effect pushing many into food insecurity The participatory poverty assessment quotes a minority villager in Bokeo saying that lsquoafter the land allocation was carried out we have begun to be short of rice to eatrsquo (Lao PDR 2001b90) In his study of Nam Pack in Luang Prabangrsquos Nan district Kheungkham Keonuchan also reports that levels of food security declined following land allocation (Kheungkham Keonuchan 2000) (Figure 52) Raintree says much the same in his survey of resettlement villages in the districts of Phonxai in Luang Prabang and Namo in Oudomxai (Raintree 2003) as does the UNDP more generally (UNDP 2002 and see Vandergeest 2003)

There are two broad issues here First the policies and associated programmes have not always operated in the manner envisaged Poor planning

Figure 52 Rice security and land allocation in Nam Pack (1993 and 1997)

Source Kheungkham Keonuchan 2000171

poormdashor an absence ofmdashmanagement (for example the National Agriculture and Forestry Extension service was only established in 2001) inadequate resources (too little land much of poor quality) lack of knowledge regarding how to farm these types of

land and a failure to take into account the sometimes debilitating cultural and psychological effects of resettlement have all been highlighted as barriers or constraints to success Furthermore there is the additional accusation that a community-driven participatory initiative in fact disguises a domineering and technocratic programme that sets out to control the ethnic minorities (Jerve 2001279) Second and more fundamentally the Land-Forest Allocation programme has undermined and in some instances dismantled the minoritiesrsquo traditional livelihood systems while offering no equivalent alternative in terms of output This second piece in the explanatory jigsaw requires some elaboration building on the contextual discussion in Chapter 3 (see p 62)

Traditionally shifting cultivators met their needs and smoothed production and therefore consumption through embracing diversity cultivating a range of ecological niches and planting these with a variety of cultivars The Land-Forest Allocation programme is not as monolithic as sometimes characterised and there is scope within the programme to adjust areas of land and numbers of plots according to environmental conditions and the needs of different farming systems Even so it also has certain enduring features In particular the emphasis in the programme on growing rice sometimes as a mono-crop has compromised the traditional lsquostability through diversityrsquo approach to subsistence This problem has been exacerbated by the way in which the programme has curtailed upland peoplersquos access to the forest further undermining their traditional livelihood strategies In one of the earlier references to the effects of government policies on upland communities Chamberlain et al wrote

The real issue with land allocation and relocation is that the control of individual and communal resources is being wrested away from upland and highland families who happen to be mostly ethnic minorities Thus their whole means of livelihood and economic security is being threatened

(Chamberlain et al 199542)

There are however success stories The problem is that these tend to become cited as lsquomodelsrsquo and quickly become recycled as generic insights into the operation of the programme One such success story is that of a Hmong village near Lac Xao in central Laos studied by Charles Alton4 The village was relocated from the uplands to a site close to a major road and has since become quite prosperous The key elements accounting for the success of this village relocation exercise were voluntarism participation strong leadership gradualism and responsiveness on the part of the government Unfortunately however lsquoin subsequent relocations the lessons from this site have rarely been heededrsquo (Chamberlain et al 199543) The recent poverty-focused agricultural development plan (Lao PDR 2003) recognises some of these shortcomings in its emphasis on participatory land allocation

Relocation and dislocation

A feature of both the Focal Site and the Land-Forest Allocation programmes is that they are area-based approaches to rural development This is for good reason the government of Laos simply lacks the resources to comprehensively develop the country To build

roads throughout the uplands and to provide schools health centres and other services for small spatially dispersed and often remote communities is simply a practical and financial impossibility The emphasis therefore has been on concentrating efforts spatially and encouraging communities to move to these new lsquodevelopment centresrsquo This though has not only concentrated services and amenities but it has also and at the same time concentrated rural populations

Rural Laos is experiencing growing land shortages This at a national level would seem to be counter-intuitive the country has the lowest population density in Southeast Asia at twenty-four inhabitants per square kilometre (2002)5 None the less an aspect of many studies is to highlight shortages of land as a real constraint to building sustainable rural livelihoods The Focal Site strategy and the Land-Forest Allocation programme are both closely implicated in this narrative of land lsquoshortagersquo in a land-rich country

In moving villages to new sites close to roads and often on valley bottoms the government has concentrated populations in areas where the land may be suitable for wet rice cultivation but where it is also very limited and often already accounted for As Raintree says of his study sites in Luang Prabangrsquos Phonxai district and Namo in Oudomxai lsquothere is simply not enough land available within the existing boundaries of the relocation villages to allocate sufficient land for livelihood to the relocated familiesrsquo (20034) The act of moving also dislocates the households from their old lands making it difficult if not impossible to maintain their traditional forest gardens orchards and upland fields In many areas the effects of resettlement and area-based development have been to divide villages and productive activities Some upland households move but not all those who do move sometimes maintain split productive existences working their former highland fields but at a lower level of intensity while they also build a life in the valley Not only does resettlement accentuate land shortages in settlement areas it also tends to lead to over-exploitation of NTFPs cutting away one of the coping strategies that was traditionally available in the uplands during periods of rice shortage and subsistence crisis

The challenge of juggling spatially split land-based livelihoods is seen in the case of Ban Nong Hai Kham in the district of Tulakhom in Vientiane province surveyed in 2002 (Plate 53) The village was established in 2000 following the construction and expansion of a casino and lsquoecorsquo resortmdashthe Dansavanh Resortmdashwhich displaced the villagers from their old village site some 30 km away6 Prior to resettlement the villagers had access to comparatively abundant resources of land and forest were self-reliant in food and in fact produced a small surplus for sale Following resettlement only four or five households out of a total of fifty-two grew enough rice to meet their needs The inhabitants of Ban Nong Hai Kham tried to deal with the lack of developed land at the site of their new village by continuing to farm their old fields7 Some forty households split their farming energies between the two production sites around 30 km apartmdashthe lands of their original and new villages This not only took time and cost money it also meant that children were sometimes taken out of school on a Friday so that their parents could get to the fields of the old village for a sufficiently long period to undertake the necessary agricultural tasks In summary villagersrsquo lives and livelihoods were uncomfortably divided between the two village sites

In Laos one of the key constraints that individual households face is mobilising sufficient labour to maintain productive activities (Figure 53) This is particularly true in

upland areas where the ability to clear land usually a male task is linked to the amount of labour a household can muster Furthermore labour demands for a given return have if anything

Plate 53 Ban Nong Hai Kham a resettlement village in Tulakhom district where women and men juggle activities to meet their needs (2002)

Figure 53 Poverty and labour availability Luang Prabang and Houa Phanh (1997)

Source FAO 199714ndash15

risen as generally decreasing fallows have led to an increase in the need for weeding By one estimate fallows have decreased from thirty-eight years in the 1950s to five years in the 1990s and the weeding requirement has doubled over the same period (Roder 19974) There is even evidence that new weeds which are more resilient and weeding resistant have colonised upland fields as fallows have declined (Lestrelin and Giordano 2005) The effect of having to divide time between two sites is to accentuate labour constraints particularly for families with young children

Village amalgamation and social differentiation

Another feature of the Focal Site strategy is village amalgamation The logic here as noted earlier is to create larger administrative units that can be better supplied with basic services It has been said for example that many provincial authorities view between fifty and sixty households as the minimum population that can reasonably be considered

as constituting a lsquovillagersquo (Chamberlain and Phanh Phomsombath 200235) However in creating larger administrative units peoples of different ethnic groups are brought together in artificial and constructed lsquocommunitiesrsquo Thus village amalgamation creates not only production difficulties but also presents new social challenges

The difficulties that can arise are reflected in the village of Lathahair in Luang Prabangrsquos Pak Ou district and surveyed twice in August and November 2001 Ban Lathahair is a multi-ethnic community The original inhabitants were Lao Lue joined later by Khmu and Hmong (see Box 51) But while the village is a single administrative unit it is far from being a community Not only were the Khmu and Hmong houses spatially separated from the Lao Lue but when for example the Khmu faced food shortages rather than borrowing from fellow villagers they trekked up to the mountains to borrow rice from their kin As one Khmu man said lsquoI donrsquot want to borrow any thing from other ethnic groups because I donrsquot know their cultures and I also donrsquot know how much they haversquo8

These ethnic divisions were manifested in inter-village tensions over access to land in which ethnic affiliation it seemed took precedence over village identification Three hoursrsquo walk to the southwest of Ban Lathahair was the HmongKhmu village of Mok Chong Villagers from Mok Chong were encroaching on land that the Lao Lue of Lathahair regarded as theirs they were also moreover using the land to plant poppies This was causing considerable friction not least because Ban Lathahair comparatively well connected by road and therefore within the ambit of the state had embraced the governmentrsquos policy of opium poppy eradication The Hmong in the village however had relatives living in Mok Chong and in this tussle over resources found themselves siding with their kin rather than with their fellow villagers

Trade-offs

A simplistic judgement on the policy of relocation and area-based development as either wholly lsquogoodrsquo or lsquobadrsquo would be inconsistent with the rather more complex picture that is emerging from our research in the research villages

(Raintree 20035)

The emphasis in the literature has been on identifying examples of success and failure (see the following section) The more normal situation however is that resettlement is very much a mixed blessing with a series of trade-offs to be calculated and negotiated These vary not only between villages but also between households (and individuals) within villages In other words the balance of effects of resettlement needs to be considered at both the village and intra-village levels

A 1991 UNDP report describing the development experiences of seven new Hmong resettlement villages illustrates the sometimes contradictory views held of resettlement by villagers9 All the villages in question had suffered a general and quite substantial fall in household income from around 150 to 200000 kiphouseholdyear before resettlement to 70 to 100000 kip year following resettlement (UNDP 1991) This was because

resettlement had given the local authorities the ability to eradicate opium production from which the villagers had formerly derived a large proportion of their income On the face of it resettlement and a closer engagement with the state had undermined livelihoods by removing a central plank in the village economy Villagers however held mixed rather than singular views of resettlement In two of the communitiesmdashNam Kien and Palavekmdashthe general perception was that living standards had risen following resettlement notwithstanding a substantial fall in incomes This was largely because while villagers had lost an important source of income generation they had gained access to government services and in particular education and health facilities In other villages such as Sam Gao even after four years of settlement lsquogiven a choice the villagers would rather live at their previous highland sitersquo (UNDP 199197) Yet while desirous of their past lands the inhabitants of Sam Gao were none the less intending to make a second spontaneous move even closer to the project road a tacit acceptance it would seem that not only was a return to their original highland site a practical impossibility but also that integration has its benefits These benefits moreover need to be calculated in non-monetary as well as monetary terms

A common theme in reports is to remark on the livelihood-eroding effects of resettlement while also noting a significant level of spontaneous migration to new roadside sites lsquoHaving a house near the roadrsquo Raintree writes lsquois something that appeals to many highland people and the villages like Nambo in Phonxai [Luang Prabang] that have a Ten Day Market are proving to be a magnet for all ethnic groupsrsquo (Raintree 20033) Other studies have recorded that some villages request to be moved closer to a main road independent of any government initiative or programme (eg FAO 1997) Lemoine writes of the lsquoamazingrsquo number of ethnic groups who have migrated to the road linking Muang Long and Xieng Kok in Luang Namthamdashsome 84 per cent of the districtrsquos population by one calculation (Lemoine 20024)

In the light of the more obvious livelihood-eroding effects of resettlement it is easy to ignore its attractions and real benefits The inhabitants of Ban Nong Hai Kham in Tulakhom district for instance saw resettlement as something that could not be easily categorised as lsquogoodrsquo or lsquobadrsquo despite the fact that their resettlement had led to a loss of food security Chief among the blessings was access The new village may have been situated at the end of a 10 km laterite track with no regular transport link to the district town but even this was an improvement on the situation in the old village where river transport provided the only means of getting produce to market In the same vein while the old village had a school it was staffed from time to time The teacher came by boat and often the level of the river made this impossible with the result that it was not unusual for classes to be held just one day each week The new village by comparison had a permanently staffed school The same was true of access to medical facilities While the new village like the old one had no health facilities access to a clinic was immeasurably easier from the new site The prospect of having access to mains electricity was also imminent and eagerly awaited Beyond government services the inhabitants of Ban Nong Hai Kham were also able to engage in off-farm work and to take advantage of the opportunities that were beginning to arise in the non-farm economy (see Box 53)

Relocation and resettlement vignettes of failure and success

At a general level the effects of the land allocation programme have been sufficiently disquieting to raise real questions about whether in attempting to achieve one objectivemdashthe reduction of shifting cultivation and the protection of the forest resourcemdashanother even more important objective has been compromised namely the improvement of living standards in remote upland communities None the less it is necessary to recognise the mixed fortunes of apparently monolithic programmes This is illustrated in this section with respect to the fortunes of two villages in the district of

Box 53 Land versus services the trade-off in a resettlement village

The five Khmu households who settled in Ban Lathahair from Ban Mok Chong in 1996 arrived too late to be allocated any landmdashit had already been parcelled out to existing residents of the village Mr Thongchan one of the Khmu settlers retains access to 1 ha of upland in Ban Mok Chong three hoursrsquo walk away Because of the distance from Ban Lathahair however he has given up trying to cultivate the land and it now stands idle In Lathahair village he owns only his house plot and has to work as a wage labourermdashclearing land weeding harvesting and house construction and repairmdashto feed his family When there is no paid work he collects mulberry and khisy (lac) from the forest to sell10 His family often goes hungry and during these periods he treks into the uplands to borrow rice from his Khmu relatives Formerly he fished the Nam Ou but Mr Thongchan had to sell his boat and he now resorts to fishing from the river bank using fish traps His catch as a result has declined

Despite the lack of land and the chronic food insecurity the Khmu settlers in Ban Lathahair are surprisingly positive about their move They were in agreement that the attraction of the village lay in its access to the facilities of the state (schools and medical facilities) and proximity to a road However in gaining better access to services they had to abandon their formerly self-sufficient lives in the uplands

Tulakhom which have shared histories but have experienced very different development outcomes

Ban Phon Hai and Ban Nam Ang were established in 1968 when the original householdsmdashvirtually the same numbers thirty-nine and fortymdashwere relocated following the construction of the Nam Ngum Dam Today Ban Phon Hai is one of the poorest villages in Tulakhom district Only a small number of households have access to rice land and even they usually do not farm enough to meet their subsistence needs The land resource is limited both in terms of extent and productivity Some 80 per cent of households have to engage in off-farm work of one kind or another to meet their basic needs Land and agriculture have represented subsidiary elements of the village economy from the day of relocation in 1968 There are villages in Laos where diversification into non-farm activities whether on- or off-farm has been driven by choice In the case of Ban Phon Hai the impetus has been necessity It is an example of diversification for survival or distress diversification Furthermore there would seem to be little scope for

intensification of agricultural production to the extent that it would lift the village and most of its households into food sufficiency let alone generate even a small surplus for sale In this instance therefore the relocation of the village from the Nam Ngum Dam site was an event with dire consequences it propelled the community into food insecurity and forced the inhabitants to depend on off-farm activities and sources of income The transition here has been one with a sudden break (at the moment of resettlement) and no real recoverymdashcertainly not in agricultural terms

The difference in conditions and prospects between this village and Ban Phon Hai next door are surprising and significant They are made all the more striking because the two villages have a shared history in their relocation in 1968 From this point however their economic histories and their fortunes diverged Ban Phon Hai became a village of chronic rice deficit where livelihoods were firmly founded on a diversity of off-farm activities Ban Nam Angrsquos (Plate 54) agricultural vitality meanwhile was strengthened and food security at least at the village level (and for most individual households) assured The reasons why their histories took such different paths would seem to relate to three factors First Ban Nam Ang has a much better resource base A good proportion of the land here is lowland suitable for wet rice cultivation and it was developed assiduously by the inhabitants By contrast Ban Phon Hairsquos land base is poor Much is upland unsuited to wet rice agriculture and there is little scope for improvement Second it seems that quite soon after Ban Phon Hai was established some of the best land was sold Whether this was to deal with a local subsistence crisis or whether the land was simply squandered is not clear The third reason relates to leadership It appears that Ban Nam Angrsquos leadership during the crucial period of initial establishment was instrumental in creating the vibrant agricultural community it is today A small piece of evidence supporting the belief that Ban Nam Ang is on an upward trajectory is the fact that the majority of children in this village go to secondary school In Ban Phon Hai the reverse is the case The inhabitants of Ban Nam Ang are building for the future providing their children with the skills and the education to branch out into new activities and occupations when the opportunity presents itself The villagers of Ban Phon Hai are simply too busy surviving

These two villages exemplify two of the five elements contributing to success in the Hmong resettlement village in Lac Xao noted above the importance of leadership and the necessity of ensuring that villages are given the physical resourcesmdashlandmdashto build sustainable livelihoods and communities preferably through methods of participatory land allocation

The trouble with being a late-comer

Much of the attention paid to resettlement has been focused on new villages This is to be expected they have the highest profile and levels of state engagement But possibly more widespread has been what we might characterise as lsquobackgroundrsquo mobility the low intensity movement and (re)settlement of individual households or small groups of households (Box 54) There is an overlap between this form of (re)settlement and the

Plate 54 The lowland rice fields of Ban Nam Ang (2002)

Box 54 People on the move

The degree of mobility of some families and individuals as they search for a stable livelihood is illustrated in the case of Mr Thawon who moved to Ban Sawai in 1995 Originally he lived in Houa Phanh but left the province in 1991 for Nam Bak because there was no land From Nam Bak he moved to Pak Thon where he had been led to believe he would be allocated land When after a year this was not forthcoming he moved yet again to Ban Sawai Here he rents 032 ha of irrigated rice land and has been allocated village rights to cultivate 1 ha of upland around 30 minutesrsquo walk from the village This is planted to bananas which he sells to a trader His search for a plot of rice land that he can call his own however continues

more overt resettlement discussed earlier in this chapter the movement of the Khmu and Hmong to Ban Lathahair for example might be regarded as falling into this category In addition the role of government policy in the process is not always immediately apparent Many of the movements are ostensibly voluntary rather than components of a structured programme of resettlement None the less they are still part of a broader effort to draw people into the mainstream to create the development context where movement and settlement are tacitly encouraged and oftenmdashalbeit indirectlymdashsupported

A feature of the nine villages surveyed in 2001 and 2002 in Luang Prabang and Vientiane provinces and in Vientiane municipality is that vulnerable households are often those who have settled most recently The three villages of Ban Ang Noi Ban Kop Pherng and Ban Sawai in Sang Thong district were all established in the 1700s Over recent years there has been a continuous coming-and-going as men and women leave for marriage or for reasons of work and new settlers arrive some with links to the village others with none The communities and they are communities in that loaded sense of the word are constantly having to adapt to a changing population base and profile while also responding to the twists and turns of government policy and the progressive opening up of the villages to new opportunities new temptations and new possibilities It was clear that many of the poorest households particularly those in Ban Sawai were the households who had recently settled in the area Even in these three villages where pump irrigation was permitting an intensification of wet rice production newcomers struggled in a context of growing land shortage

Mrs Saeng her husband and two young sons moved to Ban Sawai in 2000 They had no land beyond their house plot and little chance of acquiring any Mrs Saengrsquos husband worked near the town of Tha Khek 400 km to the south and remitted around 100000 kip (US$10) a month to his family but they were still in a position of having to borrow rice from neighbours Even their house plot had been purchased with money lent to them by Mrs Saengrsquos brother-in-law a sum which they were finding difficult to pay back Indeed in each site there were recently arrived households like Mrs Saengrsquos with no land or with sub-livelihood landholdings who were struggling to get by through the creative combination of activities including local wage labouring the collection of NTFPs and various types of off-farm work Just as resettlement villages are sometimes broadly unsustainable as viable economic units so too with resettlement households in other broadly sustainable communities These households and villages have to seek redress through activities that widen the scope of livelihoods spatially and sectorally (see Chapter 7)

Conclusion

In a 2002 calculation of lsquogovernment effectivenessrsquo versus lsquovoice and accountabilityrsquo in Asia the World Bank placed Laos last of fifteen countries recording both the lowest level of government effectiveness and the worst record on voice and accountability (World Bank 2003b28) The tensions that have accompanied land settlement may also be linked to these two features of government action and intervention There are real practical difficulties of taking area-based development programmes forward when resourcesmdashin particular human resourcesmdashare so scarce In addition however there is

the sense that there has been a lack of responsiveness on the part of government agencies to the difficulties that have been evident for sometime Compared with the attention paid to the human impacts of dam development on the Nakai Plateau the effects of area-based development programmesmdashwhich have affected many many more householdsmdashhave received little attention The comparatively high profile of the Nakai Plateau is due to a series of elements that draw it to the front of the stage in terms of international attention a controversial dam project with World Bank involvement the presence of minority lsquotribalrsquo peoples and the arearsquos designation as a National Biodiversity Conservation Area (NBCA) (see p 139) Other areas of Laos cannot offer such a volatile and attention-grabbing fusion of environmental and human concerns to raise their profile

The wider issue of transition while somewhat cloaked from view is centrally implicated in this debate over resettlement policy and practice The driving rationale for resettlement is to foster social economic and political inclusion to make marginal peoples (in the widest sense) part of the mainstream Resettlement both overtly government-directed and spontaneous is therefore part-and-parcel of the wider transition project in Laos While resettlement has had negative outcomes as this chapter has described

it would be wrong to see area-based development and resettlement as in any way intentionally destructive of established livelihoods It would also be erroneous to see this conclusion as necessarily implying that area-based development has either failed or is wrong-headed Certainly the negative impacts on livelihoods recounted here were unexpected Even more of a surprise however is that despite this households remain sanguine even positive about resettlement and the necessity to engage more intimately with state and market

6 Not in our hands

Market-induced poverty and social differentiation

Pro-poor and anti-poor marketisation

Economic reforms in developing countries can create opportunities for poor people But only if the conditions are in place for them to take advantage of those opportunities will absolute poverty fall rapidly Given initial inequalities in income and non-income dimensions of welfare economic reforms can rapidly bypass the poor The conditions for pro-poor growth are thus closely tied to reducing the disparities in access to human and physical capital

(Ravallion 20011812)

Bridging the spatial social and economic chasm between the market and the peoples of Laos has been the principal means by which the government and its advisers have been seeking to promote economic growth and ameliorate poverty This was explored in Chapter 5 in terms of bringing the people to the market in the form of land allocation and resettlement policies and programmes Even more important however have been sustained investments directed at bringing the market to the people The question that underpins much of this chapter is a simple one What happens to livelihoods when communities are integrated into the market And more particularly what happens in terms of social differentiation

The orthodox view is that because poverty has a strong spatial component with the poor concentrated in remote areas the integration of these regions into the mainstream will reduce poverty Integration here is usually used as shorthand for market integration or marketisation and the means to achieve this is primarily through the provision of an adequate transportation infrastructure As will be argued below however market integration is problematic in a number of key respects This is not to gloss over the realities of poverty in remote areas of Laos but rather to highlight the challenges that market integration presents These challenges are not moreover only a case of an unequal sharing of the fruits of marketisation Some groups would seem to be positively disadvantaged by the process

While lsquomarketisationrsquo to use that ugly term is central to development in Laos only rarely are the tensions of market integration explored in any detail The assumption in much of the literature is that market integration brings benefits and that these

significantly outweigh any costs that may arise The difficulty is that such costsmdashthough sometimes admittedmdashare rarely explored and interrogated in anything like the detail that is applied to the benefits Nor are the livelihood costs often elucidated On the whole discussions are general imprecise and lacking in conviction Thus the UKrsquos Department for International Development in a paper entitled lsquoMaking markets work better for the poorrsquo while admitting that the role of markets is lsquosometimes ambiguous and may even be harmfulrsquo (DFID 20006) leaves the reader with just three lsquoareas of concernrsquo and little more to come to any judgement beyond the one that the paper rather routinely promotes1 Anti-poor market development is not addressed head-on but elliptically

Reports and papers emanating from agencies in Laos are if anything even more circumspect and reluctant in their willingness to explore the tensions of market integration There are to be sure comments that hint at some level of concern over how market integration through the overarching policies of the New Economic Mechanism is being pursued and its effects on particular people and places but these rarely amount to more than whispers of worry or passing comments of concern The ADB for example admits that the lsquogovernment [of the Lao PDR] recognizes that the modernization itself [connected with the NEM] particularly the commercialization of agriculture and forestry could create social changes that would leave some people unable to benefit from the NEM and even worse offrsquo (ADB 1999a6) In its report to the Seventh Round Table Meeting in November 2000 the government also noted that the lsquotransition to a market economy at least in its early stages could potentially lead to more income discriminationrsquo (Lao PDR 2000a26) Thus there is a sense among policy-makers that marketisation while it may be at the core of efforts to revitalise the Lao economy and ameliorate poverty also presents some considerable challenges But these challengesmdashwhat they are how they arise who they effect and how they may be combatedmdashare not explored in any detail and there is the abiding sense that they are not deemed to be sufficiently significant to raise questions of a fundamental kind concerning the countryrsquos development strategy

Silver bullets roads remoteness and markets

investment in physical infrastructure will significantly contribute to the pursuit of socially inclusive developmenthelliproads appear to have strong indirect and direct effects on poverty reduction

(Ali and Pernia 20032 10)

What do you need highways for when people are starving This isnrsquot poverty-oriented These roads will all collapse because there is no money and no expertise to maintain them Itrsquos an absolute waste of money

(lsquoAn aid workerrsquo quoted in Thalemann 199787)

Of all the interventions directed at drawing people into the mainstream and making markets work better for the poor none is more important in the Lao context than roads In terms of investment and attention roads have become akin to a silver bullet that will

Not in our hands 119

both drive and bring the benefits of marketisation to poor people living in hitherto marginal areas Since the mid-1980s more government funding has been allocated to the provision of physical infrastructuremdashof which roads are by far the most importantmdashthan any area of public investment (Figure 61) Nor is it only the government and multilateral funding agencies which promote the value of roads Local people also often express the view that better road access is top of their wish list (eg in ADB 1999b 2000c see also Ellis 199827) In an ADB study of villagersrsquo views of rural access roads the report states time and again that lsquovillagers were unanimous in desiring upgrading of the roadrsquo in question (2000c appendix 3)

The road-building imperative that has informed so many development interventions in the poorer world is driven by two premises To begin with that remote areas and marginal peoples need to be drawn into the mainstream as part of a nation-building and security-enhancing exercise lsquoRoadsrsquo

Figure 61 Public expenditure by sector (1995ndash1996 to 2001ndash2002)

Source World Bank 20025

Rigg writes have thus become lsquoemblematic of a statersquos ability to infiltrate and dominate geographical space and impose itself on the people inhabiting that spacersquo (Rigg 2002619 see also Scott 1998)2 There is little doubt given Laosrsquo turbulent recent history and continuing problems with political instability that security concerns are part of the explanatory equation The second imperative and the one with which this chapter is concerned however is market integration Poverty it is suggested has a strong spatial component and the poor are concentrated in those areas where the market has a weak presence3 Drawing on this geography of poverty roads become the means by which the

market can penetrate peripheral areas In addition they also act as the conduits along which the marginal poor can access the markets and opportunities of the core and semi-periphery The methodological difficulty with this view is that the social benefits of roads are taken for granted and there is often little supporting empirical evidence (Van de Walle 2002) That roads are developmental is taken as both obvious and unproblematic

Roads of course not only bring the hard stuff of economic activity but also the software of modernity that is an important driver in peoplersquos engagement with the market The cultural changes that are part-and-parcel of economic growth infiltrate the minds and hearts of lsquoordinaryrsquo people Again roads oil and ease the process of mental engagement with modernity In the context of change in northern Thailand Dearden has written of the pre-eminent role of roads in reworking not only the landscape of the region but also the lsquomindscapersquo of its inhabitants (Dearden 1995118) One can almost see the process of mental colonisation at work in Laos as the visual bricks accumulate by the roadside shops and stalls offering the products and services of the modern world newspapers and billboards enticing the reader and onlooker with their promises of wealth health and prosperity and buses and trucks ferrying produce and people between worlds (Plate 61)

For Kunstadter (2000) roads are crucially implicated in the sequence of changes he describes for Hmong communities in northern Thailand between 1960 and 1990 Roads began as a means by which the state could enter pacify and then exert its control over highland areas This achieved roads were then used as a means of easing the delivery of the gift of development At the same time better access to markets and market intermediaries stimulated the production of cash crops and the intensification using chemical inputs of cultivation Even more dramatic than Kundstadterrsquos account is Singhanetra-Renardrsquos (1999) longitudinal study of Mae Sa just 13 km from the provincial capital of Chiang Mai also in northern Thailand Over three decades Mae Sa was transformed from a rural backwater where lives and livelihoods revolved around the cultivation of rice to a village that had functionally become a satellite of Chiang Mai and where agriculture was but a memory Cheap transport was once again key to the sequence of changes she describes

Thus roadsmdashit would seemmdashchange things Van de Wallersquos paper on roads and rural change (2002) may note the difficulties of identifying in any concrete way and to any convincing degree the effects of roads on rural communities but none the less there is a strong hunch that when tracks are upgraded or roads are built life changes It is the manner of this change and particularly its differential impacts on groups in society (menwomen oldyoung richpoor minoritymajority) which is inadequately understood As Leinbach has said lsquowe still know all too little about the ways in which rural transport should be improved and how to deliver benefits to more needy populationsrsquo (Leinbach 20002) Just as the impacts of marketisation are often only thinly understood (as noted at the start of this chapter) so too are the impacts of roads and other on individual mobility to the distributional implications of such investments their direct and indirect effects on agricultural and non-agricultural productivity and their wider links with development (see Leinbach 2000) In a paper entitled lsquoInfrastructure and pro-poor growthrsquo (2003) the UKrsquos Department for International Development almost entirely ignores the potential negative effects of road construction the trade-offs that result and the process of social differentiation that may either be set in train or accelerated When it

Plate 61 The road to Sang Thong (2001)

infrastructural investments This extends from the influences that road investments have comes to discussing the lsquonew economic geographyrsquo (by which is meant geography by economists) and in particular lsquothe critical role of infrastructure (especially transport) in the dynamics of relations between places and the use of terrestrial spacersquo (DFID 200316) the discussion is strangely and worryingly uncritical4 In a study of poverty and access to roads in Papua New Guinea the authors conclude that because poor areas lack access to infrastructure so infrastructure spending is lsquoa form of targeted intervention that favors the poorrsquo (Gibson and Rozelle 2003179)5 While the study demonstrates that road investments will lead to a fall in poverty in remote rural regions of PNG the paper does not explore the unequal impacts that roads have on people the inequalities that may ensue or consider those individuals and households among the poor population who may find for a range of reasons their livelihoods compromised following road construction improvement

To summarise this opening discussion roads may deliver very significant benefits but these are far from being unalloyed In addition the negative impacts of road construction are rarely admitted and even more rarely explored in detail When we do see reference to the negative impacts of road construction these are normally physical in character increased noise pollution and the danger of traffic accidents for instance Only occasionally are the links between roads market integration and social differentiation considered What is surprising is that scholars and others have been questioning the standard Panglossian view of roads for more than twenty years and yet this sometimes seems to have had little noticeable effect on the international development agenciesrsquo approach to road construction (see Blaikie et al 2001302)

Roads market integration risk and vulnerability two narratives

One reason perhaps why this is the case is because there is a pervasivemdashand persuasivemdashline of thought that portrays remoteness as a cause of poverty Physical isolation is the reason why communities remain poor and therefore roads are the means to tackle the problem Geography becomes in this way a prominent component in the logic of development intervention and the provision of roads the means to address the challenge of poverty (see Ali and Pernia 2003) Literature on Laos is replete with references that adopt this line of argument

Remoteness is an important cause of rural poverty (World Bank 1999b7)

Lack of access causes poverty (UNDP 1996b3)

Lack of physical access is considered a severe impediment to access to social services Improvements in health and education sectors often by way of improving road access were regularly cited in the top three development priorities at both provincial and district level

(Lao PDR 2000d9)

A well managed road network is one of the essential prerequisites for economic growth and given the growing focus on developing rural areas it is a sine qua non for balanced and equitable growth for all sectors of the community

(Lao PDR 2000a64)

The assumption that roads will deliver the goods both in a practical and a metaphorical sense would often seem to be based on the belief that the benefits of better access are open to all Windle and Cramb writing of roads and rural development in the East Malaysian state of Sarawak argue that roads lsquohave the potential tohellipprovide benefits to all groups within a communityhellip[and] do not inherently favour the rural elitersquo (1999216) But just as self-evident as the suggestion that roads change things is the realisation that roads also deliver the inequality-enhancing and the potentially livelihood-squeezing effects of the market Roads are not the benign purveyors of (good) development They deliver a grab-bag of effects that on balance may be positive but some of which are negative and which have mixed and uneven societal effects

The contradictory effects of road construction on development are clear in the following two quotations from succeeding paragraphs in a FAO preparation report

the villages in Long Nam Chan all relatively accessible to Luang Prabang and those along the road in the Kuikacham area are less poor because of their relatively greater emphasis on marketable cash crops

(FAO 199716 emphasis added)

All the villages which had recently voluntarily moved near the road but whose arable land base is still in their ancient [ie former] location were witnessing a process of impoverishment exemplified by their loss of food self-sufficiency

The contradictory effects of market integration are also reflected in the 1996 baseline study of four districts in Luang Prabang province (noted above) where poverty is explained as being a function of lsquoaccess remoteness and ethnicityrsquo (EU 1997iv) while food insecuritymdashthe key indicator of poverty among households who depend on the landmdashis highest in those villages closest to a communication axis (EU 199720)6

Market integration is creating the conditions where social differentiation is becoming more acute An ADB study notes that in the south of the country a minority of prosperous farming households find themselves in a position to use modern techniques and technologies and thereby exploit the opportunities provided by improving market access As a result they have surged ahead of those disadvantaged households who cannot lsquoThe penetration of the market may be aggravatinghellipsocial differentiation with the emergence of an entrepreneurial (capitalist) group of farm households on the one hand and a dispossessed labor-selling group of households on the otherrsquo (ADB 1999b6) Much the same sequence of processes is noted in Chamberlain et alrsquos report on the fate of Laosrsquo minorities in which they argue a combination of government policies and the operation of the market is making indigenous peoples even more vulnerable as their food security is eroded (Chamberlain et al 199543)7

It is not just that the benefits of roads may not be evenly distributed through a population Roads can positively harm the poor and vulnerable (see Gannon and Liu 20003)8 While the provision of roads and adequate transport are essential for economic growth and therefore poverty reduction different sections of society harbour different transport needs The poor those with land versus those without women and the elderly all have importantly different requirements (see below) It is for this reason that investments in infrastructure need to be allied with poverty-sensitive and social exclusion-sensitive transport policies

Market integration and social differentiation

Social differentiation accompanies the transition to a market economy In the case of Laos it is evident that

some people are unable to benefit from the new economic opportunities and see their socio-economic position worsen Others on the contrary are able to start a spiralling process of wealth accumulation thanks to the immediately acquired advantages

(Lao PDR 2000a26)

The reason for this in the usual interpretative schema is because some areaspeople have access to such opportunities and some do not lsquoAccessrsquo here is usually interpreted in

terms of physical access In this way the provision of improved market access for all becomes the primary means of addressing emerging inequalities Providing an efficient farm-to-market network of secondary feeder roads has been accorded the lsquohighest priorityrsquo by the government of the Lao PDR for just this reason (Lao PDR 2000a54) What is often overlooked however is that in addressing one manifestation of inequality such interventions may unintentionally be creating or aggravating another More particularly in narrowing inequalities between regions such investments are likely to be widening inequalities within these marginal zones Thus market integration through the provision of feeder roads narrows inter-regional inequalities while widening intra-regional inequalities How and why does this occur

In 1999 scholars at the National University of Laos carried out a study of the impacts of the upgrading of Route 7 on 227 households in six villages in the provinces of Houa Phanh and Xieng Khouang The study found evidence of a marked decline in forest cover and the general environmental integrity of the area Shifting cultivation rotations had slipped to just three to four years and agricultural output had declined and become more unstable as a result The reasons link partly to the concentration of people along the roadside (and this in turn to the governmentrsquos land settlement policies explored in Chapter 5) and the land shortages that have resulted and partly to the cumulative shift in production strategies from subsistence to market orientation (NUOL 199945)

The study lists a large number of positive impacts of road upgrading but also notes that in all the study villages poor households have a markedly lower level of engagement with the sorts of new market-based activities that road upgrading encourages

The lack of capital available to the poorest group and their related lower participation in current economic activities suggests that these households will be at a disadvantage in relation to the economic opportunities afforded by road improvement in the study areas potential benefits from increased market access will be relatively lowerhellip In this way road development may indirectly lead to increased differences between wealth groups

(NUOL 199955ndash56)

Road construction in many areas of Laos has been ad hoc in approach and therefore ad hoc in effect Studies (eg ADB 2000c) take solace in the fact that roads are invariably eagerly requested and enthusiastically supported by almost all villagers On the basis that they receive unanimous support this it seems relinquishes analysts from considering their effects beyond the technical and physical As is detailed below however not only are the impacts of roads uneven in their effects and the opportunities that they provide but in some areas roads have had much broader negative ramifications

This is far from suggesting that market activity is intruding into formerly market- and commerce- devoid areas The market has been a fact of life for a very long time even in so-styled lsquoremotersquo areas of the country (see p 46) Rather new forms of market relations have disrupted and often replaced the old ways of doing things In Sekong province in the south

the opening of the market economy and the increased frequency of monetary transactions have disrupted traditional exchanges between ethnic groups from one district to another from one province to another and even across the Vietnamese border An entire barter economy where woven skirts were exchanged for buffalo buffalo for earthenware rice for salt and so on is in retreat even though few villages have full access to markets and the use of cash remains rare

(UNDPNORAD 199712)

One longitudinal study (ILO 1997) of the socio-economic effects of road construction on communities in Hune district in Savannakhet and Khantabouly districts in Oudomxai (surveyed in December 1994 and at the beginning of 1997) sets out the various and mixed effects of road construction (Table 61) lsquoIn both districtsrsquo the report states lsquothe wealthy and average households are the big winners of the road constructionrsquo (ILO 19976) These households have the means to exploit the economic and social benefits that roads can deliver because they have the resources to realise a latent asset For poor

Table 61 Effects of rural road construction on communities in Savannakhet and Oudomxai (1997)

Positive Negative No-effect

Access to transport facilities Widening gap between wealthy and poor households

No increased cash income for poorer households

Reduction in travel times Increased logging by the army No income generating activities initiated

Availability of commodities Opium transport facilitated No long term employment facilities initiated

Cheaper commodities Increased slash and burn

Small business start-ups Increased erosion

Increased cash for average and wealthy households

Increased social services

Increased number of students

Exposure to information

Increased trading and business

Small enterprise development

Increased mobility

Increased awareness of socio-economic development

Source Extracted and adapted from ILO (19976)

households (and poor villages) roads often remain just that unrealised development potential9 Other than increasing intra-village and inter-village inequalities roads often sometimes have severe negative ramifications for the environment through increased logging an intensification of swidden systems and heightened exploitation of NTFPs Because it is often poor households who rely on the natural environment for their well being the effects of this also fall disproportionately on the poor and vulnerable (see below for a fuller discussion) Thus roads have the potential to transform the basis on which markets operate in marginal areas and in so doing disturb and disrupt established patterns of living The evidence it is suggested is that this disruption usually bestows benefits on only some groups and individuals and may actually harm others

Looking further afield a very similar development narrative has been identified for upland Vietnam Patterns of settlement by lowlanders in the highlands of Vietnam reveal that minorities are often marginalised by the very process of integration In Lam Dong in the uplands of the north De Koninck found that the Ko Ho minority were unable to exploit the new commercial opportunities (in particular coffee cultivation) opened up by roads and instead lsquowere now reduced to working as labourers on the surrounding coffee plots cultivated by Kinh settlersrsquo (200017) De Koninckrsquos story and the lesson that may also be drawn from some studies in Laos is one of road-induced proletarianisation

Gender and marketisation

Ethnic women and girls [in Laos]helliphave limited access to the world beyond their villagesmdashthe furthest distance these women normally travel from home is about 20 kilometres Many have never seen the nearest town or shopped in the local markethellipintegrating ethnic minority women into mainstream development programs is an enormous challenge

(ADB 2001b67)

In her study of off-road communities in sub-Saharan Africa Porter writes of the lsquoenormity of womenrsquos transport burdensrsquo (2002291) While the poor face challenges in accessing transport there is also a gendered quality to disadvantage reflecting cultural norms economic circumstances and productive and reproductive needs Thus the spatial poverty traps that women face are importantly different from those with which the lsquopoorrsquo have to contend (while accepting that many of the poor are also women) Therefore just as there have been calls for a poverty-sensitive transport policy for Laos (see Gannon and Liu 2000) we can add to this the need for a gender-sensitive transport policy

The sexual division of labour in agricultural and non-agricultural activities and the demands of housework and child-rearing have always placed particular demands on women and these have transport and mobility-related implications Womenrsquos transport needs are different and distinct from those of men lsquoTo most women it does not really matter that much if they are able to make the once-a-month trip to Vientiane in one and a half hours instead of three or four compared to the time-consuming daily necessities of carrying water and fuel for household needsrsquo (Trankell 199384) On this basis it has been

argued that for women on-farm transport is more important than off-farm transport But not all studies recount this standard tale where it is men who are mobile and women who stay at home In her study of the use of Route 13 S (the main highway south from Vientiane which was progressively upgraded through the 1990s) Haringkangaringrd notes that women often travelled more than men because as petty traders they needed to journey to market their produce (199217) Ireson (1992) also highlights the degree to which women dominate low-level trading activities (see also Walker 1999b) A more important determinant of immobility in Haringkangaringrdrsquos study was wealth Poor families did not have the means or the time to travel Their struggle to make a living was firmly based on the village and surrounding lands

It is also important to recognise the ways in which the gender-mobility-transport nexus is in flux due both to changing political contexts and to modernisation The war years placed additional demands on women as many households became de facto female-headed while from the Revolution in 1975 through to the reforms of the mid-1980s women found their customary trading activities squeezed as private enterprise was discouraged and support was given to state-controlled stores and networks of exchange In response many women retreated from the marketplace only to re-emerge with the economic reforms ten years later The immediate years after Liberation in 1975 also cramped womenrsquos commercial activities in others ways The call for women to embrace the Three Goods and the Two Duties of which the former are to be a good citizen a good mother and a good wife (Ireson 19928) may be seen as promoting lsquohousewifisationrsquo and discouraging economic activity10

In agriculture the mechanisation of some areas of production is tending selectively to displace men from farm work permitting them to engage in ex situ activities In particular the growing popularity of rotavators (rot tok tok) in the more commercialised rural areas is relieving men from agricultural work as land preparation is a largely male task (Plate 62)11 The other tasks of rice cultivation continue however to be generally unmechanised requiring that women remain on the farm to plant weed and harvest

This state of affairsmdashwhere there is a progressive feminisation of farmingmdashis unlikely to remain stable as the experience of Thailand demonstrates In Thailand female mobility has increased to the degree that it equals and even exceeds that of men Partly this may be understood in terms of changes on the farm continuing technological change incorporating both mechanical and bio-chemical innovations has partially freed women from farm work Also important though are changing cultural norms No longer is it seen as dangerous adventurous or peculiar for a young woman to leave home to work as it may have done in the 1970s Indeed with agriculture increasingly perceived as a low-status occupation with a doubtful future and little to recommend it daughters are often positively encouraged to look beyond the field and farm even if that means a disintensification or abandonment of

Plate 62 A rotavator in Ban Kop Pherng (2001)

agricultural production Delayed marriage and declining fertility have been enabling factors helping to propel women into non-farm work away from the natal village Changes in household management strategies have also released married women with children to work away from home In the Northeastern region of Thailand grandparents will often take on the task of raising their grandchildren while the childrenrsquos parents work in Bangkok or even overseas Finally the nature of industrial and labour market changes has created a particular demand for (young) female workers The expansion of the garment textile footwear and electronics sectors since the 1980s has enticed young women workers out of the home and the village and Thai rural society has adapted and changed to meet that demand

Laos clearly is not Thailand None the less there is good reason to suppose that a not dissimilar pattern of change will occur in Laos as a complex interplay of technological economic environmental social and cultural change creates the conditions for increased female mobility and the delocalisation of work Indeed this is already occurring (see Chapter 7) Examining labour migration to Thailand from eight villages in Saravan and Xayabouri a 2001 survey found higher levels of female than male mobility (Lao PDR 2001c8ndash9 see also Figures 31a and 31b) Heightened mobility in these instances did not arise from poverty but from development

Young people including those with relatively high levels of education appear to be experiencing an identity crisis wherein onersquos social and cultural needs are not satisfied Turning to Thailand [ie migrating to Thailand for work] is a natural course of behaviour under the circumstances

(Lao PDR 2001a18)

In the meantime however most women will continue to face transport opportunities and mobility constraints that are importantly different from those of men From the demands of agricultural work to the responsibilities of child-rearing and the cultural and social impediments that accepted norms create women often find that improving roads and better communications do not necessarily translate in an equal and equivalent way into increased opportunities for mobility But while many Lao rural women may find themselves lsquomarginalisedrsquo in farming today this state of affairs is likely to have a short shelf life

Forests livelihoods and marketisation

The discussion so far in this chapter has been largely background and contextual How do these assertions actually work out in practice if indeed they do at all To address this question the discussion will turn to focus on environmental issues and in particular the role of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in rural peoplersquos livelihoods In short What happens to the manner in which NTFPs are exploited during marketisation and what are the livelihood effects of any changes

Forests fill a central role in rural peoplersquos livelihoods in Laos (see Chapter 3) However while partial reliance on the forest may be a common feature of rural livelihoods there are important patterns of reliance across the country and between villages and households To begin with poorer villages reveal greater reliance on the forest both for subsistence and income Most of these poorer villages are located in the less accessible uplands And second poorer households are more reliant on the forest and its resources than the less poor Studies show that between two-thirds and three-quarters of poor villages depend on the forest for the majority of their non-rice subsistence needs and for half or more of their income (see ADB 2001b Denes 1998 UNDP 2002)12 For the time being at least it is not possible to understand the livelihood narratives of rural Laos without searching for a large portion of the story in the forests of the country That aside it is also true that the forest component in livelihoods is coming under pressure The forest is receding in extent and declining in richness as was outlined in Chapter 3

In many parts of the country large mammals have disappeared almost entirely while the time investment required to collect a given quantity of product has escalated sometimes by a factor of ten Moreover the period of time over which villages have

Table 62 Decline in the availability of NTFPs Ban Nong Hin Champassak province (1989ndash1999)

1989 1999

Wildlife An abundance of animals available in lsquoyour own backyardrsquo

Many species have disappeared and a two-day trek may yield nothing

Fish 1 hourrsquos fishing yields 4ndash5 kg of fish 1 hourrsquos fishing yields 05 hg of fish

Rattan 1 dayrsquos collecting yields 300 stems 1 dayrsquos collecting yields 20ndash30 stems

Source Adapted from UNDP (200282)

made the transition from naural resource abundance to scarcity may be as little as ten years or less Between 1989 and 1999 the availability of fish and rattan for the residents of Ban Nong Hin in Champassak declined precipitously (Table 62) Denesrsquo study of three villages in Saravan province reveals a similar sequence of events (Table 63) as do the results of the Muang Sing Integrated Food Security Programmersquos baseline survey in the northern province of Luang Namtha (MSIFSP 199529ndash30) and several surveys conducted on the central Nakai Plateau (CARE 19965 Chamberlain et al 1996)

Part of the cause of this often rapid and sometimes calamitous decline in the forest resource lies with the effects of government development policies as detailed in Chapter 5 But perhaps even more significant and instrumental has been the way in which market integration has changed the nature basis and level of exploitation of the forest and its resources It is not only a simple case of more villagers taking more Methods of exploitation have advanced the actors have changed and the demand structures that drive exploitation have altered The Nakai Plateau in central Laos provides a telling insight into the developmental sequence that is characteristic of many parts of the country and particularly those being opened up to the market

Bringing the market to bear the Nakai Plateau

The Nakai Plateau is the site of the controversial Nam Theun 2 Dam and sufficiently environmentally important for it to have been designated a National Biodiversity Conservation Area (NBCA) in 199313 It is home to a large number of ethnic minorities exhibiting a high degree of forest resource dependence and has been quite intensively studiedmdashat least for Laos Finally the villages and households on the Plateau are poor even by Lao standards and are being progressively drawn into the market through a variety of mechanisms

They [the inhabitants of the Nakai Plateau] are among the poorest of the Lao PDR population The reservoir household income is about $100 per capita versus $280 per capita for Lao PDR as a wholehellip With high mortality rates lack of proper medical facilities few schools which operate and only logging tracks and trails as a means of getting to town where there is a market the people living in the area of the proposed reservoir are poor by any measure

(NTEC 1997 E-6) Four years on from this survey the International Advisory Group stated in the report

of its 2001 visit that the lsquolevel of poverty encountered appears to be even more abject than it was when the IAG first visited the [Nakai Plateau] area [in 1997]rsquo (IAG 20019) The dire situation applies both to those communities that have been resettled (eg ILO 2000) and those awaiting resettlement (eg IAG 200116) As noted in Chapter 2 the resettlement experience of the Vietic-speaking nomadic foragers (Atel Makang Mlengbrou Cheut and Themarou) on the Nakai Plateau has been traumatic in the extreme leading to effective extinction for the Atel and Mlengbrou who have been reduced through death from twelve families to five and twenty-five to two respectively (ILO 200010) Even those communities not yet resettled have found their livelihoods

Table 63 Foraging in Saravan A time line of resource exploitation and decline

Date Resource conditions Resource use

1900sndash1960s

Abundant A period of natural abundance wild animals fish and foraged plants widely and easily available lsquoOne could fill onersquos basket in a few hours with enough food for several daysrsquo A generosity of spirit prevailed as villagers shared their produce with all

1960s-late 1970s

Abundant but access restricted

War and insecurity limited foraging activities to areas near the villages This was a period of hardship and dearth

Late 1970s-mid 1980s

Population increase and new technologies drive exploitation

Peace returns Rapid population growth new hunting and gathering technologies (flashlights guns) and the intensification of wood harvesting all increase pressure on the forest resource A logging road is cut into the forest accelerating rates of extraction and easing access

Mid 1980s-present

Market-driven exploitation Many products are now scarce and the forest is degraded

Introduction of NEM Market forces intensify Middlemen and non-Lao (from Thailand) come to the area and local people begin to sell NTFPsmdashsuch as frogs and mushroomsmdashin bulk Villagers set up stalls along Route 13 to sell NTFPs

Source Information extracted from Denes (199818ndash20)

curtailed by the processes going on around them and in particular the market-driven erosion of the natural resource base It is hard to escape the conclusion that resettlement even the prospect of resettlement has been economically disruptive and at times socially and culturally disastrous

A 1996 CARE study of twelve villages on the Plateau described communities whose livelihoods were founded on shifting cultivation the raising of livestock hunting fishing and the collection of NTFPs (CARE 19965) The study also however anticipated the likely collapse of this traditional system as the environment deteriorated Swidden rotations had declined from more than ten years to just three or four years Soil erosion was already pronounced many larger animals had been hunted out and NTFPs were becoming increasingly scarce

The place and role of the market in this narrative of resource declinemdashand livelihood squeezemdashcomes at several levels First of all the people of the Plateau poor though they are have not been immune to the pressures of consumerism As the CARE study remarks lsquopeople begin to try every means to obtain cash to purchase more clothing medicine household goods etcrsquo (CARE 19965) But market integration was not only driving a heightened level of lsquoneedsrsquo improved roads also permitted outside actors to intrude into the area in influential and environmentally destructive ways

In particular Vietnamese traders from the east had found their way into the area and were creating the demand that had propelled resource extraction to levels that were non-sustainable The sequence of changes is clearly outlined in a study of three villages on the

Plateau undertaken in November 2000 (DUDCP 2001) In 1995 a laterite logging road was cut to the villages of Ban Makfeuang Ban Navang and Ban Theung This was used as such for only two or three years until 19971998 The road may be seen as strong evidence of the integration of these communities into the mainstream bestowing all those benefits listed in Table 61 The reality was rather different because no one in the village owned a truck or even a motorbike to transform the road into an agent of development Instead the road became the means by which outsiders could penetrate the area Lowland Lao and Vietnamese traders created a heightened demand for precious woods such as mai ka nyoung (Dalbergia cochinchinensis or ThaiSiamese rosewood)14 for endangered species including turtles tigers bears and golden cats and for NTFPs more generally (DUDCP 200129) Some of this wealth did trickle down to the largely Brou and Sek inhabitants of the three villages but only to some households and usually in small quantities The great benefits accrued to outsiders leaving the villages with a degraded resource and villagersmdashparticularly poor villagersmdashwith a yet more tenuous existence

While the experience of the Nakai Plateau is particularly resonant given the poverty of the area and the dependence of the population on the natural environment it hints at an issue which is becoming increasingly pertinent the integration of Laos into the wider mainland Southeast Asian region and the progressive transformation of market relations in rural areas as the tendrils of association multiply and increasingly reach from local to national to international

Regional market integration the Greater Mekong Sub-region

The discussion so far in this chapter has focused on intra-national market integration but as noted in the opening chapter Laos is becoming integrated into the wider Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) (Plate 63) There is therefore also an importantmdashand growingmdashinternational dimension at work A World Bank study of economic progress in East Asia notes that there is a lsquogeography of povertyrsquo that crosses international borders and highlights the GMS as the lsquosub-region with the most significant cross-border spillovers of poverty incidencersquo (World Bank 20049) The clustering of poverty in such regions is seen as a reason to further promote sub-regional integration and trade partly through infrastructural investments as a means to reduce poverty What is not considered it would seem is the possibility that this clustering may be a product of cross-border interaction as much as cross-border interaction being a means to reduce poverty

Plate 63 The Friendship Bridge the first bridge over the lower reaches of the Mekong and emblematic of the rapprochement between Laos and Thailand and intensifying cross-border linkages and dependencies

With the lowering of political barriers to trade and cross-border economic integration so international flows of commodities goods people and capital are escalating and deepening (Plate 64) In April 1999 the National Agricultural Strategy Conference in Vientiane accepted that market forces are shaping the transformation of the agricultural sector in the Mekong corridor (Lao PDR 199935)15 Furthermore these market forces are emanating from neighbouring countries as production in the Mekong corridor is oriented towards the demand profiles of China Vietnam and especially Thailand The governmentrsquos strategic vision for the agricultural sector explicitly recognises that demand pull from Thailand Vietnam and southern China will stimulate increasing commoditisation and diversification of production (Lao PDR 199910)mdashprocesses that are already well underway in some areas but which remain largely undocumented The deepening of transboundary economic relations is seen by government officials and business-people in border areas as providing considerable scope for local development The Savannakhet district of Xepon on the border with Vietnam is a case in point This district is the second poorest in the province with 63 per cent of households living below the poverty line The answer to the districtrsquos underdevelopment according to the deputy head of the district administration office Mr Phoumi Viladeth is to reorient agricultural production to the demand needs of Vietnam Shifting cultivators should become settled agriculturalists and cash crops should replace subsistence crops (Vientiane Times 200311)

Plate 64 Crossing the Mekong to Thailand is becoming increasingly important for villagers in Sang Thong district (2001)

Research undertaken in all the borderland areas of Laos notes the increase in trans-boundary environmental pressures made possible by improving transport links and receding political and bureaucratic barriers There is a lsquomassive illegal movement of live animals into neighbouring countriesrsquo and improvement to the east-west transportation and communication corridor has provided a fillip to what was already a substantial trade (UNEP 200155) Consumer demand in China is fuelling an unsustainable harvesting of NTFPs in provinces such as Luang Prabang and Luang Namtha and their funnelling along the valley of the Nam Ou and the Nam Tha to markets and consumers in China (ADB 2000d8) In Saravan the increasing presence of Vietnamese traders is raising fears that traditional systems will collapse (Denes 199811) In Oudomxai middlemen and traders from beyond the local area are tempting households to reorient their traditional systems to the demands of non-local markets

To isolated rural communities [in Oudomxai] and frequently to government officials at all levels roads are regarded as synonymous with development and are eagerly requested and promoted Yet in conservation areas and as links with remote communities in undeveloped and resource-rich areas the almost universal experience of roads is negative for both the communities themselves and for the conservation values of their environment

(Lao PDR 2000c44)

Bush (2004) suggests that the general decline in fish stocks in the Sii Phan Done area of Champassak province is due to market transition and the integration driven by political rapprochement and infrastructural improvements of the area into wider regional trading networks Moreover he proposes that this is having harmful effects on those pursuing fish-based livelihoods and in particular those households that are subsistence or semi-subsistence in orientation

It is tempting to interpret the susceptibility of environment-based livelihoods to this sort of exploitation escalator as arising from uncertainties and loopholes over lsquoownershiprsquo Unlike land used for cropping where ownership is usually de facto if not always de jure reasonably firmly assured this is not so for the forest resource As Denes reports in her study of foraging in Saravan while her three study villages have well-established protocols for logging there are no such access rights for foraging With no effective management system in place lsquoharvesting of foraged foods and products tends to be competitive and unsustainablersquo (Denes 199820) When roads are built some local people and outsiders are in a position to raise their game to extract a greater return This is akin to Hardinrsquos lsquotragedy of the commonsrsquo but rather than being intrinsic to the traditional system only comes into play when traditional patterns of exploitation are ratcheted up by marketisation Natural resources are effectively appropriated whether by the state by outsiders or by wealthy and influential local people Lowlanders entering upland areas using roads as access conduits often have advantages over local people in terms of language financial resources contacts and business acumen Writing of remote watersheds in the GMS (namely in Cambodia China Laos and Vietnam) an ADB commissioned report states that this lsquopower imbalance leads to a fundamental inequity in the flow of ecological goods and services between the uplands and lowlandsrsquo (ADB 2000b5)

Winners (and losers)

There is a temptation to ascribe these sorts of environmental pressures as emanating purely from lsquooutsidersquo and even from neighbouring countries However social differentiation and unequal access to resources and opportunities for advancement are also evident at the intra-village and inter-village scales Ban Nambo in Phonxai district of Luang Prabang province has an active market gardening sector and also specialises in the production of paper mulberry so much so that land has become scarce in the village In response more enterprising Hmong farmers have begun to rent land in other villages But lsquounfortunately the entrepreneurial activities of the Nambo villagers is experienced by the other village as additional ldquopopulation pressurerdquo on resourcesrsquo (Raintree 200311ndash12) In this way the economic success of some households in one village can spill over into resource constraints for households in another

The field surveys undertaken in the nine villages in Vientiane municipality and in Vientiane and Luang Prabang provinces in connection with this work also clearly showed how market opportunities are often open only to some households This is once more to be expected but it is none the less important to appreciate why such unequal access arises Only then after all can targeted programmes of social and economic inclusion be designed

The importance of mobility in building sustainable livelihoods was evident in all nine villages It was also evident that a significant number of individuals and households were tied down for a variety of reasons because of family responsibilities (largeyoung families) because of a lack of skills to sell because of a lack of contacts to exploit and because of a lack of capital lsquoMobilityrsquo means not just the ability to engage in ex situ work Even work in the village fields or in the fields of a neighbouring village may be difficult to entertain for some households and individuals

Market integration offers opportunities either to expand and diversify on-farm activities (whether agricultural or non-agricultural) or to engage in non-farm (off-farm) endeavours Often the key constraining factor is lack of labour or a lack of labour that can easily be deployed and allocated to such activities With two pre-school children Mr and Mrs Phouthong of Ban Nong Hai Kham (Tulakhom district) were restricted to village-based work and in the case of Mrs Phouthong preferably to work that could be undertaken within the confines or precincts of the house (Plate 65) Thus

Plate 65 Having a young family stymies attempts at widening livelihood footprints beyond the local area Ban Nong Hai Kham Tulakhom district (2002)

she embroidered cotton cloth for the neighbouring Hmong village of Ban Suksala even though she was not Hmong but Yao The returns to this kind of work were very low indeedmdash250000 kip (US$25) for each 6 metre-long strip of cloth which took her between four and five months to complete

For female-headed households like Mrs Thong Yen of Ban Ang Noi in Sang Thong district the challenges and difficulties of exploiting the opportunities offered by market

integration were even greater Mrs Thong Yenrsquos husband left her in 1987 and in 2001 she was continuing to support herself and two of her three children (the eldest a daughter was married and living in Thailand) Mrs Thong Yenrsquos household responsibilities made it difficult for her to take up wage labouring work nor could she easily move from the village Permanently in food deficit and trapped in poverty the household survived through an assortment of coping mechanisms and villagefamily support structures including hunting the catching and sale of crabs and fish donations of rice from neighbours and support from the headman16 This situation was not unusual In Ban Houay Luang in Pak Ou we held separate interviews with three female household heads forced to juggle productive and reproductive roles each of whom had to resort at times of real need to community support mechanisms (Table 64)

To be old and without a family support network also presents special and often intractable problems In the three Sang Thong study villages the elderly were supported albeit at a very low level by community contributions some semi-formal in operation to the extent that they were channelled

Table 64 Female-headed households in Ban Houay Luang Pak Ou district (2001)

Name Age Number of children (and age)

Livelihood strategies

Rice sufficiency

Recourse to community support

Mrs Khamdii

39 4 children aged 9ndash21 years

Cultivation of upland rice wage labouring

Mrs Moun

Cultivation of upland rice wage labouring collection of NTFPs

Mrs Lot 36 3 children aged 14ndash19 years

Source Village survey (2001)

through the headman Mrs Lea of Ban Kop Pherng (Sang Thong district) was 75 years old and lived on her own in a small house made of bamboo and thatch with no electricity She had no children no land and her husband had died some years previously Her eyesight was no longer very good she was physically weak and the only work she could undertake was to make thatch roofing panels Mrs Lea was poor even by village standards and survived only through the support and assistance of other villagers The worry was whether such community safety nets formal informal and semi-formal might be eroded by progressive market integration as the village became less of a lsquocommunityrsquo

Culture power and inequality

It may seem that one of the lessons that may be drawn from the discussion in this chapter is that certain groups and individuals are commercially disinclined and that their propensity for development is somehow constrained for deep-seated cultural reasons This is not however the central or even an important point The key lesson is that all groups have the potential for commercial progress and development but the nature of market engagement makes it highly likely that the experience will be unequal The lowland biases in development and development thinking the unevenness of market (and other) knowledge the unequal distribution of business capacities and capabilities and the latent conflicts and tensions between established (traditional) systems and new ways of doing things all create a structure where marketisation will likely be accompanied by a worrying degree of social differentiation

Of course a degree of social and economic differentiation is both to be expected and in a sense welcomed But when this differentiation is environmentally destructive when it contributes to the active impoverishment of some groups and individuals and when the benefits accrue more to outsiders (whether Lao or non-Lao) than to local people then the manner in which market integration is pursued needs to be re-examined There is also the danger that environmental and social challenges will metamorphose into political tensions and conflicts

This chapter has concerned itself almost entirely with issues of livelihood Market integration insofar as it accelerates modernisation can also though lead to important cultural changes some of which may be negative Many elderly people in Ban Lathahair in Pak Ou district for instance lamented the effect of television and videos (including pornographic films) on the behaviour of the young They talked of a lack of respect laziness fighting gambling and truancy Young people no longer wished to wear their traditional Lao Lua dress we were told and had forgotten how to sing traditional songs There were worries that in time the cultural traditions of the Lao Lua would be extinguished altogether When individuals had left home for workmdashas a result of the villagersquos integration into the mainstreammdashthese changes became still more pronounced Young women returning home after a period working in one of Vientianersquos garment factories sometimes found reintegration into village life difficult

In a world of poor roads and limited transport opportunities economic and social life is structured to take account of the limitations and constraints that exist Mobility also takes on a form that is a reflection of prevailing conditions When areas are progressively transformed from being transport-deficient to becoming transport-sufficient the implications for the organisation of life and livelihoods are highly significant In most rich countries there is lsquoboth a culture and a landscape in which mobility is both expected and necessary to participate in societyrsquo (Kenyon et al 2002211) In transport-rich societies those who lack mobility are truly excluded in a way that would not be the case in a transport-poor society Laos for sure has not reached such levels of mobility or of transport provision but the process leading towards such an outcome has begun Many of the exclusionary tendencies noted earlier in this chapter have come about due to the changes that improving roads and widening transport opportunities have set in train The Lao world in short is becoming one where mobility is becoming a necessary prerequisite for social and economic inclusion

7 Making livelihoods work

Things arenrsquot that bad

Chapters 5 and 6 have concentrated on the lsquoundersidersquo of development in Laos They have outlined the ways in which government policies and programmes and the operation of the market have combined to propel some groups and individuals downwards so that their livelihoods have become increasingly tenuous The reality though is that the large majority of people have gained from Laosrsquo development trajectory since the reforms of the mid-1980s whether that is interpreted in material terms (income consumer goods) or in terms of human development (health education and so on) Moreover this even applies to those people who one might have thought would be most at risk from the pressures discussed earlier To understand this surprising resilience it is necessary to illuminate in some detail how individuals and individual households construct their livelihoods Furthermoremdashand in this sense the word lsquoresiliencersquo is unhelpfulmdashit is necessary to appreciate how livelihoods are reworked and reinvigorated in the light of changing economic social and environmental circumstances It is not in the main the case that livelihoods have been protected or insulated from the changing wider context or that they have resisted change but rather that people have been sufficiently agile and innovative to rework their livelihoods in the light of changing conditions This often involves closing off some usually traditional activities and opening up other new ones

There are therefore two facets to this development narrative First the Lao economy itself is changing Market reforms higher levels of physical access the slow development of the non-farm sector and intensifying links with neighbouring countries are all contributing to as well as being manifestations of the development dynamic at the national level The policies enshrined in the New Economic Mechanism (see Chapter 2) provide the inspiration for these changes Second households and individuals are characteristically light on their feet changing the ways in which they make a living as circumstances change There is clearly a link between the latter and the former It is changes at the national level which permit force induce and encourage local level livelihood adaptation However it is important to realise that the one is not just a local reflection of the other Taking a locally grounded view of social and economic change reveals new issues and new takes on established wisdoms Local responses are therefore contingent To quote Ravallion again it is partly for this reason that greater recognition needs to be paid to lsquothe importance of micro country-specifichellipfactors [in] determining why some people are able to take up the opportunities afforded by an expanding economymdashand so add to its expansionmdashwhile others are notrsquo (Ravallion 20011813) Averages can hide more than they reveal and to get beneath the averages it is necessary to treat households and individuals as if they do have important individual stories to tellmdashfor themselves and for the light they shed on wider trajectories of change

How do peoplemdashindividualsmdashaccess the prosperity-raising potential that national economic expansion can deliver and indeed that wider regional (Southeast Asian) dynamism can bestow National growth does not translate in an equal and equivalent

fashion into household economic growth To be sure the usual suspectsmdashlack of land lack of education lack of capital and so onmdashdo play a role but this can serve to disguise other factors which are not so lsquoobviousrsquo Moreover it becomes clear when households are examined as households rather than just as components that make up larger populations that while absence of land may be important in some instances it is not in others This begs the question often ignored in statistical analyses of why some people with little land and opportunity manage to buck the trend It is also true that constraining factors extend beyond the usual suspects to what I term here the lsquounusual suspectsrsquo

In an attempt to ground the larger national picture in the muddied and muddled realities of everyday existence the approach taken in this chapter as it has been in the earlier discussion is broadly ethnographic Wider issues and observations are illustrated through the use of case studies This is not to suggest that these case studies are somehow representative of the whole but to show how the particular engages (or does not) with the general Before looking at the struggles defeats and victories of individual households however it is valuable to consider and reflect upon patterns of agrarian change elsewhere in the region Not because Laosrsquo experience is a dull reflection of other countriesrsquo engagement with these issues but because there are shared processes in operation even if these are worked out within unique historical and geographical contexts

Occupational multiplicity and pluriactivity

Over the last half century many rural areas of Southeast Asia and their inhabitants have experienced a profound reorientation of livelihoods in other words a reorientation of the ways in which they make a living The structural changes that are all too evident at the national level as agriculture delivers a smaller and smaller share of GDP may also be seen to occur albeit in less dramatic terms at the village and household levels In the 1960s scholars and researchers could be fairly confident if they were working in rural areas of Thailand Malaysia the Philippines and Indonesia that land was the central resource and that agriculture was the primary activity Since then however a continuing process of deagrarianisation has occurred For Bryceson (1996 1997a) deagrarianisation encapsulates four elements occupational readjustment income-earning reorientation social re-identification and spatial relocation I have also added a fifth element to the Southeast Asian equation namely spatial interpenetration (Rigg 2001) Deagrarianisation is closely allied to another process depeasantisation Peasants are on the road to becoming post-peasants

Taken together rural livelihoods have diverged to the extent that farming for many families has become one activity among many Moreover the contribution of farming to livelihoods in income terms is now often a minority one This is partly due to the emergence of rural-based alternative opportunities and occupations From the rural industrialisation based on metal craft manufacturing described by Hayami et al (1998) in the Philippines to the piecework exemplified in Rigg and Sakunee Nattapoolwatrsquos (2001) study of artificial fruit and flower production in northern Thailand to Wolfrsquos (1990 1992) carefully crafted account of large-scale garment and textile factories in rural West Java to the craft-based activities described by Parnwell (1990 1992 1993 1994) in the Northeastern region of Thailand to the vibrant township and village enterprises (TVEs)

Making livelihoods work 119

that pepper rural China and contribute so significantly to that countryrsquos economic success1 there is a great deal more going on in rural spaces than farming However it is not only a case of a diversification of rural-based opportunities leading to a parallel diversification in rural livelihoods In many instances even more important has been a progressive delocalisation of work Household livelihoods are now often based on activities that are spatially far removed from the village This in turn is founded on greatly heightened levels of mobility In her study of female factory workers in Bangkok Mills (1997 1999) describes young women who remain in functional social and cultural terms part of the village and the countryside yet live in the city and earn their living (and contribute to the natal household budget) in and from the urban industrial sector

Young women view these urban experiences as a source of deep personal transformation lsquoWe are not like our mothersrsquo Living on their own and earning their own money female migrants to Bangkok face choices and make decisions about themselves and their futures in ways that no previous generation of women in Baan Naa Sakae or other rural communities have sharedhellip Some women in the city worked hard to acquire the educational or material resources that might allow them to forge a future as more than just peasant farmers Buthellipmost migrants would have to return to the same small commodity and subsistence crop production that their parents practiced And most likely in a few years these former migrants would themselves become the mothers of the next generation of city-bound laborers

(Mills 1999165 and 166)

These studies (see Table A51) show that an increasing proportion of house-holds in rural areas do not regard farming as their primary occupation and that the proportion of household income derived from farming is often less than 50 per cent There are of course many villages in the region where livelihoods remain sharply focused on the field and farm but the trend is towards greater pluriactivity occupational multiplicity deagrarianisation diversification and the delocalisation of livelihoods For it to be otherwise given the nature of structural change in the economies of the region at the national level would be surprising In such a context the place role and significance of agriculture and farming is changing and this change it is suggested is highly significant when it comes to understanding livelihoods and the production and reproduction of poverty

These adaptations inevitably have altered the place of farming in liveli-hoods and the nature and trajectory of household and village-level change This is exemplified in Blaikie et alrsquos study of Nepal (Blaikie et al 1980 2002)2 In the mid-1970s they believed that road-induced and market-led integration would lsquonot deliver the benefits of increased agricultural production increased commercialisation and trade as forecast in the economic appraisal documentsrsquo Rather the outcome would be a deepening dependency and growing underdevelopment (Blaikie et al 20021256) The nonagricultural sources of employment and income that did exist were at that time mainly in foreign armies the civil service small businesses and various jobs in India from working as security guards to labouring The authors appreciated the crucial role

that such activities were playing in stemming a crisis in the hills but anticipated none the less that prospects for those dependent on such incomes were likely to worsen and considered that lsquosuch outside ldquosupportrdquo certainly has not the capacity to postpone the general crisis in the hills much longer since it is largely non-productiversquo (Blaikie et al 1980284)

Times of course change and do so in unexpected ways In a follow-up study Blaikie et al (2002) note that their pessimistic outlook on Nepalrsquos future did not materialise and admit that the essence of some of their original conclusions was wrong However they were correct in predicting that agriculture would not be invigorated and that dependency would deepen Rather it was the livelihood outcomes of these developments that they misconstrued Agriculture may not have developed but non-farm opportunities did These in a sense have served to deepen dependency but have done so in a broadly positive manner delivering higher incomes and improved livelihoods (20021268 see also Blaikie et al 2001) They conclude lsquoThe original model underestimated the capacity of the global labour market to provide work and remittances to sustain rural life and to stave off a more generalized crisisrsquo (20021268ndash1269)

This research from Nepal highlights the value of conceptualising reforms operating at two levels At the national level it may be possible to depict reforms leading to greater dependency and the stagnation of agriculture but a view from the household shows that it is not possible to impute from this that livelihoods will also stagnate Households are not consigned to a fate dictated by events beyond their control Certainly there are more than a few victims but there are many other individuals and families who take control of their lives and make and remake their futures in response to changing circumstances

Breaking with the past3

The country examples noted above in passing may be viewed with some justification as not relevant or appropriate to conditions in Laos where diversification is limited and where the opportunities for building such multi-stranded livelihoods are somewhat constrained None the less there are issues beginning to arise in the Lao countryside that question some widely held assumptions about the assessment of well-being in the country and the roots of poverty

In a country where two-thirds of rural inhabitants are portrayed as dependent for their well-being on subsistence agriculture (Lao PDR 20035) it is no wonder that the securing of subsistence is seen as the sensible way to identify the poor and vulnerable Rice sufficiency in particular becomes a marker of poverty Yet what if well-being is becoming gradually but progressively delinked from such subsistence concerns In Thailand sub-livelihood holdings have become the norm in many areas and significant numbers of households live in a state of food insecurity when measured against ownaccount farming alone Taking a subsistence-informed measure of wellbeing in Thailandmdashin other words asking households to determine how many months they are own-account food securemdashwould provide a very poor indicator of prosperity (It is also the case that the great majority of rural households in Thailand are very much better off than those in Laos4) This change moreover has occurred in a generation or less

The degree to which at least some villages in Laos are at the cusp of profound change in terms of the nature and construction of economy and livelihoods was evident in the three study sites in Sang Thong district Land here has become a scarce resource and newcomers generally found it hard to access land Mechanisation of some aspects of production was beginning to erode local farm labouring opportunities for the poor The barriers that preventedmdashor limitedmdashthe ability of the young (particularly) from working in Thailand just across the Mekong were being eroded and the than samai (samai mai) ideology of modernity was making itself increasingly felt In the light of this squeezing of traditional land-based occupations and the opening up of opportunities in new sectoral fields and geographical areas often ex situ there was a modest diversification of livelihoods and a growth in pluriactivity5 Growing numbers of men were working in Vientiane on construction sites and women in garment factories (where dormitory accommodation was often provided) while other villagers were travelling to Thailand whether on a daily basis to work as wage labourers in agriculture or for longer periods and further afield Furthermore and as the account in Box 71 illustrates this sense that profound change is underway or just around the corner is not restricted to Sang Thong district

Mrs Chandaeng of Ban Sawai in Sang Thong district was born and raised in Xieng Khouang province Here she met and married her husband They left the war-shattered province to settle in her husbandrsquos natal village and lived there until he died in 1988 when Mrs Chandaeng was 37 years old and her youngest daughter just two A dispute with her husbandrsquos brother forced Mrs Chandaeng to move once again and she settled in Ban Sawai with her young family in 1991 Unable to secure any land beyond her house plot she struggled to raise her six children Her ability to survivemdashand indeed finally to prospermdashas a landless widowed mother of six was linked ultimately to the fact that four of her children managed to secure work in neighbouring Thailand Together at the time we interviewed Mrs Chandaeng at the end of 2001 they were remitting around 1000 to 2000 baht a month (250000 to 500000 kip US$25 to US$50) At that time her son was working as a labourer on a shrimp farm while her three daughters Wan (19 years old) Lot (17) and Daeng (15) were employed as housekeepers in Bangkok With these funds Mrs Chandaeng was financing the construction of a new and impressive house She may have explained her childrenrsquos sojourns in Thailand in terms of lsquowhen you are poor you have to gorsquo but the outcome was a degree of economic prosperity at least in village terms Market integration in villages such as those in Sang Thong district may very well squeeze traditional farm-based livelihoodsmdashand therefore give the impression that well-being is declining across a broad front But market integration also changes the bases on which livelihoods are built and therefore requires a parallel change in the way in which we measure and assess livelihoods There is often a nagging sense that our understanding of the Lao countryside and its inhabitants lags uncomfortably behind reality and we are engaged in a process of mental and explanatory catch-up It is striking how far rural research in Laosmdashindeed in Southeast Asia as a wholemdashmerely describes and sometimes explains rather than anticipates what is already a well-established reality in the countryside

Be that as it may it is also the case that many villages in poorer provinces of the country have not experienced this modest proliferation of alternative activities and occupations Here a convincing explanation must go beyond just questioning the basis on

which measurements of prosperity and levels of well-being are made In particular it is necessary to consider the ways in which economic growth is unevenly translated into prosperity at the

Box 71 Bridging the Mekong cross-border livelihoods8

In late 2000 the ILO undertook a survey of illegal migrant workers to Thailand from thirteen villages in seven districts in the three Lao border provinces of Khammouan Savannakhet and Champassak (Inthasone Phetsiriseng 2001) The survey covered 1614 families This is so far the fullest picture we have of levels of mobility and some of the underlying conditions and forces which are driving the process That said with just seven districts included in the study all situated in border provinces it is not justified to assume that the levels of mobility revealed reflect conditions in the country as a whole What we can say however is that there has been a significant increase in cross-border movements and that in some areas these are becoming lsquonormalrsquo for many households and villages rather than the exception (Figure B71)

Figure B71 Mobility in thirteen villages seven districts and three provinces illegal labour migration to Thailand (2000)

Source Inthasone Phetsiriseng 2001

Note The total population of the villages in this survey was 15594 and the total number of migrants 992

On the basis of this survey and other anecdotal evidence it would seem that the level of human movement between Laos and Thailand has escalated dramatically in the years since the mid- to late 1990s In the first seven months of 2000 more than 10000 illegal labourers were repatriated from Thailand to Laos Most were young (14 to 24 years old) and 60 per cent were female Many of these were repeat offenders in some cases having been apprehended and sent home five times or more In 2000 the authorities in Bangkok estimated that there were some 50000 illegal labourers from Laos working in Bangkok and another 45000 in other regions of the country mainly in the northeastern region close to the Lao-Thai border

Lao data and the field surveys undertaken by the ILO indicate that the scale of the human movement is if anything even greater than that estimated by the authorities in Thailand Provincial data show that between 1999 and 2000 the number of illegal migrant workers in Thailand from the three study provinces alone (Savannakhet Khammouan and Champassak) rose from 32789 to 45215 of whom 47 per cent were female For Champassak illegal migration to Thailand quadrupled over the four years to 2000 from less than 2000 in 1996 to over 8000 in 2000 In addition to showing a roughly equal balance between male and female migrants (provincial data show a male female split of 5347 while the ILOrsquos survey records a 4357 split) most are young and the great majority would seem to be ethnic Lao rather than members of one of the minorities

The jobs profile confirms that Lao illegal migrants are channelled into low wage and sometimes dangerous jobs in garment factories on construction sites into domestic work (usually in Bangkok) to pig poultry and shrimp farms to the south and east where they crew on fishing trawlers and to towns and cities across the country where Lao migrants work in restaurants in lsquoentertainmentrsquo and by extension in the commercial sex industry Moreover while Bangkok and the border provinces may receive many migrants the discrete networks that channel people to their places of work mean that the tendrils are more geographically extensive than is usually imagined Lao migrants have been recorded working on the island of Phuket and the province of Songkhla in the south in Chantaburi and Chonburi in the East and in the Central Plains provinces of Chachoengsao Samut Sakhon and Samut Songkhram There cannot be a single Thai province where the Lao are not to be found working

Business networks play an important part in channelling migrants to their places of work in Thailand In some cases villages are provided with mobile phones and the telephone numbers of the traffickers

across the border Those who wish to work give the traffickers a call they are met on the Thai side of the border and then transported sometimes by air-conditioned minibus directly to their place of work The more informal system which existed through to the mid- to late 1990s has been replaced by a systematic and highly organised business It is further reported that the traffickers cream off 50 per cent of the salaries of the migrants

and when they do return to Laos sometimes find that any money they have accumulated is then extracted at the border by the Thai police

However it is also clear that working in Thailand remains attractive for a range of economic and non-economic reasons and it should not be assumed that migrants are routinely fleeced and return with nothingmdashfar from it Total costs paid to traffickers vary but 4000 baht (US$100) (3500 baht to source the job and transport the migrant to the work site and 500 baht to cross the border) is the rough order of magnitude Those working on construction sites are paid 200 baht a day (US$5 to US$625) on prawn farms 5000 baht a month (US$125) Costs of securing a job therefore represent around twenty daysrsquo work Even with the costs of securing work and crossing the border even with the risks of working illegally in Thailand and even with the increased costs of living away from home there would seem to be no reason to doubt that work in Thailand remains attractive in economic terms (Table B71) Local agricultural work tends to pay around US$1 to US$150 per day construction and factory work in Vientiane about double this or US$3 a day unskilled work in Bangkok or on prawn farms in Thailand US$5 a day and construction work in Bangkok sometimes more than US$6 a day

Since the late 1990s in some of the ILO study villages labour migration to Thailand has become so pronounced that it has begun to influence the availability of labour for farming In Nongdon village in Nong Bok district (Khammouan province) there were in 2000 some 107 individuals working in Thailand out of a total population of 975 The ILO identified a clear lsquogaprsquo in the agricultural labour force of those aged 15 to 18 years old A combination of a lack of opportunities at home the growing unattractiveness to the young of farm work and the ready availability of employment in Thailand has created a context where young people travel across the border in increasing numbers There is also a demonstration effect at work Young people returning home lsquolooking better dressing nicely becoming popular among their friendsrsquo induces others to seek work in Thailand (Inthasone Phetsiriseng 200134) Many particularly young women leave without the consent of their parents often borrowing money from others and leaving with

Table B71 Relative daily wage rates in Laos and Thailand (2000ndash2002)

Type of work and location Wage rate (US$1Local work (Laos)

Farm labouring in Sang Thong (2001) US$1

Farm labouring in Tulakhom (2002) US$150

Work on a foreign-funded irrigation scheme Tulakhom (2002) US$250

Local village-based construction work in Tulakhom (2002) US$150

Work as a gardener at a local hotel (2002) US$080

Farm labouring in Pak Ou district (2001) US$070

Work in Vientiane

Construction work (2001) US$3

Garment factory work (2001) US$3

Work in Thailand

Prawn farm work (2000) US$5

Unskilled work in Bangkok (2000) US$5

Construction work in Bangkok (2000) US$5ndash625

Farm work in border areas of Thailand (daily commuting to Sangkhom) (2001)

Sources Inthasone Phetsiriseng (2001) and field surveys

their friends In Nongdon village lsquothe community suggested that combating the issue [of illegal labour migration to Thailand] was nearly impossible due to the magnitude of the problemrsquo (Inthasone Phetsiriseng 200134) It had become a lsquofashionrsquo among the young to work in Thailand a rite of passage which had attained almost normative status Unlike the villages of Nong Bok district those of Sebangfai were comparatively inaccessible Even here though there is a significant flow of illegal migrant workers to Thailand accounting for 4 per cent of the total population The villages in this district moreover have been targeted for considerable rural development investment from schools to irrigation projects The irony is that rather than keeping people at home in the village this may well have further propelled the flow of young people across the border lsquoOne of the push factors is that the villagers now have access to electricity which brings consumerism through the influence of Thai televisionrsquo (Inthasone Phetsiriseng 200136) When their friends and neighbours return home with taperecorders CD players televisions and motor cycles it further accen tuates the cultural climate where young people feel almost impelled to find work in Thailand The incentive to work in Thailand then is not necessarily created by poverty and economic necessity but by a cultural imperative High (20048) writes of poverty being inscribed on the body of rural Lao women in the form of skin darkened by long days in the field and the sun long and purposeful strides and roughened hands Work in factories permits women to escape from the weather and the physical demands of agricultural work and to buy the skin-whitening creams cosmetics and clothes that might turn a peasant into an urban sophisticate

The effects of labour migration can be pronounced The ILO found in Ban Nonehin in Champassakrsquos Phonethong district that 18 per cent of the population were working illegally in Thailand in 2000 In some cases whole families were travelling to Sadao district in the southern Thai province of Songkhla to work on the rubber plantations there Remittances were then being used to employ labour to plant the rice fields while they were absent thereby permitting the agricultural economy to lsquotick overrsquo This well-established migration streammdashwhich is notably not dependent on any intermediariesmdashpermits families to earn 35000 baht per season and the villagersquos primary school was entirely funded and built by the villagers no doubt at least partly on the back of th e income generated by their sojourns in Thailand The primary school enrolment rate of

100 per cent can likewise be linked to illegal labour migration Some districts have introduced fines to combat illegal labour migration9 In other

places returnees have been sent to correctional centres However the effectiveness of such initiatives is in doubt and lsquostill more and more people keep leaving their villages to seek for jobs in Thailandrsquo (Inthasone Phetsiriseng 200142)

village level The potentially poverty-creating effects of market integration were addressed in Chapter 6 what was not discussed or at least not at the same level of detail were the prosperity-creating effects of market integration

When the market does come to the villagemdashand this applies as much to the lowlands as to the uplandsmdashit brings differential opportunities Take the example of Mr Bouaphetrsquos 18-year-old daughter Gii from Ban Lathahair in Luang Prabang who works in the Phonepapow garment factory in Vientiane (Plate 71) Gii heard on the radio that the garment factory required workers and coincidentally a monk living in Vientiane with relatives in Ban Latha-hair also sent word that work was available Her motivation for leaving home was a combination of a desire to escape the hard work of upland farming and the recognition that agricultural work in such a marginal area

Plate 71 New off-farm opportunities for young women in villages like Ban Phon Hai have become important contributors to household livelihoodsd (2002)

would not in the long run deliver a sustainable livelihood Like many other women in the village she also had a skill to sell her aptitude for weaving On her recruitment in

2000 Gii was provided with a bed in a dormitory and a salary of 200000 kip per month (US$20) In the first year she was able to remit to her parents 300000 kip (US$30) a not insubstantial sum Mr Bouaphet however worried that his daughter might be lured into prostitution or drug-taking Such tales are part-and-parcel of the popular landscape of rural Laos the subject of discussion gossip concern and speculation

In 2000 Gii returned to the village from Vientiane and it was evident that the girl who left had become a new woman Her behaviour had changed She feared the poverty of her former life and wished to work hard to escape from it It was also apparent that Gii had money to spend and that her diet and fashion sense had changed Gii preferred to eat city food and to wear nice dresses She didnrsquot stay long in the village and made it clear that she did not wish to marry someone from the village This Gii feared would only lead her back as she saw it into (village) penury Mr Bouaphet did not want his daughter to work in the city but he admitted that he could not control her He also recognised that while the amount of money remitted by his daughter during normal times was not essential to family survival in years of dearth it might be Gii had become a prickly mix of dutiful daughter and family renegade

In a number of ways Mr Bouaphetrsquos household illustrates the social cultural and economic tensions that come from progressive market integration and the way in which routes out of poverty have become more differentiated in type and more abstracted from the village as a unit where society economy and space intersect First ex situ opportunities have multiplied and are becoming increasingly accessible to growing numbers of people Second the social as well as the physical constraints to involvement in such work are weakening particularly for young women However and third in seeking out such work the natal household comes under various pressures including potential labour shortages at peak periods and the fraying or reworking of cultural norms Finally the new opportunities that market integration offers are often either tantalisingly out of reach for some households or require a leap of faith and confidence that is beyond an individualrsquos imagination and initiative

It sometimes seems that new livelihoods are embraced not out of choice but out of necessity This is revealed in Shoemaker et alrsquos (2001) study of communities along the Xe Bang River in Khammouan province in central Laos Here declining swidden rotations reduced on-farm production forcing households to rely on the forest As the forest became over-exploited so attention turned to the river as a source of food and marketable commodities and as the riverrsquos bounty declined so households looked beyond the local area to non-farm activities At the time of the survey in 2001 for some of the twenty-four villages studied at least wage labouring in Thailand had become the major source of village income But in addition to such cases of diversification impelled by events and circumstancesmdashsometimes termed lsquodistress diversificationrsquomdashare instances where diversification reflects the choices of individuals There is increasing reason to believe that the young in particular are leaving home to take up alternative work not only because circumstances demand it but as a lifestylelivelihood choice (see Box 71) In other words we have very different motivations underpinning similar livelihood processes In fact it is even messier than this Sometimes the lsquostrategiesrsquo of households will embody elements of distress diversification as for example daughters are encouraged to take up non-farm work for the sake of the family At the same time however the daughters themselves are tempted by the dual attraction of escaping farm

work on the one hand as well as becoming part of the lsquomodernrsquo economy and the lifestyle associated with it

Predictability and contingency in identifying households at risk

The usual and unusual suspects lifersquos a funny thing

For the fifty-five case study households drawn from the Pak Ou Sang Thong and Tulakhom survey villages there is a clear relationship between wealth categories and landownership and in particular between those identified as lsquomiddlersquo households and the rest (the lsquopoorrsquo and those that simply lsquoget byrsquo) (Table 71 and Figure 71) For the former the average landholding amounted to 36 rai (58 ha) while for the latter to less than 6 rai (09 ha) Data such as these reinforce and lend credence to a land- and agriculture-based interpretation of wealth and destitution What they gloss over however is the degree of unpredictability that is connected with the identification of the poor This unpredictability revolves around four broad questions

1 Which households are rich when we might expect them to be poor and which are poor when we might expect them to be rich

2 What alternative factorsmdashbeyond landmdashare hidden behind the orthodox agriculture and farming-informed interpretations of wealth and poverty in Laos

3 What is the dynamic of change that underpins this land-based interpretation

4 Are the study villages at the cusp of change or do the figures in Table 71 reflect a long-term persistent and resilient livelihood pattern

Poverty studies have recently begun to pay greater attention to the lsquodynamics of povertyrsquo at the interface between the poor and the non-poor (see Baulch and Hoddinott 2000 Hulme 2003 Hulme and Shepherd 2003) As Dercon and Krishnan remark lsquoan important shortcoming of most of the standard poverty studies is the lack of an inter-temporal dimensionrsquo (200026) It has become clear that there is often a great deal of movement across the poverty line In some cases this is temporary as individuals or households oscillate between the categories lsquopoorrsquo and lsquonon-poorrsquo perhaps on a seasonal basis In other instances it is more persistent and profound (chronic poverty) reflecting either an entrenchment in poverty or a process of economic mobility that drives those affected into poverty on a longer term basis (see Hulme and Shepherd 2003) But even at this level of precisionmdashwhere the dynamics of poverty are distinguished from economic mobilitymdashdetail may be insufficient to account for and explain patterns of poverty and vulnerability at the intra-village and household levels Panel (cohort) studies of poverty tend to show that even when the incidence of poverty remains largely unchanged or is falling only slowly over time the individual households who make up a poor populationmdash over timemdashmay vary greatly One such panel study from a semi-arid area

Table 71 Resources by class study villages (20012002)

Lowland (rai)1 2

Irrigated land (rai)

Upland (rai)1

Sharecropped land (rai)

Livestock (head)4

Household size

Poor 19 0 24 02 01 5 29

Get by 08 03 65 02 08 63 12

Middle 116 04 240 0 88 72 14

Total 41 015 88 015 25 58 55 1 All land units in rai 625 rai=1 ha 2 Lowland used largely for wet rice cultivation 3 Upland often for swidden (shifting) cultivation 4 Livestock is number of head of large livestock (cattle and buffalo) The wealth categories used here reflect the general level of development in the Lao PDR No households could be regarded as lsquorichrsquo and even the lsquomiddlersquo households would probably be viewed as poor across the Mekong in Thailand The households are drawn from nine rural villages across three districts in Vientiane province Vientiane municipality and Luang Prabang province surveyed in 2001 and 2002

Figure 71 Landowners and wealth categories (2001ndash2002)

Sources Field surveys Sang Thong and Pak Ou districts (2001) and Tulakhom district (2002)

Note The data are drawn from 55 case studies in the three research areas in Luang Prabang Vientiane municipality and Vientiane provinces The surveys were undertaken between 2001 and 2002

of rural south India conducted over a nine-year period (1975 to 1984) in six villages (four in Maharashtra and two in Andhra Pradesh) showed that while only one-fifth of households were poor throughout the period nearly nine-tenths (88 per cent) had been poor for at least one year during the nine-year stretch (Gaiha and Deolalikar 1993418 see also Figure A51) Dercon and Krishnanrsquos panel study in Ethiopia (1989 to 1999) similarly shows that the population at risk of being poor was 50 per cent to 75 per cent greater than the number of poor at any one point in time (20002)

A feature of the survey villages was the degree to which households that shared many similarities in terms of physical and human resources had very different livelihood profiles and perhaps more significantly what appeared to be very different livelihood prospects There was a disjuncture or explanatory gap in other words between household resources and well-being

Godrsquos poor

In November 2001 Mr Khamrsquos house burned down and all his possessions were destroyed Without savings or resources beyond a small plot of land (4 rai (064 ha)) and three head of cattle it proved extremely difficult for Mr Kham to recover from this personal disaster The headman of Ban Ang Noi and the district authorities came to the familyrsquos assistance donating materials to build a new house but none the less there was a sense that an atypical shock had pushed this marginal family into poverty and food insecurity on a more permanent basis With four children three still in primary school Mr Kham and his wife struggled to meet their immediate needs Their land produced only enough rice to last six months and they needed to borrow food to meet the shortfall repaying this as and when they could through wage labouring From being one of Ban Ang Noirsquos transient poormdashthose oscillating between the poor and non-poor categoriesmdashprior to the fire following the conflagration they could be counted among the villagersquos chronic poor (see Jalan and Ravallion 2000)

Mr Huat moved to Ban Phon Hai from the village of Ban Bor in 1995 in a search for land He purchased his house plot at that time for 70000 kip and later managed to buy a fish-pond but the family were not able to realise their dream of buying agricultural land In 1999 matters took a turn for the worse when the Huatsrsquo son fell seriously ill The hospital costs during an illness that lasted for three months effectively bankrupted the family Mr Huat used all the money he had carefully saved and when that had gone sold his fishpondmdashhis one agricultural assetmdashfor 1000000 kip At the time of the interview in 2002 they were living quite literally from hand-to-mouth and Mr Huat was often unable even to pay his tax bill of just 60000 kipyear (US$6) Mr Huat who was 60 worked as an agricultural labourer earning 15000 kipday (US$150) while his daughter was employed as a gardener at the Dansavanh Resort receiving a salary of 200000 kipmonth (US$20) The family saw little scope for extricating themselves from this difficult situation brought about because of their sonrsquos illness Indeed as Mr Huat gets older the likelihood is that he will find it ever more difficult to secure work and earn a living

The Huatsrsquo dire situation and the tragic combination where doing the right thing for the individual pushes the collective into poverty resonates with Liljestroumlm et alrsquos discussion of a poor household in Tuyen Quang province in north Vietnam Mrs Mui and

Mr Vinh also lived from hand-to-mouth with lsquono storage no reservesrsquo Their daughter was disabled

The couple have sacrificed everything to save their daughter sold what they had put themselves in debt Literally the child is like a millstone around the parentsrsquo neck Should they abandon her and let her die rather than all three being doomed

(Liljestroumlm et al 1998123ndash4)

The third and final example from the field surveys in Laos is Mr Bounmii of Ban Nong Hai Kham a 40-year-old family man with nine children aged from 15 years down to a 3-year-old The familyrsquos house was substantial and well built and Mr Bounmii harboured high hopes for his children anxious that they should continue their education beyond primary school To outward appearances Mr Bounmii was not one of the villagersquos poor However the unexpected death of his wife in 2001 after taking traditional herbal medicine as a form of birth control threw the household into a livelihood crisis Mr Bounmii tried to work the single hectare of land he owned near the site of lsquooldrsquo Ban Nong Hai Kham but this had become difficult since the death of his wife6 Because he was unable to allocate sufficient labour to work his land in the old village the production from his subsistence rice crop only lasted until May To buy rice to feed his family for the five to six months before the next harvest he made knives in a small smithy which also permitted him to stay at home to look after his large young family In a day he was able to make one knife which he could sell for around 15000 to 20000 kip (US$150 to US$200) Before Mr Bounmiirsquos wife died this household was in rice surplus He explained that she was an extremely diligent worker and having two adult workers allowed the couple to juggle the demands of production and reproduction In his current predicament Mr Bounmii was not sure how he would be able to afford to educate his children beyond primary level The answer to his predicament as he saw it was to remarry

The examples of the households of Mr Huat Mr Kham and Mr Bounmii illustrate three things First they show the way in which bad luck can push households who might be lsquogetting byrsquo into chronic poverty In many cases it seemed to be illness that propelled a household into destitution7 Second these cases demonstrate the tiny margin of error or lsquocomfort zonersquo that households close to the poverty line have to play with It is no surprise therefore that panel (or cohort) studies in poor reforming countries such as Laos show a very high level of interchange at the margin between poor and non-poor as noted above The poor may constitute around one-third of the population but the reality is that those at risk of being poor is in all likelihood significantly more than one half of the population Third and more broadly the fieldwork revealed that exceptions to the rule are unexceptional Reviewing the fifty-five case studies and looking through the notes from the key informant interviews and group discussions one of the most striking features was how far it was normal for households to buck the trend and deviate from the expected state of affairs

Narayan et al term the chronic poor for whom there lsquois no obvious remedyrsquo lsquoGodrsquos Poorrsquo (199928) Here I see them as those who are pushed into chronic poverty due to lsquoacts of Godrsquomdashand in that respect may be conceptualised as Godrsquos Poor These acts of

God may be environmental or linked with unexpected illness or some other misfortune It is true that the market economy provides new avenues and opportunities for households to work their way out of poverty and into wealth but at the same time there is a risk that an investment will fail In addition modern services and amenities harbour a degree of risk connected with the cost of accessing them Two decades ago for example modern medical care would not have been available to Mr and Mrs Huat and the ultimately futile investment that the family made in trying to save their son would not have occurred While in no way suggesting that modern medical care is anything but a positive development for the inhabitants of rural Laos it is worth at least noting that the Huatsrsquo current poverty is a product of the availability of that care In stark terms and in this sense alone they would have been better off today with old poverty than with new possibilities

Serendipity

Not only were there examples of households pushed into poverty and vulnerability due to atypical shocks there were also households interviewed who on paper lsquoshouldrsquo have been poor but who not only managed to get by but in some cases actually improved their prospects

Mrs Van of Ban Phon Hai had six children the youngest of whom was 3 years old She arrived in Ban Phon Hai in 1988 from the northern province of Xam Neua via Luang Prabang and owned no land beyond her house plot Mrs Vanrsquos husband left her two years prior to our interview in 2002 and had not been seen since This placed Mrs Van in a very tight situation She took on wage labouring work when she could whether in agriculture (eg harvesting) or off-farm (eg brick-making) When she did work however her third child (aged 10) had to be taken out of school to look after the two youngest children The household was supported by Mrs Vanrsquos eldest daughter who was 16 years old and had become the familyrsquos main breadwinner She worked on the golf-course at the Dansavanh Resort earning 200000 kipmonth (US$20) It was this income small but constant which allowed Mrs Vanrsquos second daughter (aged 14) to stay in educationmdashshe was in secondary school at mor song (second-year) level at the time of the interview In managing to keep at least one of her children in school beyond primary level albeit through the sacrifice of her eldest daughter Mrs Van had created the medium-term possibility of lifting her family out of poverty Compared with the Bounmii family the impression here was of hope rather than resignation

A second example of a landless family who managed to rise above their structurally ordained categorisation as chronically poor was the household of 17-year-old Miss Keo of Ban Phon Hai Keo worked as a cook in the golf-club restaurant at the Dansavanh Resort earning 300000 kipmonth (US$30month) She was a fine example of a lsquodutiful daughterrsquo willing to sacrifice her own future for the good of her family Her family owned no land and her elderly father had to work as an agricultural labourer This though did not generate sufficient income to support the family As the eldest of three Keo had to work and the income from her job as a cook allowed one of her siblings to continue her education at secondary level Again the impression was one where the household collectively was managing to get by to keep their heads above water and

even to invest in the longer term through the education of one child beyond primary level

In Hulme and Shepherdrsquos (2003) paper on chronic poverty they notemdashunsurprisingly given the meaning of the term (those who experience lsquosignificant capability deprivations for a period of five years or morersquo (pp 404ndash5))mdashthe lack of economic mobility among the chronic poor They also though remark on the heterogeneity of the chronic poor and the complex lsquocombinations of factors that explain specific experiences of chronic poverty in specific contextsrsquo (Hulme and Shepherd 2003418) While Hulme and Shepherd use this perspective to comment on the diverse contexts and causes of chronic poverty the foregoing discussion on Laos raises a rather different possibility that it is hard to identify the lsquochronicrsquo poor except ex post facto How complex intersections of structure and agency against a backdrop of continual change and in the context of uncertainty (contingency) will affect individuals and individual householdsmdashat the margins at leastmdashis hard to second guess

In general terms it is not difficult to understand why there should be this degree of variation and contingency To retreat into clicheacutes the world is complex and human nature is hard to fathom

When surveying villagers one cannot avoid being struck by the diversity in determination energy interest and entrepreneurship that the different individuals put into their activities and decisions It is striking in particular to observe that some individuals who inherited a similar area of land at the time they started working on their own account have sometimes prospered and sometimes declined Such a mundane remark may be stating the obvious but the relevance of the human factor is given little acknowledgement in the literature which tends to see economic activities as predetermined by the resources on hand by the constraints of the environment and by (lopsided) social or market relationships

(Molle et al 200223)

Structure context and contingency conceptualising poverty and building lsquolivelihood footprintsrsquo

One way of bringing more structure to our understanding of livelihoods and by association of poverty is to categorise the component elements that comprise povertylivelihoods A threefold classification of factors is suggested here structural contextual and contingent This classification outlined in Figure 72 should not be taken to mean that we can lsquoread offrsquo poverty on the basis of a set of criteria and tick boxes The point is to highlight where the gaps are in many assessments of livelihoods and therefore of poverty

Figure 72 Conceptualising chronic poverty structure context and contingency

The lsquousual suspectsrsquo are the structural componentsmdashland assets education and so on These are predictable (on the whole) and usually measurable There are also various contextual components in any assessment of livelihoods and poverty These are often glossed over in national surveys of living standards because they are locally defined and determined They may relate for example to issues of local governance village leadership the historical roots of a community variations in environmental qualities and conditions or ethnic composition There is usually a widespread local appreciation that such factors are significant but when survey data are extracted and aggregated at higher levels of analysis they are often lost from view That said more recent attempts at participatory poverty assessments such as those commissioned in connection with the World Bankrsquos 20002001 World Development Report lsquoAttacking povertyrsquo (2001b) do often note the importance of local factors in the delineation of poverty The third set of components here termed contingent are usually ignored because they are unpredictable hard to measure locally rooted and are unlikely to reveal any explanatory pattern from which policy lessons may easily be drawn It is tempting to label these factors lsquobad luckrsquo lsquoserendipityrsquo lsquoacts of Godrsquo or similar

These three explanatory components also need to be set against the dynamic of development in the research sites and more widely in Laos As noted above the study villages were experiencing to varying degrees and unequally a number of transitions from subsistence to cash from command to market from farm to non-farm and from local to extra-local Second there is a convincing case that the transition to the market has accentuated inequalities in rural areas Third it has also been argued that poverty in Laos is lsquonewrsquo to the extent that it is not an endemic condition but has been created through the process of market integration Taking this a little further it is possible to speculate that we see in the study villages the beginnings of an important change in the ways in which poverty and prosperity are reproduced

Box 72 Mr Bounthasii A successful farmer

Mr Bounthasii of Ban Kop Pherng in Sang Thong district is an example of a successful villager farmer and entrepreneurmdashand his case demonstrates the virtuous cycle of success that prosperous agricultural households can achieve Mr Bounthasii was originally from Ubon Ratchathani in Thailand but moved to Vientiane as a monk to study There he met his wife and they married and settled in Ban Kop Pherng her home village She inherited their large rice holdings that he now works In 1998 when the Agricultural Promotion Bank opened in Sang Thong district town he borrowed 500000 kip (around US$50) for three years to buy cattle to start his herd (at 8 per cent interest per year) Because he has considerable labour demands of his own the household does not engage in any wage labouring his children work on his land and help him look after the cattle Indeed he could extract two crops a year from his land but he simply does not have the time to use the land to its full potential He is an innovative and entrepreneurial individual He has borrowed money to build up a substantial herd of cattle and earlier than others he planted improved varieties of rice on his land (obtained from relatives in Ubon Ratchathani Thailand) Moreover there is considerable scope to increase farm productivity still further He has no need or desire to engage in non-farm work and has managed to raise his income and improve his prospects through investment in farming

Access to land in terms of quantity and quality remained a key determinant of poverty and a central explanatory factor in the reproduction of poverty At the same time however the study communities also showed the degree to which the land resource is being squeezed while alternative non-farm opportunities multiply If this trend continues then over time the reproduction of poverty will become gradually delinked from land and systems of land inheritance This will take some time and will occur unequally over space None the less the ability of households to access opportunities outside agriculture and for families to bestow on their children the skills and connections to exploit these opportunities particularly if they are high-return activities will become increasingly important Marketisation while it may have created lsquonewrsquo poverty also provides the means by which (some) households can escape from their structurally defined poverty through the exploitation of emerging opportunities in the new economy

There are evident implications of these changes for the identification of the chronic poor as well as for the upwardly mobile A land-based determination of poverty will for some years remain appropriate and relevant for most rural communities in Laos Yet one

of the striking aspects of the LECS I and II surveys is how littlemdashmarkedly less than in the case studies that form the basis for Figure 71mdashland and agricultural assets more generally seem to play a role in distinguishing between the different wealth categories (Figures 73a and 73b) Instead it is indicators outside farming which appear to be more powerful as tools for distinguishing between the rich and poor In 19971998 household heads in the poorest quintile of the population spent more than five times as many hours on farming activities than on non-farming endeavours For the richest quintile the figure was less than one-and-a-half times (Figure 74)

Figure 73a Agricultural assets and wealth categories land owned or freely accessed (1997ndash1998)

Source The data are taken from the LECS II survey and tabulated in Datt and Wang (200144)

Figure 73b Agricultural assets and wealth categories livestock and machinery (1997ndash1998)

Of course aggregate data such as these leave many questions unanswered and possibilities unaddressed such as How far has the acquisition of farm machinery freed up labour for non-farm work while maintaining agricultural output How important is the quality rather than the quantity of land in distinguishing between the poor and non-poor To what extent are rich lsquoprofessionalrsquo farmers hidden in the data for the top quintiles and survivalist non-farm activities disguised in the bottom quintiles However and notwithstanding these questions it will it is suggested become incrementally yet more difficult to lsquoread offrsquo the poor and the non-poor on the basis of structural indicators such as those given in Figure 72 Local rural economies will become more complex as households make the transition from subsistence to semi-subsistence to market Threats to livelihoods will also become more diverse as economic factors eclipse environmental and as local contexts are superseded by the extra-local The nine villages and fifty-five households that have provided the core case studies for the discussion in the second part of this book reveal the complex livelihood narratives of individual households and hint at the profound changes that the process of transition is having at the level of livelihoods

Figure 74 Farm and non-farm activities and wealth (1997ndash1998)

Livelihood footprints

One way to conceptualise these changes is in terms of lsquolivelihood footprintsrsquo The traditional livelihood footprint though often complex in terms of the contribution of varied activities to livelihoods was spatially restricted Even given a degree of commoditisation and market integration as outlined in Chapter 3 the spatial reach of livelihoods did not often stretch far beyond the immediate locale and in sectoral terms beyond agriculture This willmdashand ismdashchanging as the reach of livelihoods spreads beyond the local into the regional national and international realms This reach may in turn be viewed in terms of different types of circulations or flows Circuits of capital labour commodities and information or knowledge infiltrate and spread beyond the immediate local context into a much wider geographical arena

The examples in Figures 75 and 76 illustrate the patterns of change in livelihood footprints beginning to exert themselves in the study sites Figure 75a illustrates what may be conceptualised as a lsquotraditionalrsquo footprint while 75b is a commercialised traditional footprint Here livelihoods are centred resolutely in the village and on

agriculture In a sense what you see in the village is what you get in livelihood terms Much activity is focused on production for subsistence and when a portion of production is marketed it is sold locally although it may be traded beyond the immediate locality Figures 76a and 76b reveal the spatial transformations and sectoral shifts that are occurring as households look beyond the village and farming in pursuit of their livelihoods Higher levels of human mobility channel household members to work outside the village even beyond the country and money is

Figure 75a The Kham household (Ban Ang Noi Sang Thong District Vientiane) a traditional livelihood footprint

Source Field survey Sang Thong district (2001)

remitted to sustain the household Other modifications may also occur as a result the hiring of wage labour or the purchase of machinery to meet labour shortfalls or the raising of grandchildren in the natal household while their parents are absent from the village

The crucial issue in terms of human development is the identification of the motivations and outcomes of these evolving circuits or flows As outlined in this chapter there are no hard-and-fast rules Processes of survival-induced diversification may ultimately permit a certain level of accumulation and bestow a degree of prosperity on individuals and households At the same time diversification propelled by wealth may not deliver the prosperity anticipated Moreover the fact of diversification tells us little in itself of whether this is likely to be poverty-reducing in its effects Distress diversification into low-paying non-farm work may enable households to remain on the land but will not create the conditions that will lead to an

Figure 75b The Chanpeth household (Ban Kop Pherng Sang Thong District Vientiane) a commercialised traditional livelihood footprint

upward and virtuous spiral of accumulation and farmnon-farm interaction as outlined by scholars such as Evans (1992) Evans and Ngau (1991) and Grabowski (1995) In these studies non-farm income is invested in agriculture leading to higher farm output rising incomes heightened demand for local goods and services the further development of

non-farm activities and greater non-farm employment and income generation In Laos however it is hard to resist the temptation to regard some household trajectories as essentially immiserating rather than developmental A decline in farm production perhaps initiated by government resettlement and land allocation policies as outlined in Chapter 5 forces householders to engage in non-farm work simply in order to survive This in turn leads to labour shortages in agriculture still greater falls in farm output and incomes and ever-greater reliance on (poorly paid) non-farm work The virtuous cycle becomes instead one of progressive decline particularly when viewed from the rural and agricultural standpoint

Figure 76a The Chandaeng household (Ban Sawai Sang Thong district Vientiane) a new livelihood footprint

Conclusion reflecting on the production and re-production of poverty

Irsquoll bethellipthat in five hundred years there may be no New York or London but theyrsquoll be growing paddy in these

fields theyrsquoll be carrying their produce to market on long poles wearing their pointed hats The small boys will be sitting on the buffaloes Fowler talking to Pyle as they take refuge from the lsquoVietsrsquo

in a watch tower on the road between Tay Ninh and Saigon c

1954 (Graham Greene The Quiet American)

As a country where the great majority of the population rely on farming for their subsistence it is no wonder that development strategies in Laos focus on the need to boost agricultural output and returns to farming It is also no wonder that household crises are usually interpreted in agricultural terms

Figure 76b The Phonxai household (Ban Sawai Sang Thong district Vientiane) a new livelihood footprint

and that solutions are similarly sought in the agricultural milieu whether in the form of land allocation land development farm investments or new technologies While not

wishing to overlook the still dominant role of farming in livelihoods in Laos the argument here is that this takes an overly narrow view of rural livelihoods The trajectory and pattern of change in rural Laos hints at a gradual but progressive reorientation of livelihoods towards various non-farm activities both local and extra-local It is here that dynamism is to be found and it is here for many of those struggling to get by in agriculture that the partial solution to livelihood crises is to be found

For a second time in this chapter it is worth considering this issue in the context of the wider regional picture In the 1970s and 1980s there was widespread pessimism regarding the ability of rural areas to support a fast-growing population A population-induced land squeeze further accentuated by the inequality-widening effects of modernisation would push a large number of rural households into poverty In Nepal (Blaikie et al 1980 2002) Indonesia (Cederroth and Gerdin 1986 Cederroth 1995) Thailand (Molle and Thippawal Srijantr 1999 Molle et al 2002) and the Philippines (Hayami and Kikuchi 2000) agrarian crises broadly constituted along these lines were predicted The predicted crises however did not materialise at a general level for two main reasons First because of the productivity gains achieved through the application of the technology of the Green Revolution and second because of the way in which many rural households creatively combined farm and non-farm activities and in this way were able satisfactorily to manage agricultural decline from a livelihoods perspective Counter-intuitively it has been the engagement of households beyond the farm spatially and occupationally which has permitted small landholders to remain on the land and in the village The predicted crises have been ameliorated delayed and possibly put off by the emergence of new forms of occupational multiplicity or pluriactivity

Binayak Sen identifies a similar set of issues in his elucidation of lsquodrivers of escape and descentrsquo in rural Bangladesh lsquoThere arersquo he writes lsquonow growing signs that a rice-centric phase of agriculturalrural development is fast approaching its limitrsquo (Sen 2003516) While lsquoascendingrsquo households had the initial advantage of more land than the chronic poor this was probably not decisive given that lsquodescendingrsquo households had a higher land endowment Instead Sen argues that ascending households were better diversifiers displaying lsquostrong non-agricultural orientationsrsquo (2003521) In parts of Thailand the divorce of livelihoods from land and agriculture is considerably further advanced than in Bangladesh Molle and Thippawal Srijantr in their study of the Central Plain state

(Molle and Thippawal Srijantr 1999136ndash137)

While this chapter has highlighted the need to see and assess household and individual livelihood profiles and trajectories on their own terms it has also tried to pick out some wider lessons These lessons and those identified in earlier chapters will be addressed in the following and final chapter of the book

Part III Putting it together

8 Muddled spaces juggled lives

If we want things to stay as they are things will have to change

Guiseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1958) The Leopard Harvill

(translated by Archibald Colquhoun)

Poverty transition and livelihoods

Much of this book has been intent on picking out how- and why- the rules of the livelihood game are changing in Laos It has been suggested that not only is the landscape of development being reworked but this has both practical (developmental) and scholarly (academic) implications Regarding the latter some of the ingrained assumptions about the interrelationships between livelihood activities and livelihood outcomes need to be considered afresh In addition there are outstanding issues connected with how in such a context poverty is being produced and reproduced in rural areas As to the former there are important questions about where and how interventions should be targeted and the policy rationale that underpins such interventions These blithe statements however require further elaboration and explanation if they are to be in any sense convincing However before doing so a single example will serve to illustrate the point

The absence of roads in a country such as Laos was not in traditional terms a problem requiring lsquofixingrsquo at least among local people1 Nor did the absence of roads mean that communities were not linked into wider networks of trade and exchange Households and villages were adapted to a road- and transport- deficient universe and accepted such a state of affairs This is not to suggest that villages were not socially differentiated but simply to note that the bases for differentiation were different from those we might highlight today To put it simply if no one has access to transport then it loses its power and value as an indicator of deprivation and social differentiation As Wilson writes of Peru

Not having a road was seen by some [households in the Peruvian Andean context] to carry advantages in that it allowed people to participate in the external world in their own time and on their own terms Lack of a road did not necessarily spell impoverishment

(Wilson 2004)

The building or upgrading of roads however transforms this situation It drives a wedge between those perhaps more prosperous or able or healthier who can gain access to transport and therefore exploit roads for gain and those who cannot It may also drive a wedge between ethnic groups between men and women between parents and their children and more generally between the generations This it should be added is not an imagined problem as earlier chapters have emphasised roads are possibly the most called for and desired development intervention of all However in delivering roads and providing the possibility of transport a new agent for differentiation is inserted into rural places The rules of the game are altered and this has far-reaching implications From afar it may seem that Laos is following and experiencing a comparatively smooth process of transition with a clear and uninterrupted trajectory But by taking a livelihoods perspective it becomes clear that change is more jagged and jarring with breaks and discontinuities

A spiral of decline

Some more pessimistic observers have seen in development trajectories in the Asian region a gradual descent into increasingly unsustainable and marginal livelihood strategies Writing of the Vietnamese uplands Jamieson et al propose that lsquopoverty population growth environmental degradation social marginalization and economic dependency are now interacting to create a downward spiral that is currently reaching crisis proportions both socially and environmentallyrsquo (19882) The identified causes of this spiral of decline are similar to those identified here for Laos and are associated with the way in which the market and the state have intruded into formerly lsquoautonomousrsquo (but not isolated) communities It is these processes that have led to the marginalisation of upland peoples in Vietnam Partly the problem is economic existing traditional livelihood systems have been undermined In addition however upland peoples have been encouraged to judge themselves against lowland standards and therefore have been made to feel inferior (Jamieson et al 199816) In this way economic exclusion is accompanied and bolstered by a degree of psychological marginalisation For Jamieson et al reversing the process requires not just a tinkering with the details but a fundamental lsquoreform of the underlying structures of knowledge power social organization and economy that control the direction of developmentrsquo (19982)

There is little doubt that this vision of upland Vietnam resonates in important ways with the experience of Laos There is ample evidence-and earlier chapters have explored this at some lengthmdashof the market and state squeezing livelihoods particularly those of minority groups living in upland areas However the perspective tends to omit consideration of those ways in which modernisation is opening up new arenas of possibility While accurate in one sense (it reflects experience) it is limiting and restricted in another namely it fails to place marginalisation livelihoods prosperity and poverty within the wider context of development trajectories in the countryside Just as a view from Vientiane may overlook or simplify the uneven local impacts and effects of reform so a livelihoods perspective can be limiting in its unremitting focus on the local and the here-and-now The criticism that livelihood studies tend to marginalise political issues and structures in the explanatory framework is comparatively well rehearsed But to understand what is happening and what is likely to happen to villages and households in

Laos it is also necessary to view local livelihoods in their non-local context Structural perspectives may deny local people and localities agency but focusing on local livelihoods overlooks the place of people within wider structures that can deliver possibilities and limit opportunities

Deagrarianisation and the reworking of place-based livelihoods

In Laos land remains a strategic resource both for the nation and for most rural households The country is after all still a land of farmers That said the argument developed in this book has dwelled on the progressive extraction of rural peoples from farming-focused and land-based livelihoods Admittedly this is occurring at the margins some individuals in some households in some villages and in some areas of the country are coming to rely on non-farm activities None the less there is a discernible trend that is in the process of quite fundamentally transforming the structure functioning and reach of what I have termed in the last chapter the lsquolivelihood footprintrsquo of households While marginal in some respects the likelihood is that the changes will become over time lsquonormalrsquo for many people The experience of neighbouring countries provides a strong indication of the likely broad canvas of change even if the minutiae are necessarily different

Interestingly there is a similar debate occurring in Africa where Deborah Bryceson has argued in a series of papers (1996 1997a 1997b 2002) that a thoroughgoing process of deagrarianisation is underway She argues that while land is still desired and contested lsquoits commercial agricultural value has fadedrsquo (2002735) She continues lsquoWealth and poverty are now measurable in access to nonagrarian resources and consumption goodsrsquo A better future for Africarsquos rural population lies in labour force participation outside agriculture Furthermore exploitation requires access Without access rural areas and populations remain mired in a low-productivity agricultural past

This is a contentious position to take for those who over the years have become comfortable with and inured to the idea that the key to poverty alleviation is boosting agricultural production and therefore rural incomes In effect Bryceson is saying poverty in rural areas of Africa can be systematically addressed only through a reorientation of livelihoods and not just through a revitalisation of agriculture Policies should therefore recognise that it may be just as important to help engineer the means for some rural people to extract themselves from farming as it is to provide the support (seeds fertilisers credit extension marketing) to extend and intensify farming systems as a way of increasing production This is contentious partly because it is surprising even counter-intuitive but also because so much energy and commitment has been directed at agriculture and farming

Todaymdashagain with the caveat lsquofor some people in some areasrsquomdashit is access to non-farm activities and resources that defines wealth and poverty (see below) Furthermore this is not just reworking place and livelihoods it is in some instances disembedding rural place from livelihoods This latter point also requires elaboration because it would seem to challenge one of the hallmarks of much academic research over the past two decades that emphasises the need to focus on the local Escobar for example provides a critique of the privileging of lsquospace over place of capitalism over non-capitalism [and] of global cultures and natures over local onesrsquo suggesting that this is not only a product

Muddled spaces juggled lives 171

of our understanding of the world but of the social theories that inform this understanding (2001170ndash171) In his papermdashand I would suggest that he is not unusual in this regardmdashEscobar would seem to be making three claimsrequests First that place-based (ie local) interpretations of practices continue to offer a powerful explanatory framework Second that academic thought needs to reorient itself towards subaltern perspectives by acknowledging their significance and importance And third that lsquowersquo need to protect and nurture such local structures and practices

While not wishing to underplay the importance of taking a grounded or local view of livelihoods one of the themes developed in this book is that even in a place as lsquolocalrsquo as Laos there is good reason to raise our horizons and see local livelihoods extending their tentacles into the non-local and in some instances into the international contexts Taking each of the three claimsrequests above in turn first place-based frameworks are losing their explanatory power as activity becomes increasingly non-local and as livelihood cultures change second subaltern perspectives are all very well but these should recognise that the subaltern status quomdashlsquonormalrsquo behaviour and lsquoacceptedrsquo practicemdashis being reworked often propelled by outside forces and influences that are none the less broadly accepted locally and third that the local should not be protected if this means effective marginalisation of people from the mainstream of progress There is a danger as explored in more detail in the following section that the new poor in Laos will be those households and individuals who for one reason or another have been unable to extract themselves from local places and traditional activities To hold such areas and activities up as special and to be preserved in no small part because they are deemed to be lsquotraditionalrsquo may say more about the ideas visions and desires of non-local groups than it does of local people The tendency for scholars to separate and privilege the local over the non-local the indigenous over the exogenous and the traditional over the modern is rarely played out in any meaningful sense in rural communities in Laos or I would suggest in most other countries of the global South These sorts of divisions mean little The core question is What works and what does not To paraphrase Deng Xiao-ping it does not matter whether a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice

So the deagrarianisation debate confronts two established wisdoms the first lsquodevelopmentalrsquo and the second more conceptual The developmental challenge requires a jettisoning of a set of established approaches to rural development some of which are dearly held The conceptual challenge meanwhile demands that the revisionist views of the recent pastmdashwhich I would now see as mainstream wisdoms (in academia at least)mdashare in turn themselves challenged

Producing and reproducing poverty

If the claims in the foregoing section are accepted even if only in part and for the sake of argument then they raise questions about another set of assumptions and beliefs namely in connection with how we should seek to understand poverty in rural Laos

Chapter 2 explored at some length the difference between lsquooldrsquo and lsquonewrsquo poverty the former being an inheritance from the past and the latter a product of the present These are usually presented as competing interpretations of poverty Thus lsquooldrsquo poverty is a view favoured by neo-liberal institutions intent on modernising countries and their societies while lsquonewrsquo poverty is co-opted by radical post-structuralists as a means to

indict the development project The argument developed here however is that they are not so much alternative as complementary and that collapsing them into a single but competing critique of development is an over-simplification (see Bebbington 2003299) Old poverty is akin to Cowen and Shentonrsquos (1996) lsquoimmanent developmentrsquo (or lsquoLittle drsquo development) a state of existence which is inherited and a product of the natural process of societal change (Cowen and Shenton 1996) New poverty is closer to Hartrsquos lsquoBig Drsquo developmentmdasha product and outcome of the development project (Hart 2001) Considered in these terms it is entirely possible to imagine both forms of poverty co-existing even in single villages Communities may support households who are poor because of their separation from the market and the facilities of the state and their inability to access new technologies and ways of making a living At the same time there may be households who are poor because they have been drawn into the modernisation process on highly unfavourable terms pushed into debt by their experience of the market or found their normal ways of making a living undercut by new commercial actors

Furthermore as households and villages make the livelihood transition from farm to non-farm lsquooldrsquo and lsquonewrsquo poverty will come into play in differing ways Formerly the reproduction of poverty could be linked with rural resources and in particular with the distribution of land and the availability of labour The position of the landless and the land poor in rural areas was necessarily a difficult one Without land to meet their most basic needs these households and individuals had to resort to wage labouring or unfavourable tenancy arrangements Disempowerment and exploitation coloured their existence In the new rural world beginning to emerge in Laos some of the land poor and landless have managed to escape poverty through creative engagement with non-farm activities Land for these households at least is no longer a strategic resource and cannot be used as a marker of poverty

A recurring theme in this book is that diversification into new activities is becoming an increasingly important means by which rural households can improve their prospects In place of land education skills and networks take on heightened significance Work on other transition economies shows that a skills premium asserts itself and becomes increasingly pronounced as transition proceeds (Aghion and Commander 1999286) Consider the striking visual image purveyed in Figure 49 in which a young girl in Vieng Phou Kha district Luang Namtha has no statistical chance of proceeding beyond lower secondary school This absence of opportunity will it is suggested increase inequalities over the medium to long term and stymie efforts at sustained poverty reduction Writing of the experience of reform on livelihoods in China Hy Van Luong and Unger write

Perhaps of greatest importance though was that villagers were now allowed to seek ways to earn money beyond their crops Especially in villages within striking distance of cities families with know-how and surplus labour began raising large numbers of hogs and poultry or rented village ponds and raised fish for urban consumption Other families have become heavily involved in cottage industry even during the growing seasons or sent a daughter to work in the new factories that were sprouting in the rural market towns that lay within reach of a city Some men even from families short of labour left their village during the agricultural off-season to work at urban construction siteshellipleaving the

winter agricultural chores in the hands of wives and childrenhellip For those families in China who remained largely in agriculture howeverhellip[their] living standards began to stagnate and in a great many cases declinedhellip Those families who were stuck entirely in farming were very noticeably hurt

(Hy Van Luong and Unger 199867ndash68 emphasis added)

The need is to ensure that the opportunities outside farming are open to the many and not just to the few In the cases of China and though to a lesser degree Vietnam the benefits of diversification have tended to accrue to those who are also successful in farming In other words diversification is seen to accentuate the disparities that already exist in rural society (Hy Van Luong and Unger 199886) Market integration therefore raises the premium on certain qualities which during the period of command were depressed in terms of their importance to livelihoods by the equalising role of the state

The challenge for Laos perhaps is that the non-farm economy is so weakly developed in comparison to China Vietnam and for that matter Thailand In those countries we see a potential crisis in rural areas being allayed or possibly delayed by the ways in which non-farm work has come to bolster rural incomes In Laos the potential for such a reorientation is less obvious It is for this reason that cross-border mobility and the building of trans-boundary livelihoods is so important As yet though the Lao government would seem to be opposed to encouraging (or accepting) the greater mobility that might be an avenue of escape for households and individuals struggling on low potential land in marginal areas The Fifth Five-year Development Plan (2001 to 2005) for instance states that the incorporation of poor people and areas into the market system is to be achieved while avoiding the migration of the rural labour force to urban areas (Lao PDR 2001e) This is a nice idea but there is little evidence that rural areas have been invigorated to the extent that this objective will become anything more than a paper wish

Rather more widely there is an entrenched antipathy in both academic and applied literatures to viewing rural livelihoods in the South as crossing space and bridging sectors2 This would seemed to be linked to the subsistence and sedentary bias in much rural development research where country dwellers are seen to be lsquoattachedrsquo in a deep and primordial sense to their villages and to farming While the power of lsquohomersquo does have important livelihood and other connotations this should not be taken as a given or as an element of rural existence that is stubbornly resistant to change The reality is that cultural social and economic change and the need to make a living when established livelihoods are under pressure is necessitating that things do change Sometimes moreover there does not even have to be the livelihood pressure to make young people abandon farming and to leave their homes and villages

Kanbur argues that one of the lsquodirty little secrets of policy reformrsquo (20048) is that transition and reform not only pit poor against rich in terms of the allocation of costs and benefits but also poor against poor This is because the poor are heterogeneous and not just in terms of the depths of poverty that they experience As the discussions in Chapters 4 and 7 made clear there are many lsquopoorsrsquo and their ability to benefit from the opportunities provided by reform will be significantly different Along with the usual dynamism and lsquobottom-end churningrsquo at the interface between the poor and non-poor reform will inject an additional element of contingency But this should not be seen as

pitting the poor against the poor or indeed the poor against the rich as if building a livelihood is a zero-sum game There is more to reform and transition than a winwin or a winlose binary

Modernisation or development

For some radical scholars of development lsquopovertyrsquo has been conjured into existence by the development project Deficiencies are identified lines are drawn the poor are counted and in so doing the spaces for development intervention are created The view taken here is that while there is no doubt that poverty is constructed through various policies and programmes and through particular ways of thinking about well-being and deprivation this does not mean that poverty and the poor do not exist None the less there is value in recognising and accepting that poverty is both an artefact of the development project and a real and corrosive blight to be erased The poor are socially and perhaps more importantly politically constructed Government policies different types of research methodologies the documentation produced by multilateral agencies the reports of field researchers and academics all these are chock-full of value judgements assumptions disciplinary preconceptions modish ideas best guesses established world views and more But poverty also lies in the minds of local people The key mental gaps that exist are often not between the development industry and local people but within and between different factions in the development industry

The market integration paradigm is driven by a modernisation ethos Critics of this approachmdashand there are manymdashhighlight the way in which lsquodevelopmentrsquo becomes an outcome of modernisation rather than the primary objective For the Lao government it is tempting to see lsquorural developmentrsquo meaning in large degree lsquoagricultural modernisationrsquo The questions that underpin the governmentrsquos rural development strategy are How can the subsistence cultivators of Laos be drawn into the mainstream encouraged to use new technologies stimulated to engage with the market and thereby given access to the full benefits of liberalisation It is too easy to deride this vision of the rural development project as simplistic technocratic and overbearing

I would like to propose however that the key shortcoming with the Lao governmentrsquos rural development project is that it is not sufficiently modernist In particular it continues to pigeon-hole rural people into an agriculturefarming-focused future Rather than countenancing a process of depeasantisation the Lao government is attempting to create a new class of agrarian entrepreneurs However given the close association and links between transition and inequality it is likely that over time rural spaces will become more differentiated in terms of human activity and the distribution of resources Redistributive justice cannot stand and fall on the basis of farming alone Rural progressmdashin the sense of progress for people in the countryside rather than rural spaces per semdashdepends on an engagement with a much wider conceptualisation of what could comprise rural development This in turn will require that policies accept the possibilitymdashindeed the likelihoodmdashof multiple household livelihood transitions Some households to be sure will be able to become the agrarian entrepreneurs that the government and most multilateral agencies envisage These need to be supported through extension programmes credit schemes marketing initiatives and so on It is important to

realise however that other households will not be in a position to carve out such a future How peasants can become post-peasants and then non-peasants will be just as important a task as delineating policies for turning peasants into agrarian entrepreneurs And the first stepmdashnot for the first time retreating into clicheacutesmdashis to think out of the box out of the rural box and out of the farming box

The governmentrsquos modernist agrarian project may not be as lsquopro-poorrsquo as those in the ADB the UNDP the World Bank or in some reaches of the government itself might wish But the usual alternative which is an agrarian project that stresses indigenous technologies self-reliance and local livelihoods also offers little comfort As noted above those who cannot become agrarian entrepreneursmdashwhether due to circumstance or choicemdashneed to be provided with the opportunity to build a new livelihood outside farming and possibly beyond the immediate locale In China India Egypt and elsewhere (see Adams (2002) and the papers in JDS (2002)) the expansion of non-farm employment has been poverty reducing and sometimes inequality narrowing This rather glib observation however hides the very significant differences often hidden or disguised in the ability of individuals and households to exploit the opportunities offered by an expanding economy3

As noted in the previous section the nature of developmentmodernisation in Laos means that poverty is being reproduced in new ways This does not mean however that the past is erased and plays no role in understanding present conditions There is an inherited dimension to livelihoods (and poverty) which links the present to the past Poverty is transmitted down the generations because one generation does not have the assetsmdashbe they social economic or physicalmdashto pass on to the next These inherited dimensions are historically embedded yet their effects resonate through the generations In their work on Vietnam Liljestroumlm et al write of the poor being lsquolosers for structural reasonshellip[they] are victims of war and destruction of global crises as well as national oneshellip[and] guinea pigs for an enforced ideology and an unsustainable political economyrsquo (Liljestroumlm et al 1998248ndash249) In the case of Laos we see households who have been divided and uprooted by war who have lost access to their traditional lands and who have been resettled in new social and environmental contexts Their present predicaments are part-inherited and not just in the more obvious sense that resources and assets are passed down the generations The political economy of the past and the policies that informed that past also form part of this inheritance These policies are not inherited equally Only some people are required to carry the burden of past failures

In writing this though the danger is to see the poor in Laos not only as victims of development but as accidents of history It is at this point that the here-and-now comes into play and it is here that the value of building an understanding of local livelihoods becomes clearest There is no doubt that households in Laos have been uprooted and resettled and established livelihoods have been compromised in the process The discussion in earlier chapters shows however the degree to which people willingly contribute to these processes and moreover sometimes act as prime movers in the reorientation of their lives The political economy of liberalisation and reform may have created real difficulties for some groups and individuals It has also though provided the same groups and individuals with new tools and opportunities with which to succeed

1lsquoSustainable livelihoods in Southeast Asia a grassroots-informed approach to food securityrsquo (EU-INCO grant ICA4-CT-2000ndash30013) The project included parallel work in Thailand and Vietnam Other partners in the project were Dr Bounthong Bouahom and Mr Linkham Douangsavanh National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute Vientiane Dr Pietro Masina and Dr Irene Noslashrlund Roskilde University Denmark Dr Michael Parnwell University of Leeds UK Professor Suriya Veeravongs and Professor Wathana Wongsekiarttirat Chulalongkorn University Thailand Dr Bui Huy Khoat National Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities Vietnam and Dr Valerio Levi IZI Rome Italy

2 The methodology protocol for the project may be downloaded from httpwwwsscrucdkincoactivitiesdeskstudiesMethodology20definitivepdf

3 Publications that also draw on the projectrsquos Lao-based research include Rigg et al (2004) and Boun thong Bouahom et al (2004) Additional conference papers and desk studies for the Lao portion of the fieldwork as well as studies completed in connection with the Thailand and Vietnam elements of the project may be downloaded from httpwwwsscrucdkinco

4lsquoSome widening of the gap between rich and poor is an inescapable part of transition [But]hellipover the long haul the only way to reduce poverty is to foster economic growth largely by pursuinghellippro-market policiesrsquo (World Bank 199683ndash4)

5 The Thai and Lao languages are mutually intelligible 6 Whether households can be so neatly and categorically classified is doubtful Of this 80 per

cent a large proportion are probably better described as lsquosemi-subsistencersquo cultivators maintaining a subsistence base while (and increasingly) engaging with the market in various ways

2 New poverty and old poverty livelihoods and transition in Laos

1 This section of the report is expressed in slightly different terms in the December 2001 version although the essence is much the same (ADB 2001b30ndash1)

2 See the UNCTAD Least Developed Countries 2002 report at httpwwwunctadorgTemplateswebflyeraspdocid=2026ampintItemID=1397amplang=1ampmode=downloads

3 The target for 2020 is modest to achieve per capita income of US$885 in constant 2000 prices (Lao PDR 200320)

4 The World Bank the International Monetary Fund and the US Treasury 5 As noted in Chapter 1 the links between economic reform and livelihoods poverty have been

thinly studied and are inadequately understood not only in Laos but more widely (see Dercon and Krishnan 2000)

6 This is also the logic pursued in Arturo Escobarrsquos influential book Encountering Development The Making and Unmaking of the Third World (1995)

7 Part of the National Poverty Eradication Plan 8 Although this has been made more serious due to the traditional livelihood system being

disrupted (see page 00) 9 See eg Singhanetra-Renard (1999) on the Mae Sa Valley in Northern Thailand and Kato

(1994) on Peninsular Malaysia 10 Examples include Shoemaker et al (2001) Gorsuch (2002) and Kerridge with Peter

(2002) 11 See eg Blaikie et al (2001 and 2002) on Nepal and Cederroth and Gerdin (1986) and

Cederroth (1995) on Indonesia 12 Vatthana Pholsena refers to these as lsquoseminal termsrsquo (2002180) 13 It has been usual to translate lsquoKharsquo as meaning lsquoslaversquo and therefore to ascribe to it

derogatory overtones However Chamberlain and Panh Phomsombath argue that the Tai-Khacivilised-uncivilised relationship has been overplayed and that the term lsquoKharsquo has been imbued with more negative meaning than it deserves (200241)

14 It seems that Kaysone Phomvihane was pushing for a new ethnic classification of the peoples of Laos as early as 1981 (Vatthana Pholsena 2002184)

15 Examples of such reports include UNDP (2000) World Bank (1997) JICA (2000) NUOL (1999) Lao PDR (2000e) and ADB (2000c)

16 lsquoLaorsquo to add to the confusion refers at one level to all the peoples of Laos (akin to Laotian) but is also an ethnic categorisation

3 Subsistence affluence or subsistence struggle Unpicking tradition

and illuminating the past 1 See Alexander and Alexander (1982) Breman (1980) Carey (1986) Hayami and Hafid

(1979) Schweizer (1987) and White (1991) on Indonesia Bowie (1992) Hirsch (1989) Kemp (1988 1989 1991) Koizumi (1992) Terwiel (2004) and Vandergeest (1991) on Thailand Popkin (1979) on Vietnam Shamsul (1989) on Malaysia and Rigg (1994) on the Southeast Asian region as a whole

2 Among the more popular postcards available in Vientiane are those that depict sepia-tinted long-dead Lao men and women with the words lsquoForgotten Laosrsquo emblazoned along the bottom

3 For Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma (1901ndash84) the conflict that devastated his country between 1953 and 1975 was lsquothe forgotten warrsquo (see Stuart-Fox 1996 ch 3)

4 A balsamic resin extracted from tropical Asian trees of the genus Styrax (including Styrax tonkinensis) and used as an ingredient in medicines (such as Friarrsquos Balsam) and perfumes It is a mild stimulant antiseptic expectorant and astringent

5 The quotation in full lsquoWithout a cash crop as ideal as opium the target area could never sustain the actual human population considering the means and techniques of agricultural production presently availablersquo (quoted in Bechstedt 200046)

6 Although Walker argues in a separate paper that long-distance trade by women continued even through this period (Walker 1999b)

7 This is akin although on a much smaller scale to the oft-noted distinction between the vibrant and fast-growing coastal provinces of China and an interior that is being left behind

8 Rain-fed systems are those wet rice systems that depend on the natural inundation of the paddy-field Irrigated systems use various artificial (such as dams canals or pump irrigation schemes) means to deliver water and control water levels in the fields Irrigation is sometimes used to supplement rainfall for the main (wet season) crop and sometimes also

to provide water for a dry season crop permitting double cropping The quality of irrigation and the degree of control that it provides varies considerably

9 This trend comes at a price There are stories of villagers falling ill and dying after working as pesticide sprayers on Thai farms and the sex trade is seen locally as a real problem in connection with the spread of AIDS and other STDs as well as propelling a general decline in local mores More widely work in Thailand is seen to explain growing lawlessness glue-sniffing and the use of amphetamines (Shoemaker et al 200152)

10 Indeed the influential French geographer Pierre Gourou was recommending the introduction of permanent systems in Laos more than sixty years ago (see Roder 19972)

11 The livelihood implications of this are discussed in Chapter 6 under the theme of policy-induced poverty

12 This may be largely due to the inability of the Lao administration to exert much policy control over many areas particularly in those upland areas where shifting cultivation predominates With few officials a lack of resources and poor physical infrastructure the ability to translate policy into practice is often stymied

13 Taken from a survey of thirty-eight Akha and Hmong villages in Muang Sing district in the northern province of Luang Namtha

14 That said households and individuals often specialise There are commonly important gender and generational differences in how the forest is used

15 Personal communication Linkham Duangsavanh (2004) head of the socio-economic unit National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute Vientiane

1 Neighbouring Vietnam and Thailand however weremdashsee httpwwwworldbankorgpovertyvoicesreportshtmnational

2 In addition the influential participatory poverty assessment (ADB 2001) had not been released when the IMFIDA published its report

3 The preliminary head count rate from LECS III (20023) is 31 per cent 4 These figures are for the incidence of poverty in rural and urban areas Because the rural

population is so much larger than the urban population all these studies show that the great concentration of the poor is in the countryside

5 Running a regression against provincial dummy variables 6 Kanbur (2004) considers just this point in his discussion of lsquohard questionsrsquo regarding

poverty inequality and growth lsquoIf the total number of the poor goes up but because of population growth the percentage of the poor in the total population goes down has poverty gone up or downrsquo He adds that this second-level hard question is lsquonot simply a philosophical curiosumrsquo (20046)

7 A 2001 UNDP-sponsored study remarked in its chapter on Laos that lsquothere ishellip no detailed information on the relationship between poverty and ethnicityrsquo (Jerve 2001278) This statement is contradicted by the wealth of information that does existmdasheven in the UNDPrsquos own resource centre in Vientiane

8 Health data broken down by ethnic group are rarely available and therefore conclusions often have to be inferred from proxy data

9 The report states that lsquohardly any data on the urban areas [of Laos] are availablersquo (UNDP 19889)

10 The influential PPA (ADB 2001b) for instance uses the village as the unit of analysis This is justified on three grounds first because livelihood solutions to poverty are best targeted at the village level second because poor households are usually supported through village-

level systems of assistance and third because traditional villages lsquofunction as unified wholesrsquo (2001b10ndash11) This latter point in particular can be contested on the grounds that social and economic differentiation driven by market integration and the social effects of village amalgamation are driving a wedge through communities increasingly dividing them by ethnic group and economic class

11 Trankell makes this in her working paper lsquoOn the road in Laosrsquo (1993) 12 Although the study does not use the term lsquosocial exclusionrsquo 13 This is also a point that Samers (1998) makes in general terms 14 See ADB (2001b70ndash1) for a table of labour input by gender and ethnic group 15 Of the remaining 26 per cent 7 per cent was in both names and 19 per cent was registered in

another personrsquos name or was yet to be registered 16 Lamoinersquos study focuses on the village of Ban Pa Kha although he also draws data from two

neighbouring villages which are part of a wider Lao Houay community Lao Houay means the Lao of the Streams

17 Most have lsquobluersquo ID cards or thor ror 13 residency status This gives the holder the right to reside in Thailand for five years but freedom of movement only within the district of registration (Buergin 200012ndash13)

5 The best of intentions policy-induced poverty

1 This is acknowledged in an ADB evaluation of twenty development projects in Asia (four in Laos) which states lsquoconsidering beneficiaries as a homogeneous group is counterproductive because local communities are diverse with their own social stratification that tends to exclude the poorrsquo (ADB 2000e12)

2 Indeed the logic of area-based development may be seen reflected in the resettlement policies of the Siamese in the Northeastern region of Thailand in the nineteenth century and in the policies of the French in the twentieth century in areas such as the Bolovens Plateau in the south of Laos

3 Examples include Pelusorsquos (1995) and Cookersquos (2003) work on counter-mapping in Kalimantan (Indonesia) and Sarawak (Malaysia) respectively and Isager and Ivarssonrsquos (2002) paper on tree ordination in northern Thailand See also Johnson and Forsyth (2002) on community forest rights in Thailand

4 A long-term expatriate resident of Laos who has been involved in many rural development studies and surveys

5 For comparison the other countriesrsquo population densities (2002) are Cambodia 71 Malaysia 74 Burma 74 Indonesia 117 Thailand 121 Vietnam 247 Philippines 268 Singapore 6826

6 The Dansavanh Resort and Casino a joint venture between the Lao military and Malaysian investors opened in 1999 Most of its customers come from Thailand Cambodia Malaysia and Singapore and Lao nationals are in fact not allowed to enter the Casino unless accompanied by a foreigner The Resort has become an important local employer of the young but mostly in unskilled occupations in construction and maintenance work and as gardeners chambermaids and restaurant and kitchen staff Salaries range characteristically from 200000 to 300000 kipmonth (US$20 to 30) Most workers commute to the Resort daily from local villages and according to the provincial governor it has lsquosolvedrsquo the problem of underunemployment in the area

7 It is likely that the villagers will need to abandon their old village and its fields entirely by 2005 and it is also likely that the new land they have been allocatedmdashgenerally of poor quality and limited in extentmdashwill be insufficient to meet their needs

8 This is mirrored in Liljestroumlm et alrsquos study of Vietnam lsquoPeople who have their roots in the same native soil support one anotherrsquo (1998118)

9 This was under an earlier phase of resettlement Two of the villages were established in 1975 to 1976 one in 1983 and the remainder between 1986 and 1989

10 Lac is a resin-like naturally occurring substance secreted on to the branches of deciduous trees by a hemipterous insect Laccifera lacca India and Thailand are the major producers and exporters of lac which is used in a range of products and processes including plastics dyes inks adhesives sealing wax and leather working (httpwwwfaoorgdocrepx5326ex5326e0chtml20lac)

6 Not in our hands market-induced poverty and social differentiation

1 The three areas of concern are (1) Changes in regulation may increase systemic risks if the mode of regulation is inadequate (capital market liberalisation is provided as an example) (2) Market changes may increase risk and vulnerability for the poor by for example raising the level of vulnerability to external shocks (3) The rules of the market may be determined in a manner that is biased against the poor (DFID 20006ndash7)

2 Scott provides a fuller discussion in his book Seeing Like a State (1998) 3 High levels of poverty in Java (Mason 1996) and Vietnam (Van de Walle 1996) have been

linked to levels of access and physical infrastructure provision This is also suggested more generally in DFID (2000)

4 Blaikie and colleagues note in their Overseas Development Adminstration-funded study of road construction in Nepal that the ODA was unhappy with the critical tone of the final report because it brought into question the benefits of something -roadsmdashto which the agency was committed (Blaikie 2001277)

5 At a more general level Lopez at the World Bank argues that if investments in infrastructure are targeted at poor areas and that as a result people in these poor areas are able to exploit new opportunities then infrastructure will reduce inequality (200410)

6 For a study from another continent which explores the road-building dialectic see Wilsonrsquos (2004) study of the political economy of roads in Peru

7 This has been discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5 8 lsquoAdequate transport is necessary for poverty reductionhellipby supporting economic growth

complementing most poverty-targeted interventions and encouraging the poor to participate in social and political processes However transport alone will not alleviate poverty More transport does not necessarily translate into less poverty and inappropriately designed transport programs may harm the poorrsquo (Gannon and Liu 20003 emphasis added)

9 Timmer in a paper on pro-poor growth in Indonesia writes about the challenge of better connecting the poor to economic growth lsquoFor access to translate into participation the capacity of poor households to enter the market economy needs to be enhancedrsquo (200424)

10 The Indonesian government has been accused of much the same in its development policies and programmes lsquoIbuismrsquo as it is called casts Indonesian women in the roles of homemaker and household manager In reality across large areas of the country women were active entrepreneurs and played a central even dominant role in lower level trading activities (see Guinness 1994283)

11 That said the axiom lsquomen plough women plantrsquo has been under pressure for some time The loss of men for long periods during the war years forced women to take on tasks that were formally the preserve of men In Xieng Khouang for example women ploughing became common (Schenk-Sandbergen and Outhaki Choulamany-Khamphoui 199517ndash18)

12 Unlike other countries of Southeast Asia the collection consumption and sale of NTFPs remains a common activity and not one limited to a few villages and households in marginal regions

13 The Nakai Nam Theun NBCA covers 353200 ha in Khammouan and Bolikhamxai provinces (UNEP 200157)

14 A high-quality wood used in furniture 15 The government later called this a lsquowatershedrsquo in the understanding of rural change in Laos

(Lao PDR 199935) 16 There is however a sliver of hope for the longer term This rests on the shoulders of Mrs

Thong Yenrsquos son who is a very able student and at the time of the interview was in the fourth year of secondary school The boyrsquos uncle had indicated that he might help with meeting the costs of continuing his education further still in Vientiane

1 The figures speak for themselves 23 million rural enterprises in 1996 employing 135 million workers (roughly one-third of rural Chinarsquos working population) and contributing 23 per cent of GDP 44 per cent of gross industrial output value and 35 per cent of export earnings TVEs have been the lsquobackbonersquo of Chinarsquos economic record in recent years (Smyth 1998784) TVEs are important not only in the context of rural China but lsquowill be a vital factor in the nationrsquos overall development trajectoryrsquo (Kirkby and Zhao Xiaobin 1999273) See also Parish et al (1995) Wang (1997) and Weixing Chen (1998)

2 Nepal and Laos share many features both are landlocked both have histories as tributary states on the periphery both have a large proportion of upland and pronounced difficulties of physical access both are Least Developed Countries and both are overshadowed by larger and more powerful neighbours

3 See Bounthong Bouahom et al (2004) for an expansion of some of the case study material presented in this section

4 The proportion of households living below the US$1 and US$2 a day poverty lines for Laos and Thailand respectively in 2003 were 293 per cent and 763 per cent for Laos and 16 per cent and 237 per cent for Thailand (World Bank 200447ndash48)

5 This was not true of all households Some households were benefiting from new pump irrigation schemes that permitted them to double crop their rice and to refocus their livelihoods on the land

6 The villagers of Ban Nong Hai Kham were relocated in 2000 to make way for the further expansion of the Dansavanh Resort While at the time of the fieldwork in 2002 they could still work some of the fields in the vicinity of their old village this was not likely to last very long and probably only until 2005

7 This is also the conclusion in Wilsonrsquos (2004) study of socio-economic mobility in two villages in Madhya Pradesh (India)

8 This discussion is largely based on data from Inthasone Phetsiriseng (2001) 9 In Savannakhetrsquos Outhoumphone district first-time offenders are fined 50000 kip (US$5)

100000 kip (US$10) for their second offence and 150000 kip (US$15) on the third occasion they are apprehended In Xonbouli district also in Savannakhet parents of illegal child labourers are fined 140000 kip (US$14) It is said that these decrees have had no effect on illegal migration to Thailand

1 States may have regarded it as problematic from the points of view of security and nation-building

2 This is beginning to change with increasing work on deagrarianisation diversification and depeasantisation

3 This is also a point that Okidi and McKay (20032) make with reference to Uganda

Appendix 1 Table A 11 Summary information on published and unpublished field studies mentioned in text

1 ADB 2000a fieldwork in 1999 in seven northern provinces (Houa Phanh Phongsali Luang Namtha Luang Prabang Oudomxai Bokeo and Xieng Khouang)

2 ADB 2001b fieldwork in 2000 across eighty-four villages and forty-three districts in every province

3 ADB 2001d fieldwork in 2000 in Vientiane

4 Chamberlain et al 1996 fieldwork in 1996 in seventeen villages in the Nam Theun II reservoir site (central Laos)

5 Denes 1998 fieldwork in 1998 in three villages in Saravan province (southern Laos)

6 DUDCP 2001 fieldwork in 2000 in three villages on the Nakai Plateau in Khammouan (central Laos)

7 EU 1997 fieldwork in 1996 across four districts in Luang Prabang province (Luang Prabang Pak Ou Phone Xai and Pak Xeng) with the survey covering 6000 households

8 ADB 2000a fieldwork in 1999 across seven northern provincesmdashHoua Phanh Phongsali Luang Namtha Luang Prabang Oudomxai Bokeo and Xieng Khouang

9 FAO 1996 fieldwork in 1996 in the districts of Xaythani and Naxaythong in Vientiane municipality

10 FAO 1997 fieldwork in late 1997 in sixteen villages twelve in Luang Prabang province and four in Houa Phanh province both in the north

11 IDRC 2000 fieldwork in 1999 in the Nam Ngum dam site

12 ILO 1997 fieldwork in 1994 and 1997 in Hune district in Oudomxai and Khantabouly district in Savannakhet

13 Inthasone Phetsiriseng 2001 fieldwork in 2000 in thirteen villages across seven districts in the three Lao border provinces of Khammouan Savannakhet and Champassak (Nongbok Sebangfai Kanthabouly Outhoumphone Songkhone Phonethong Pathumphone) central and southern Laos

14 Ireson 1992 fieldwork in 1988 to 1989 and 1990 in four villages in Luang Prabang province in the north and also including a survey of 120 village women in Bolikhamxai in the central region

15 JICA 2000 fieldwork between 1998 and 2000 in Bolikhamxai Khammouan and Savannakhet provinces in the central region

16 Kaufmann 1997 fieldwork in 1997 in Luang Namtha province (Nalae and Sing districts) in the north

17 Kheungkham Keonuchan 2000 fieldwork in 1997 to 1998 in three villages in Nan district

Luang Prabang province La district Oudomxai province and Namtha district Luang Namtha province all in the north

18 Lao PDR 2001a fieldwork in 2001 in eight villages in two provinces Xayabouri (Phiang and Pak Lai districts) and Saravan (Vapi and Khong Xedon districts) in the north and south respectively

19 Lao PDREU 1999 fieldwork in 1999 across seven districts in Phongsali province in the north

20 Lao Womenrsquos Union 2000 fieldwork in 1998 in Vientiane municipality and Xayabouri Xieng Khouang and Savannakhet provinces in the north and centre

21 Lemoine 2002 fieldwork in 2002 in two villages in Muang Long district Luang Namtha northern Laos

22 MSIFP 1995 fieldwork in 1995 in thirty-eight Akha and Hmong villages in Muang Sing district in the northern province of Luang Namtha

23 NTEC 1997 fieldwork in 1997 () on the Nakai Plateau (centre)

24 NUOL 1999 fieldwork in 1999 in six villages in Xieng Khouang and Houa Phanh provinces covering 227 households along route 7 in the Nam Mat watershed (centre and north)

25 Ovesen 2002 fieldwork in Xepon district in the central province of Savannakhet

26 Pak Ou fieldwork fieldwork in August and December 2001 in Pak Ou district Luang Prabang province in the north

27 Pandey and Montry Sanamongkhoun 1998 fieldwork undertaken in 1996 across fifteen villages in Champassak and Saravan provinces in the south

28 Raintree 2003 fieldwork in 2002 in four villages in Phonxai district Luang Prabang province and villages in Namo district Oudomxai province all in the north

29 Sang Thong fieldwork fieldwork in December 2001 Sang Thong district Vientiane Municipality

30 Save the Children Norway (2001) fieldwork in 2001 in six villages three in Nhommalath district in Khammouan province (centre) and three in Viengkham district in Luang Prabang province (north)

31 Schiller et al 2000 fieldwork undertaken in 1998 in Vientiane and Champassak provinces

32 Shoemaker et al 2001 fieldwork in 2001 in twenty-four villages in the Xe Bang Fai River basin in Khammouan province (centre)

33 Sparkes 1998 fieldwork in 1998 on the Nakai Plateau in the central region

34 Trankell 1993 fieldwork in 1991 in five villages in Bolikhamxai province (centre) and four villages in Vientiane province along route 13 south

35 Tulakhom fieldwork fieldwork in July 2002 in Tulakhom district Vientiane province

36 UNCHS 1996 fieldwork in 1994 in Vientiane

37 UNDP 1988 fieldwork in 1988 in Vientiane

38 UNDP 1991 fieldwork in 1991 in seven villages in Vientiane province

39 UNDP 1997a and 1997b fieldwork in 1996 in Luang Namtha Oudomxai Xieng Khouang

Appendix I 185

Attapeu Saravan and Sekong provinces covering 1000 households in sixty-seven resettlement villages

40 UNDP 2002 fieldwork in 1999 in one village in Champassak province (south)

41 UNDPNORAD 1997 fieldwork in 1997 in Sekong province (south)

42 UNESCOUNDP 19971000 households interviewed in twenty-two districts and sixty-seven resettlement villages between July and September 1996 in the provinces of Luang Namtha Oudomxai and Xieng Khouang (north) and Attapeu Saravan and Sekong (south)

Note See Figure 13 for location of field sites

Appendix I 186

Appendix 2 Table A21 Human development in Luang Namtha (1995)

Traditional Akha villages

Lower slope Akha villages

Hmong in-migrant villages

Lue villages

Total number of villages visited

11 22 3 2

Total households 523 706 417 96

Under 5 year mortality (1 000)

133 326 221 63

Child malnutrition () 39 37 20 28

households rice sufficient

32 20 17 na

Households with rice deficit 4+months

33 62 71 na

Note The data in the table are from a baseline survey undertaken in 1995 in Muang Sing District Luang Namtha Source MSIFSP (1995)

Appendix 3 Table A31 Rice cultivation in Laos (19981999)

Area (rsquo000 ha)

Lowland rice 5633 74

Upland rice 1988 26

Wet season rice 6796 93

Dry season rice 555 7

Glutinous rice 6821 93

Non-glutinous rice 530 7

Local rice varieties 5214 71

Improved rice varieties 2137 29

Number of farmers

Rice farmers using chemical fertilisers 178 200 29

Rice farmers not using chemical fertilisers 435 800 71

Rice farmers using pesticides 65500 11

Rice farmers not using pesticides 548400 89

Source Lao PDR (2000g)

Figure A31 Average travel time to the nearest place where motorised transport is available (1997)

Source EU 199742 Note Survey of 6000 households in four districts of Luang Prabang Province The Lao LoumTheungSoung classification is used in the document and it is not possible to break this down any further (see Box 21)

Table A32 Estimates of number of swiddeners and extent of shifting cultivation

Date Number practising shifting cultivation

Area under shifting cultivation Source

1994 300000 households and another 100000 who regularly use the forested slopes

ndash Chazee 1994

1995 300000 households ndash UNESCOUNDP 199714

1998 ndash Shifting cultivation accounts for 70 of the area of rain-fed upland in the north

UNEP 200138

~2000 19 million people or 43 of the rural population

32 million hectares UNDP 200251

Appendix III 189

Figure A32 Area planted to upland and lowland rice by ethnic group (19981999)

Source Lao PDR 2000g55

Appendix III 190

Appendix 4 Table A41 Summary characteristics of categories of the poor in Vientiane (2000)

Category of poor

Income range (kipmonth)

Household characteristics Employment making a living

Poorest (ultra poor)

lt60000 kip (lt US$8)

Homeless Often from an ethnic minority Lack any support network Often unemployed unemployable Struggle to survive Almost no assets

Scavenging recycling Begging Hand-outs

Medium poor

60ndash150000 kip (US$8ndash20)

Often rural migrants Takeon informal or low-paying work or are unemployed Live in one-room houses with limited services Do not use health services Some educate children through primary level Limited assets Lack of stability and security

Barrow vendors Low-paid government workers Domestic servants Restaurant workers

Simple poor 150ndash400000 kip (US$20ndash53)

Likely to have regular employment Live in houses with several rooms and with water and electricity Likely to use clinics Able to invest to improve their living conditions Vulnerable to slippage

Tuk-tuk drivers Construction labourers Market vendors

Just managing

gt400000 kip (US$53+)

Regular employment Lack permanent assets Children educated to primary level and further Solid houses with services Able to save small amounts

Low level government workers Small shop owners Traders and vendors

Note Exchange rate at prevailing rate of exchange US$1=7500 kip Source Adapted from ADB (2001d17ndash19)

Figure A41a Incidence of poverty in Laos (1990ndash2005)

Source World Bank 2003b45 World Bank 200447

Appendix IV 192

Figure A41b Number of poor in Laos (1990ndash2005)

Table A42 Inequality Laos and its Asian neighbours

Country Gini index Date of survey

Laos 034 038

199293 199798

Asian neighbours

Indonesia Vietnam Malaysia Cambodia Philippines

030 036 044 045 046

2000 1998 1999 1997 2000

Appendix IV 193

Thailand 051 2002

Transition economies

Czech Republic Hungary Poland Russia Georgia Armenia

020 032 033 048 057 065

1996 1996 1996 1996 1996 1996

Sources Rigg (2003106) Lao PDR (2000b) httpwwwadborgDocumentsBooksKey_Indicators2003pdfrt01pdf World Bank (2003a4) Aghion and Commander (1999)

Figure A42 Growth rate in level of poverty (1992ndash1993 to 1997ndash1998)

Source Extracted from Lao PDR (nd 6)

Appendix IV 194

Figure A43 Representation by gender in the Lao government (1999)

Source Data extracted from UNDP (200222)

Appendix IV 195

Appendix 5 Table A51 Deagrarianisation in Southeast Asia the results of village studies

Location Date of survey

Household income from farming and agriculture ()

Household heads whose primary occupation is farming

Source

Lan Laem Nakhon Pathom Thailand

1979 ndash 22 full-time agriculture 31 part-time agriculture

Atsushi Kitahara 2003

Santa Lucia Philippines

1984 ndash 35 Banzon Bautista 1989

Tirto Central Java

1985 ndash 16 Maurer 1991

Timbul Central Java

Wukir Central Java

Argo Central Java

Paya Keladi Kedah Malaysia

1986 32 De Koninck 1992

San Jose Palawan Philippines

1988 ndash 23 (farming only) Eder 1999

East Laguna Philippines

1996 64 ndash Hayami and Kikuchi 2000

1998 30 ndash Hayami et al 1998

Suphanburi Central Plains Thailand

1998ndash2000

55 Molle et al 2001

Ayutthaya Central Plains Thailand

1998ndash2000

34 ndash Molle et al 2001

Lopburi Central Plains Thailand

1998ndash2000

70 Molle et al 2001

Figure A51 Persistent poverty estimates rural South India (19751976 to 19831984)

Source Data extracted from Gaiha and Deolalikar (1993418)

Appendix V 197

Bibliography

Adams Richard H Jr (2002) lsquoNonfarm income inequality and land in rural Egyptrsquo Economic Development and Cultural Change 50(2)339ndash363

ADB (1996) Women in Development Lao PDR Country Briefing Paper Manila ADB ADB (1998) lsquoLao PDR agriculture strategy study (working papers 2) improving the peformance of

agricultural systems in the Lao PDRrsquo Winrock InternationalLao Montgomery Watson Vientiane (October) Unpublished document

ADB (1999a) lsquoEvaluation studies in the Bankrsquos developing member countries Lao poverty reduction evaluationrsquo Vientiane (August)

ADB (1999b) lsquoRural access roads improvement project feasibility studyrsquo final report (volume 1) Intercontinental Consultants amp Technocrats Pvt Ltd India

ADB (2000a) lsquoLaos primary health care expansion project social analysisrsquo (author Alain Noel for Coffey MPW Pty Ltd) Vientiane (March) Unpublished document

ADB (2000b) lsquoHealth and education needs of ethnic minorities in the Greater Mekong sub-regionrsquo ADB report TA No 5794-REG Vientiane (August) Unpublished report

ADB (2000c) lsquoRural access roads improvement project environmental impact assessment reportrsquo Pacific Consultants International for the ADB (July)

ADB (2000d) lsquoPoverty reduction and environmental management in remote Greater Mekong Subregion watersheds phase II draft final report (volume 1)rsquo ADB Manila (December)

ADB (2000e) lsquoEffectiveness of ADB approaches and assistance to poverty reductionrsquo Operations Evaluation Office ADB Manila

ADB (2001a) lsquoParticipatory Poverty Assessment Lao PDRrsquo ADB Vientiane (June) Unpublished doument

ADB (2001b) Participatory Poverty Assessment Lao Peoplersquos Democratic Republic Manila ADB (December)

ADB (2001c) lsquoSecond education quality improvement project final reportrsquo Canadian Higher Education Group for the ADB (March)

ADB (2001d) lsquoPoverty in Vientiane a participatory poverty assessment (final report)rsquo Vientiane Urban Infrastructure and Services ADB and the Vientiane Urban Development and Administration Authority (January)

ADB (2001e) Transport Sector Development A Medium-term Strategy for the Lao Peoplersquos Democratic Republic Manila ADB

ADB (2003) Key Indicators 2003 Education for Global Participation Manila ADB Aghion Philippe and Commander Simon (1999) lsquoOn the dynamics of inequality in transitionrsquo

Economics of Transition 7(2)275ndash298 Alexander Jennifer and Alexander Paul (1982) lsquoShared poverty as ideology agrarian relationships

in colonial Javarsquo Man 17(4)597ndash619 Ali Ifzal and Pernia Ernesto M (2003) lsquoInfrastructure and poverty reduction what is the

connectionrsquo Economics and Research Department Policy Brief No 13 ADB Manila Philippines (January)

ARTEP (1973) lsquoTransition and development employment and income generation in Laosrsquo Report on a mission to Laos by the Asian Regional Team for Employment Generation

Atsushi Kitahara (2003) lsquoLan Laem from 1980 to 1996 profile of a rice growing village in Nakhon Pathom provincersquo in Franccedilois Molle and Thippawal Srijantr (eds) Thailandrsquos Rice Bowl

Perspectives on Agricultural and Social Change in the Chao Phraya Delta Bangkok White Lotus Press pp 267ndash286

Bangkok Post (1998) lsquoTurn back to agriculture for results urge social workersrsquo Bangkok Post 24 May

Banzon-Bautista Cynthia (1989) lsquoThe Saudi connection agrarian change in a Pempangan village 1977ndash1984rsquo in Gillian Hart Andrew Turton and Benjamin White (eds) Agrarian Transformations Local Processes and the State in Southeast Asia Berkeley University of California Press pp 144ndash158

Baulch Bob and Hoddinott John (2000) lsquoEconomic mobility and poverty dynamics in developing countriesrsquo Journal of Development Studies 36(6)1ndash24

Bebbington Anthony (2003) lsquoGlobal networks and local developments agendas for development geographyrsquo Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 94(3) 297ndash309

Bechstedt Hans-Dieter (2000) lsquoAnalysis of activities assessment of impact integrated food security programme Muang Singrsquo Ministry of Public Health Vientiane with GTZ and DED [German Development Service]

Blaikie Piers Cameron John and Seddon David (1980) Nepal in Crisis Growth and Stagnation at the Periphery Oxford Clarendon Press

Blaikie Piers Cameron John and Seddon David (2001) Nepal in Crisis Growth and Stagnation at the Periphery New Delhi Adroit Publishers (2nd revedn)

Blaikie Piers Cameron John and Seddon David (2002) lsquoUnderstanding 20 years of change in West-Central Nepal continuity and change in lives and ideasrsquo World Development 30(7) 1255ndash1270

Bounthong Bouahom Linkham Douangsavanh and Rigg Jonathan (2004) lsquoBuilding sustainable livelihoods in the Lao PDR untangling farm and non-farmrsquo Geoforum 35607ndash619

Bowie Katherine A (1992) lsquoUnraveling the myth of the subsistence economy textile production in nineteenth century Northern Thailandrsquo Journal of Asian Studies 51(4) 797ndash823

Breman Jan (1980) The Village on Java and the Early-colonial State Comparative Asian Studies Programme (CASP) Rotterdam Erasmus University

Bryceson Deborah Fahy (1996) lsquoDeagrarianization and rural employment in sub-Saharan Africa a sectoral perspectiversquo World Development 24(1)97ndash111

Bryceson Deborah Fahy (1997a) lsquoDe-agrarianisation in sub-Saharan Africa acknowledging the inevitablersquo in Deborah Fahy Bryceson and Vali Jamal (eds) Farewell to Farms Deagrarianisation and Employment in Africa Research series 199710 African Studies Centre Leiden Aldershot Ashgate

Bryceson Deborah Fahy (1997b) lsquoDe-agrarianisation blessing or blightrsquo in Deborah Fahy Bryceson and Vali Jamal (eds) Farewell to Farms Deagrarianisation and Employment in Africa Research series 199710 African Studies Centre Leiden Aldershot Ashgate pp 237ndash256

Bryceson Deborah Fahy (2002) lsquoThe scramble in Africa reorienting rural livelihoodsrsquo World Development 30(5)725ndash739

Buch-Hansen Mogens (2003) lsquoThe territorialisation of rural Thailand between localism nationalism and globalismrsquo Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 94(3)322ndash334

Buergin Reiner (2000) lsquoldquoHill tribesrdquo and forests minority policies and resource conflicts in Thailandrsquo Working Group on Socio-economics of Forest Use in the Tropics and Subtropics (SEFUT) working paper no 7 Freiburg University

Bush Simon R (2004) lsquoScales and sales changing social and spatial fish trading networks in the Siiphandone fishery Lao PDRrsquo Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 25(1)32ndash50

CARE (1996) lsquoNam Theun 2 socio-economic and cultural surveyrsquo executive summary Vientiane Care International (November)

Carey Peter (1986) lsquoWaiting for the ldquoJust Kingrdquo the agrarian world of south-central Java from Giyanti (1755) to the Java War (1825ndash1830)rsquo Modern Asian Studies 20(1)59ndash137

Bibliography 199

Cederroth Sven (1995) Survival and Profit in Rural Java The Case of an East Javanese Village Richmond Surrey Curzon Press

Cederroth Sven and Gerdin Ingela (1986) lsquoCultivating poverty the case of the Green Revolution in Lombokrsquo in INoslashrlund SCederroth and IGerdin (eds) Rice Societies Asian Problems and Prospects Scandanavian Institute of Asian Studies London Curzon Press pp 124ndash150

Chamberlain James R and Phanh Phomsombath (2002) lsquoPoverty alleviation for all potentials and options for peoples in the uplandsrsquo SIDA Vientiane (1 September) Unpublished document

Chamberlain James R Alton Charles and Crisfield Arthur G (1995) lsquoIndigenous peoples profile Lao Peoplersquos Democratic Republicrsquo CARE International Vientiane (prepared for the World Bank) (December)

Chamberlain James R Alton Charles and Latsamay Silavong (1996) lsquoSocio-economic and cultural survey Nam Theun 2 Project area (Part II)rsquo CARE International Vientiane (30 July)

Chambers Robert (1995) lsquoPoverty and livelihoods whose reality countsrsquo Environment and Urbanization 7(1)173ndash204

Chatthip Nartsupha (1999) The Thai Village Economy in the Past trans Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit Chiang Mai Thailand Silkworm Books

Chazee Laurent (1994) lsquoShifting cultivation practices in Laos present systems and their futurersquo in UNDP (ed) lsquoShifting cultivation systems and rural development in the Lao PDRrsquo Report of the Nabong Technical Meeting 14ndash16 July 1993 pp 66ndash97

Cooke Fadzilah Majid (2003) lsquoMaps and counter-maps globalised imaginings and local realities of Sarawakrsquos plantation agriculturersquo Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 34(2)265ndash284

Cowen Michael and Shenton Robert (1996) Doctrines of Development London Routledge Datt G and Wang L (2001) lsquoPoverty in Lao PDR 199293ndash199798rsquo World Bank Washington

DC Unpublished document De Haan Arjan and Maxwell Simon (1998) lsquoPoverty and social exclusion in North and Southrsquo

IDS Bulletin 29(1)1ndash9 De Koninck Rodolphe (1992) Malay Peasants Coping with the World Breaking the Community

Circle Singapore Institute of Southeast Asian Studies De Koninck Rodolphe (2000) lsquoThe theory and practice of frontier development Vietnamrsquos

contributionrsquo Asia Pacific Viewpoint 41(1)7ndash21 Dearden Philip (1995) lsquoDevelopment the environment and social differentiation in Northern

Thailandrsquo in Jonathan Rigg (ed) Counting the Costs Economic Growth and Environmental Change in Thailand Singapore Institute of Southeast Asian Studies pp 111ndash130

DECRG (2002) lsquoThe poverty-environment nexus in Cambodia Lao PDR and Vietnamrsquo (authors Susmita Dasgupta Uwe Deichmann Craig Meisner and David Wheeler) Development Research Group of the World Bank (October)

Denes Alexandra (1998) lsquoExploring the links between foraging and household food security a gender-based study of foraging activities in Salavan provincersquo Australian Embassy Vientiane (April)

Dercon Stefan and Krishnan Pramila (2000) lsquoPoverty and survival strategies in Ethiopia during economic reformrsquo Research Report ESCOR 7280 (December) London Department for International Development

DFID (2000) lsquoMaking markets work better for the poor a framework paperrsquo Economic Policy and Research Department and Business Partnerships Department London Department for International Development (November) Available httpwwwenterprise-impactorgukpdfMakingMarketsWorkpdf (accessed 18 June 2004)

DFID (2003) lsquoInfrastructure and pro-poor growth implications of recent researchrsquo Department for International Development London (March) Available http20621894251DFIDstagePubsfilestsp_governmentpdf (accessed 18 June 2004)

DORAS (1996) lsquoAgricultural and irrigation patterns in the Central Plain of Thailand preliminary analysis and prospects for agricultural research and developmentrsquo ORSTOM Kasetsart University Bangkok

Bibliography 200

DUDCP (2001) lsquoAnthropologist reportrsquo (author Christian Culas) District Upland Development and Conservation Project Khammouane (February)

Eder James E (1999) A Generation Later Household Strategies and Economic Change in the Rural Philippines Honolulu University of Hawaii Press

Ellis Frank (1998) lsquoHousehold strategies and rural livelihood diversificationrsquo Journal of Development Studies 35(1)1ndash38

Escobar Arturo (1995) Encountering Development The Making and Unmaking of the Third World Princeton NJ Princeton University Press

Escobar Arturo (2001) lsquoCulture sits in places reflections on globalism and subaltern strategies of localizationrsquo Political Geography 20139ndash174

Estudillo Jonna P and Otsuka Keijiro (1999) lsquoGreen revolution human capital and off-farm employment changing sources of income among farm households in Central Luzon 1966ndash1994rsquo Economic Development and Cultural Change 47(3) 497ndash523

EU (1997) lsquoMicro-projects Luang Phabang Phase II district level baseline reportrsquo Commission of the European Communities Vientiane (February) Unpublished document

Evans Grant (1995) Lao Peasants under Socialism and Post-Socialism Chiang Mai Thailand Silkworm Books

Evans Grant (1999) lsquoIntroduction what is Lao culture and societyrsquo in Grant Evans (ed) Laos Culture and Society Chiang Mai Thailand Silkworm Books pp 1ndash34

Evans Hugh Emrys (1992) lsquoA virtuous circle model of rural-urban development evidence from a Kenyan small town and its hinterlandrsquo Journal of Development Studies 28(4)640ndash667

Evans Hugh Emrys and Ngau Peter (1991) lsquoRural-urban relations household income diversification and agricultural productivityrsquo Development and Change 22519ndash545

Evrard O (1997) lsquoLuang Namtharsquo in Yves Goudineau (ed) Resettlement and Social Characteristics of New Villages Basic Needs for Resettled Communities in the Lao PDR Vientiane UNDP pp 5ndash46

FAO (1996) lsquoLand regularization policy for sustainable agriculture in the Lao PDRrsquo (final report) Rome (July) (authors PGroppo MAMekouar GDamais and KPhouangphet)

FAO (1997) lsquoShifting cultivation stabilization project interim preparation report (volume II working papers 1ndash8)rsquo Rome Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (December)

Freeman Nick (1996) lsquoFighting the ldquonon-attributable warrdquo in Laos a review articlersquo Contemporary Southeast Asia 17(4)430ndash442

Gaiha Raghav and Deolalikar Anil B (1993) lsquoPersistent expected and innate poverty estimates from semi-arid rural South India 1975ndash1984rsquo Cambridge Journal of Economics 17(4)409ndash421

Gannon C and Liu Z (2000) lsquoTransport infrastructure and servicesrsquo ADB (mimeo) Gibson John and Rozelle Scott (2003) lsquoPoverty and access to roads in Papua New Guinearsquo

Economic Development and Cultural Change 52(1)159ndash185 Gorsuch Joyce (2002) Rice The Fabric of Life in Laos IRRI Los Bantildeos the Philippines Goscha Christopher E (1995) Vietnam or Indochina Contesting Concepts of Space in Vietnamese

Nationalism 1887ndash1954 Nordic Institute of Asian Affairs report series no 28 Copenhagen NIAS Press

Grabowsky Richard (1995) lsquoCommercialization nonagricultural production agricultural innovation and economic developmentrsquo The Journal of Developing Areas 3041ndash62

Grabowsky Volker (1993) lsquoForced resettlement campaigns in Northern Thailand during the early Bangkok periodrsquo paper presented at the Fifth International Conference on Thai Studies School of Oriental and African Studies London (July)

Guinness Patrick (1994) lsquoLocal society and culturersquo in Hal Hill (ed) Indonesiarsquos New Order The Dynamics of Socio-economic Transformation Honolulu University of Hawaii Press pp 267ndash304

Bibliography 201

Gutberlet Jutta (1999) lsquoRural development and social exclusion a case study of sustainability and distributive issues in Brazilrsquo Australian Geographer 30(2) 221ndash237

Haringkangaringrd Agneta (1992) Road 13 A Socio-economic Study of Villagers Transport and Use of Road 13S Lao PDR Stockholm Development Studies Unit Department of Social Anthropology Stockholm University

Hardy Andrew (2003) Red Hills Migrants and the State in the Highlands of Vietnam Copenhagen NIAS Press

Hart Gillian (2001) lsquoDevelopment critiques in the 1990s culs de sac and promising pathsrsquo Progress in Human Geography 25(4)649ndash658

Hayami Y and Hafid A (1979) lsquoRice harvesting and welfare in rural Javarsquo Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 15(2)94ndash112

Hayami Yujiro and Kikuchi Masao (2000) A Rice Village Saga Three Decades of Green Revolution in the Philippines Basingstoke Macmillan

Hayami Yujiro Kikuchi Masao and Marciano Esther B (1998) lsquoStructure of rural-based industrialization metal craft manufacturing on the outskirts of greater Manila the Philippinesrsquo The Developing Economies 36(2)132ndash154

Hentschel Jesko and Waters William F (2002) lsquoRural poverty in Ecuador assessing local realities for the development of anti-poverty programsrsquo World Development 30(1)33ndash47

Hewison Kevin (1999) Localism in Thailand A Study of Globalisation and its Discontents CSGR working paper no 3999 Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation (httpwwwcsgrorg) University of Warwick

Hewison Kevin (2001) lsquoNationalism populism dependency Southeast Asia and responses to the Asian crisisrsquo Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 22(3) 219ndash236

High Holly (2004) lsquoldquoBlackrdquo skin and ldquowhiterdquo skin riches and beauty in Lao womenrsquos bodiesrsquo Thai Yunnan Project Bulletin 6(June)7ndash9

Hirsch Philip (1989) lsquoThe state in the village interpreting rural development in Thailandrsquo Development and Change 20(1)35ndash56

Hulme David (2003) lsquoChronic poverty and development policy an introductionrsquo World Development 31(3)399ndash402

Hulme David and Shepherd Andrew (2003) lsquoConceptualizing chronic povertyrsquo World Development 31(3)403ndash423

Hy Van Luong and Unger Jonathan (1998) lsquoWealth power and poverty in the transition to market economies the process of socio-economic differentiation in rural China and northern Vietnamrsquo The China Journal 4061ndash93

IAG (2001) lsquoThird report of the International Advisory Group on the World Bankrsquos handling of social and environmental issues in the proposed Nam Theun 2 hydrpower project in Lao PDRrsquo International Advisory Group Vientiane (6 April)

IDRC (2000) lsquoPromoting a community-based approach to watershed resource conflicts in Laosrsquo Available wwwidrccareportsread_article_englishcfmarticle_num=626 (accessed 18 June 2004)

ILO (1997) lsquoSocio-economic survey on short-term impact on rural roads constructionrsquo Employment intensive rural roads construction and maintenance project (April-June) (consultant Johanson Ulf AG)

ILO (2000) lsquoPolicy study on ethnic minority issues in rural development (Project to Promote ILO Policy on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples)rsquo International Labour Office Geneva (February) Unpublished document

IMFIDA (2001) lsquoAssessment of the interim poverty reduction strategy paper [I-PRSP] Lao PDR (draft March 2001)rsquo International Monetary Fund and International Development Association

Instone Lesley (2003) Shaking the Ground of Shifting Cultivation Or Why (do) we Need Alternatives to Slash-and-burn Resource Management in Asia-Pacific working paper no 43 Canberra Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies Australian National University

Bibliography 202

Inthasone Phetsiriseng (2001) lsquoPreliminary assessment on trafficking of children and women for labour exploitation in Lao PDRrsquo ILOmdashIPEC International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour in collaboration with the Mekong Sub-regional Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women Vientiane Lao PDR

Ireson Carol J (1992) lsquoChanges in field forest and family rural womenrsquos work and status in post-revolutionary Laosrsquo Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 24(4)3ndash18

Isager Lotte and Ivarsson Soslashren (2002) lsquoContesting landscapes in Thailand tree ordination as counter-territorializationrsquo Critical Asian Studies 34(3)395ndash417

Ivarsson Soslashren (1999) lsquoTowards a new Laos Lao Nhay and the campaign for a national ldquoRe-awakeningrdquo in Laos 1941ndash45rsquo in Grant Evans (ed) Lao Culture and Society Chiang Mai Silkworm Books pp 61ndash78

Jalan Jyotsa and Ravallion Martin (2000) lsquoIs transient poverty different Evidence from Chinarsquo Journal of Development Studies 36(6)82ndash99

Jamieson Neil L Le Trong Cuc and Rambo ATerry (1998) The Development Crisis in Vietnamrsquos Mountains East-West Center Special Reports no 6 (November) Honolulu East-West Center

JDS (2002) lsquoMigrant workers and their role in rural changersquo special issue of Journal of Development Studies 38(5)

Jerndal Randi and Rigg Jonathan (1999) lsquoMaking space in Laos constructing a national identity in a forgotten countryrsquo Political Geography 17(7)809ndash831

Jerve Alf Morten (2001) lsquoLaosrsquo in Choices for the Poor Lessons from National Poverty Strategies UNDP (March) pp 277ndash288

JICA (2000) lsquoThe study on small scale agricultural and rural development program along the Mekong River in the Lao Peoplersquos Democratic Republicrsquo main report Sanyu Consultants Inc for the Japanese International Cooperation Agency Unpublished document

Johnson Craig and Forsyth Timothy (2002) lsquoIn the eyes of the state negotiating a ldquorights-based approachrdquo to forest conservation in Thailandrsquo World Development 30(9)1591ndash1605

Kakwani N Bounthavy Sisouphanhtong Phonesaly Souksavath and Dark Brent (2001) lsquoPoverty in Lao PDRrsquo paper presented at the Asia and Pacific Forum on Poverty reforming policies and institutions for poverty reduction Manila 5ndash9 February

Kanbur Ravi (2004) lsquoGrowth inequality and poverty some hard questionsrsquo Cornell University Available httpwwweldisorgcfsearchdispdocdisplaycfmdoc=DOC14827ampresource=f1 (accessed 18 June 2004)

Kato Tsuyoshi (1994) lsquoThe emergence of abandoned paddy fields in Negeri Sembilan Malaysiarsquo Tonan Ajia Kenky (Southeast Asian Studies) 32(2)145ndash172

Kaufmann Silvia (1997) lsquoNutrition and poverty in ethnic minority areas of northern Laos a case study of Khamu and Akha communities in Nalae and Sing districtsrsquo Health and Nutrition Team of IFSP [Integrated Food Security Programme] Muang Sing and Nalae February to May

Kemp Jeremy (1988) Seductive Mirage The Search for the Village Community in Southeast Asia Foris Dordrecht

Kemp Jeremy (1989) lsquoPeasants and cities the cultural and social image of the Thai peasant communityrsquo Sojourn 4(1)6ndash19

Kemp Jeremy (1991) lsquoThe dialectics of village and state in modern Thailandrsquo Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 22(2)312ndash326

Kenyon Susan Lyons Glenn and Rafferty Jackie (2002) lsquoTransport and social exclusion investigating the possibility of promoting inclusion through virtual mobilityrsquo Journal of Transport Geography 10(3)207ndash219

Kerridge PC with Peter J (2002) lsquoTowards sustainable upland livelihoods in Vietnam and Laosrsquo an issue paper prepared for the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) Laos 31 March Unpublished document

Keyes Charles F (2000) lsquoA princess in a Peoplersquos Republic a new phase in the construction of the Lao nationrsquo in Andrew Turton (ed) Civility and Savagery Social Identities in Tai States Richmond Surrey Curzon Press pp 206ndash226

Bibliography 203

Kheungkham Keonuchan (2000) lsquoThe adoption of new agricultural practices in Northern Laos a political ecology of shifting cultivationrsquo Unpublished PhD thesis Department of Geography University of Sydney August

Kirkby Richard and Zhao Xiaobin (1999) lsquoSectoral and structural considerations in Chinarsquos rural developmentrsquo Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 90(3)272ndash284

Knowles James (2002) Comparative Review of 1997ndash98 Lao PDR Poverty Profiles working papers on poverty reduction No 1 National Statistics Center Committee for Planning and Cooperation Vientiane

Koizumi Junko (1992) lsquoThe commutation of Suai from Northeast Siam in the middle of the nineteenth centuryrsquo Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 23(2)276ndash307

Kunstadter Peter (2000) lsquoChanging patterns of economics among Hmong in Northern Thailand 1960ndash1990rsquo in Jean Michaud (ed) Turbulent Times and Enduring Peoples Mountain Minorities in the South-East Asian Massif Richmond Surrey Curzon Press pp 167ndash192

Lao PDR (1996) lsquoCountry paper on food securityrsquo presented to the World Food Summit in Rome 13ndash17 November Vientiane Laos

Lao PDR (1998) lsquoThe rural development programme 1998ndash2002 the ldquofocal siterdquo strategyrsquo Sixth Round Table Follow-up meeting Vientiane (13 May)

Lao PDR (1999) lsquoThe governmentrsquos strategic vision for the agricultural sectorrsquo Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Vientiane (December) Unpublished document

Lao PDR (2000a) lsquoFighting poverty through human resource development rural development and peoplersquos participationrsquo Government Report to the Seventh Round Table Meeting Vientiane (21ndash23 November) Unpublished document

Lao PDR (2000b) lsquoStrategic directions for the development of the road sectorrsquo preparatory round table meeting Vientiane (June) Unpublished document

Lao PDR (2000c) lsquoOudomxay province environmental inventoryrsquo prepared by the Ministry of Communication Post and Construction and the IUCN with assistance from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (March)

Lao PDR (2000d) lsquoRoad infrastructure for rural development final reportrsquo Ministry of Communication Transport Post and Construction Vientiane (April)

Lao PDR (2000e) lsquoAn analysis of poverty in Lao PDRrsquo prepared by the National Statistics Center for the United Nations World Food Programme Vientiane (August)

Lao PDR (2000f) Louang Prabang province environmental inventory prepared by the Ministry of Communication Post and Construction and the IUCN with assistance from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (March) Unpublished report

Lao PDR (2000g) Lao Agricultural Census 199899 Highlights Steering Committee for Agricultural Census Agricultural Census Office Vientiane (February)

Lao PDR (2001a) lsquoAction plan for the development of the Lao PDR 2001ndash2010rsquo Third United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries Brussels (14ndash20 May) Unpublished document

Lao PDR (2001b) lsquoInterim poverty reduction strategy paper a government paper prepared for the Board of Directors of the IMF and the World Bankrsquo Vientiane (8 March) Unpublished document

Lao PDR (2001c) lsquoTrafficking in women and children in the Lao PDR initial observationsrsquo Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare Vientiane

Lao PDR (2001d) lsquoStrategies for Lao PDR socio-economic development from now to the year 2020 2010 and for the fifth five-year socio-economic development planrsquo Vientiane Laos (March draft translation)

Lao PDR (2001e) lsquoFive-Year Socio-Economic Development Plan (2001ndash2005)rsquo Vientiane Lao PDR (March) (mimeo)

Lao PDR (2002) lsquoReport on the roundtable process information meetingrsquo National Steering Committee of the Roundtable Process Vientiane (1 November) Unpublished document

Bibliography 204

Lao PDR (2003) lsquoPoverty-focused agricultural development planrsquo Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Vientiane (draft final January) Unpublished report

Lao PDR (nd) lsquoPoverty in the Lao PDR participatory and statistical analysesrsquo State Planning Committee and the ADB Vientiane Unpublished report

Lao PDREU (1999) lsquoPhongsaly Project forest conservation and rural development overall workplanrsquo Lao PDR and Commission of the European Communities Vientiane (July)

Lao Womenrsquos Union (2000) lsquoMarriage and family in the Lao PDR the pilot survey on the situation of Lao womenrsquo (Vientiane municipality Sayaboury Xieng Khouang Savannakhet)rsquo Lao Womenrsquos Union Vientiane (July)

Leinbach TR (2000) lsquoMobility in development context changing perspectives new interpretations and the real issuesrsquo Journal of Transport Geography 8(1)1ndash9

Lemoine Jacques (2002) lsquoWealth and poverty a case study of the Kim Di Mun (Lantegravene Yao Lao Houay) of the Nam Ma Valley Meuang Long District Louang Namtha Lao PDRrsquo Working papers on poverty reduction no 10 Committee for Planning and Cooperation National Statistics Center Vientiane (December)

Lestrelin Guillaume Giordano Mark and Bounmy Keohavong (2005) When Conservation Leads to Land Degradation Lessons from Ban Lak Sip Laos IMWI Research Report 91 Colombo Sri Lanka International Water Management Institute

Li Tania Murray (2001) lsquoEngaging simplifications community-based resource management market processes and state agendas in upland Southeast Asiarsquo World Development 30(2) 265ndash283

Liljestroumlm Rita Lindskog Eva Nguyen Van Ang and Vuong Xuan Tinh (1998) Profit and Poverty in Rural Vietnam Winners and Losers of a Dismantled Revolution Richmond Surrey Curzon Press

Lopez Humberto (2004) lsquoPro growth pro poor is there a trade offrsquo PREM Poverty Group World Bank Washington DC (draft) Available httpwwweldisorg cfsearchdispdocdisplaycfmdoc=DOC14738ampresource=f1 (accessed 18 June 2004)

Manich ML (1967) History of Laos Bangkok Chalermnit Marques Sandra and Delgado-Cravidatildeo Fernanda (2001) lsquoThe ldquooldrdquo and ldquonewrdquo forms of

inequality the case of Portugalrsquo in Heikki Jussila Roser Majoral and Fernanda Delgado-Cravidatildeo (ed) Globalization and Marginality in Geographical Space Political Economic and Social Issues of Development in the New Millennium Aldershot Ashgate pp 193ndash204

Mason Andrew D (1996) lsquoTargeting the poor in rural Javarsquo IDS Bulletin 27(1) 67ndash82 Maurer Jean-Luc (1991) lsquoBeyond the sawah economic diversification in four Bantul villages

1972ndash1987rsquo in Paul Alexander Peter Boomgaard and Ben White (eds) In the Shadow of Agriculture Non-farm Activities in the Javanese Economy Past and Present Amsterdam Royal Tropical Institute pp 92ndash112

Mehretu Assefa Mutambirwa Chris and Mutambirwa Jane (2001) lsquoThe plight of women in the margins of rural life in Africa the case of Zimbabwersquo in Heikki Jussila Roser Majoral and Fernanda Delgado-Cravidatildeo (eds) Globalization and Marginality in Geographical Space Political Economic and Social Issues of Development in the New Millennium Aldershot Ashgate pp 279ndash293

Mills Mary Beth (1997) lsquoContesting the margins of modernity women migration and consumption in Thailandrsquo American Ethnologist 24(1)37ndash61

Mills Mary Beth (1999) Thai women in the Global Labor Force Consumed Desires Contested Selves New Brunswick Rutgers University Press

MOAC (2000) Agricultural Statistics of Thailand Crop Year 199899 Agricultural statistics no 102000 Bangkok Ministry of Agricultural and Cooperatives

Molle Franccedilois (200320) lsquoKnowledge in the making a brief retrospective of village-level studies in the Chao Phraya Delta during the 20th centuryrsquo in Franccedilois Molle and Thippawal Srijantr (eds) Thailandrsquos Rice Bowl Perspectives on Agricultural and Social Change in the Chao Phraya Delta Bangkok White Lotus Press pp 11ndash35

Bibliography 205

Molle Franccedilois and Thippawal Srijantr (1999) lsquoAgrarian change and the land system in the Chao Phraya Deltarsquo DORAS-DELTA research report no 6 ORSTOM Kasetsart University Bangkok

Molle Franccedilois Thippawal Srijantr Latham Lionel and Phuanggladda Thepstitsilp (2001) lsquoThe impact of the access to irrigation water on the evolution of farming systems a case study of three villages in the Chao Phraya Deltarsquo DORAS-DELTA research report no 11 ORSTOM Kasetsart University Bangkok

Molle Franccedilois Thippawal Srijantr and Latham Lionel (2002) lsquoBalances and imbalances in village economy access to irrigation water and farming systems in the Chao Phraya Deltarsquo paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Thai Studies 9ndash12 January Ramkhamhaeng University Nakhon Phanom Thailand

MSIFSP (1995) lsquoSocio-economic baseline survey April-May 1995rsquo Muang Sing Integrated Food Security Programme Lao-German Cooperation Project Muang Sing Luang Namtha Laos Unpublished document

Narayan Deepa with Raj Patel Kai Schafft Anne Rademacher and Sarah Koch-Schulte (1999) Can Anyone Hear Us Voices from 47 Countries Poverty Group Washington DC World Bank (December) Available httpwwwworldbankorgpovertyvoicesreportshtmcananyone (accessed 18 June 2004)

Neher Clark D (1991) Southeast Asia in the New International Era Boulder CO Westview Press

Neher Clark D and Marlay Ross (1995) Democracy and Development in Southeast Asia Boulder CO Westview Press

NTEC (1997) lsquoNam Theun 2 Hydroelectric Project resettlement action plan (draft)rsquo Nam Theun 2 Electricity Consortium (NTEC) Vientiane (May)

NUOL (1999) lsquoAssessment of road development impacts on landuse in the Nam Mat Watershed Lao PDRrsquo final report National University of Laos Vientiane

Okidi John A and McKay Andrew (2003) lsquoPoverty dynamics in Uganda 1992ndash2000rsquo CPRC working paper no 27 Chronic Poverty Research Centre IDPM University of Manchester (May)

Ovesen Jan (2002) lsquoIndigenous peoples and development in Laos ideologies and ironiesrsquo Moussons 6(December)69ndash97

Pandey Sushil and Montry Sanamongkhoun (1998) lsquoRainfed lowland rice in Laos a socio-economic benchmark studyrsquo Social Sciences Division International Rice Research Institute Manila Unpublished document

Parish William L Xiaoye Zhe and Fang Li (1995) lsquoNonfarm work and marketization of the Chinese countrysidersquo The China Quarterly 143697ndash730

Parnwell Michael JG (1990) lsquoRural industrialisation in Thailandrsquo Hull Paper in Developing Area Studies no 1 Centre of Developing Area Studies University of Hull

Parnwell Michael JG (1992) lsquoConfronting uneven development in Thailand the potential role of rural industriesrsquo Malaysian Journal of Tropical Geography 22(1)51ndash62

Parnwell Michael JG (1993) lsquoTourism handicrafts and development in North-East Thailandrsquo paper presented at the Fifth International Thai Studies Conference SOAS London July

Parnwell Michael JG (1994) lsquoRural industrialisation and sustainable development in Thailandrsquo Thai Environment Institute Quarterly Environment Journal 1(2)24ndash39

Pasuk Phongpaichit and Baker Christopher (2000) Thailandrsquos Crisis Singapore Institute of Southeast Asian Studies

Peluso Nancy Lee (1995) lsquoWhose woods are these Counter-mapping forest territories in Kalimantan Indonesiarsquo Antipode 27(4)383ndash406

Pheng Souvan thong (1995) Shifting Cultivation in the Lao PDR An Overview of Land Use and Policy Initiatives IIED Forestry and Land Use Series no 5 London International Institute for Environment and Development

Bibliography 206

Popkin Samuel L (1979) The Rational Peasant The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam Berkeley University of California Press

Porter Gina (2002) lsquoLiving in a walking world rural mobility and social equity issues in sub-Saharan Africarsquo World Development 30(2)285ndash300

Raintree John (2003) lsquoSocial perspective on food security in the uplands of northern Laosrsquo Socioeconomics Unit National Agriculture and Forestry Research Centre Vientiane (February)

Rambo ATerry (1995) lsquoDefining highland development challenges in Vietnam some themes and issues emerging from the conferencersquo in ATerry Rambo Robert RReed Le Trong Cuc and Michael RDiGregorio (eds) The Challenges of Highland Development in Vietnam Honolulu Hawaii East-West Center pp xindashxxvii

Ravallion Martin (2001) lsquoGrowth inequality and poverty looking beyond averagesrsquo World Development 29(11)1803ndash1815

Reed David and Rosa Herman (nd [1999]) lsquoEconomic reforms globalization poverty and the environmentrsquo httpwwwundporgseedpeipublicationeconomichtml

Reid Anthony (1988) Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450ndash1680 The Lands Below the Winds (Vol 1) New Haven CT Yale University Press

Reid Anthony (1993) Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce 1450ndash1680 Expansion and Crisis (Vol 2) New Haven CT Yale University Press

Reynolds Craig (2001) lsquoGlobalizers vs communitarians public intellectuals debate Thailandrsquos futuresrsquo Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 22(3)252ndash269

Rigg Jonathan (1994) lsquoRedefining the village and rural life lessons from South East Asiarsquo Geographical Journal 160(2)123ndashlsquo35

Rigg Jonathan (2001) More Than the Soil Rural Change in Southeast Asia Harlow Essex Pearson

Rigg Jonathan (2002) lsquoRoads marketisation and social exclusion what do roads do to peoplersquo Bijdragen tot de taal- land- en volkenkunde (Journal of the Humanties and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia and Oceania) pp 619ndash636

Rigg Jonathan (2003) Southeast Asia The Human Landscape of Modernization and Development London Routledge

Rigg Jonathan and Sakunee Nattapoolwat (2001) lsquoEmbracing the global in Thailand activism and pragmatism in an era of de-agrarianisationrsquo World Development 29(6)945ndash960

Rigg Jonathan and Ritchie Mark (2002) lsquoProduction consumption and imagination in rural Thailandrsquo Journal of Rural Studies 18(4)359ndash371

Rigg Jonathan Bounthong Bouahom and Linkham Douangsavanh (2004) lsquoMoney morals and markets evolving rural labour markets in Thailand and the Lao PDRrsquo Environment and Planning A 36(6) (June) pp 983ndash998

Roder W (1997) lsquoSlash-and-burn rice systems in transition challenges for agricultural development in the hills of Northern Laosrsquo Mountain Research and Development 17(1)1ndash10

Room Graham (1995) lsquoPoverty and social exclusion the new European agenda for policy and researchrsquo in Graham Room (ed) Beyond the Threshold The Measurement and Analysis of Social Exclusion Bristol The Policy Press pp 1ndash9

Roth Robin (2004) lsquoOn the colonial margins and in the global hotspot park-people conflicts in highland Thailandrsquo Asia Pacific Viewpoint 45(1)13ndash32

RTI (2000) lsquoLao PDR country report a study on the health and education needs of ethnic minoritiesrsquo Research Triangle Institute Available httpwwwrtiorgmekongreport_detailscfm (accessed 18 June 2004)

RTM (2000) lsquoReport of the 7th Round Table Meeting for the Lao PDRrsquo National Steering Committee of the Round Table Process 2000ndash2002 Vientiane (21ndash23 November)

Samers Michael (1998) lsquoImmigration ldquoethnic minoritiesrdquo and ldquosocial exclusionrdquo in the European Union a critical perspectiversquo Geoforum 29(2)123ndash144

Save the Children (2001) lsquoCommunity-based initiatives against trafficking in the Mekong region border areasrsquo Save the Children UK Vientiane (June)

Bibliography 207

SCA (1994) lsquoIntegrated village development projectmdashPhase I project completion reportrsquo Sayabouri province Vientiane (August)

Schenk-Sandbergen Loes and Outhaki Choulamany-Khamphoui (1995) Women in Rice Fields and Offices Irrigation in Laos Heiloo The Netherlands Empowerment

Schiller JM Somvang Phanthavong Viangsay Sipaphone Sithouane Sidavong and Erguiza A (2000) lsquoFarming systems research in the rainfed lowland environmentrsquo National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute Vientiane (April)

Schweizer Thomas (1987) lsquoAgrarian transformation Rice production in a Javanese villagersquo Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 23(2)38ndash70

Scott James C (1976) The Moral Economy of the Peasant Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia New Haven CT and London Yale University Press

Scott James C (1998) Seeing Like a State How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed New Haven CT and London Yale University Press

Sen Binayak (2003) lsquoDrivers of escape and descent changing household fortunes in rural Bangladeshrsquo World Development 31(3)513ndash534

Shamsul AB (1989) lsquoVillage the imposed social construct in Malaysiarsquos developmental initiativesrsquo Working paper no 115 Sociology of Development Research Centre University of Bielefeld

Shoemaker Bruce Baird Ian G and Baird Monsiri (2001) lsquoThe people and their river a survey of river-based livelihoods in the Xe Bang Fai River basin in Central Lao PDRrsquo Vientiane (November) Unpublished document

Sikor Thomas (2001) lsquoAgrarian differentiation in post-socialist societies evidence from three upland villages in north-western Vietnamrsquo Development and Change 32923ndash949

Singhanetra-Renard Anchalee (1999) lsquoPopulation mobility and the transformation of the village community in Northern Thailandrsquo Asia Pacific Viewpoint 40(1)69ndash87

Smyth Russell (1998) lsquoRecent developments in rural enterprise reform in China achievements problems and prospectsrsquo Asian Survey 38(8)784ndash800

Sommers Lawrence M Assefa Mehretu and Pigozzi Bruce WM (2001) lsquoGlobalization and economic marginalization North-South differencesrsquo in Heikki Jussila Roser Majoral and Fernanda Delgado-Cravidatildeo (eds) Globalization and Marginality in Geographical Space Political Economic and Social Issues of Development in the New Millennium Aldershot Ashgate pp 24ndash36

Sparkes Stephen (1998) lsquoPublic consultation and participation on the Nakai Plateau (April-May 1998)rsquo Nam Theun 2 Electricity Consortium Vientiane (July) Unpublished document

Standing Guy (2000) lsquoBrave new worlds A critique of Stiglitzrsquos World Bank rethinkrsquo Development and Change 31737ndash763

Steinberg David Joel with Chandler DP Roff WR Smail JRW Taylor RH Woodside A and Wyatt DK (1985) In Dearch of Southeast Asia A Modern History Sydney Allen amp Unwin

Stuart-Fox Martin (1996) Buddhist Kingdom Marxist State The Making of Modern Laos Bangkok White Lotus

Sunshine Russell B (1995) Managing Foreign Investment Lessons from Laos Honolulu Hawaii East-West Center

Terwiel BJ (2004) lsquoThe physical transformation of the Central Thai region in the early-modern timesrsquo paper presented at the NIAS workshop lsquoThe wealth of nature how natural resources have shaped Asian history 1600ndash2000rsquo The Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences Wassenaar (24ndash25 May)

Thalemann Andrea (1997) lsquoLaos between battlefield and marketplacersquo Journal of Contemporary Asia 27(1)85ndash105

Thayer Carlyle A (1995) lsquoMono-organizational socialism and the statersquo in Benedict JTria Kerkvliet and Doug JPorter (eds) Vietnamrsquos Rural Transformation Boulder CO Westview Press and Singapore Institute of Southeast Asian Studies pp 39ndash64

Bibliography 208

Timmer CPeter (2004) lsquoThe road to pro-poor growth the Indonesian experience in regional perspectiversquo Working paper no 38 (April) Center for Global Development (CGDEV) USA

Tomforde Maren (2003) lsquoThe global in the local contested resource-use systems of the Karen and the Hmong in Northern Thailandrsquo Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 34(2)347ndash360

Trankell Ing-Britt (1993) lsquoOn the road in Laos an anthropological study of road construction and rural communitiesrsquo Uppsala Research Reports in Cultural Anthropology no 12 Uppsala University

UNCHS (1996) lsquoUrban indicators review national report for Habitat IIrsquo Joint programme for the United Nations Centre for Human Settlement and the World Bank Vientiane (February)

UNDCP (1999) lsquoA balanced approach to opium elimination in Lao PDRrsquo United Nations International Drug Control Programme (October)

UNDP (1986) lsquoMuong Horn Integrated Rural Development Project irrigated rice schemesrsquo (consultant Frank van der Kallen) Vientiane (May)

UNDP (1988) lsquoSocio-economic survey on the urban area of Vientiane prefecturersquo Project UNDP-UNCHS Urban Development Programme in the Prefecture of Vientiane (September)

UNDP (1990) Development Co-operation Lao Peoplersquos Democratic Republic United Nations Development Programme Vientiane Laos

UNDP (1991) lsquoA consultantrsquos report socio-economic analysis of the Lao89550 Highland Integrated Rural Development Projectrsquo Vientiane (May) Consultant Jenna ELuche

UNDP (1995) lsquoPoverty elimination in Viet Namrsquo Hanoi (October) UNDP (1996a) lsquoSocio-economic profile of Sayaboury provincersquo Lao PDR province profile series

no 2 United Nations Development Programme Vientiane (November) UNDP (1996b) lsquoAccessibility rural roads and sustainable rural developmentrsquo Background paper

for the road sector donor coordination meeting Vientiane (6ndash7 February) UNDP (1997a) lsquoBasic needs for resettled communities in the Lao PDR main reportrsquo (Vol 1)

United National Development Programme Vientiane (June) UNDP (1997b) lsquoBasic needs for resettled communities in the Lao PDR provincial surveysrsquo (Vol

2) United National Development Programme Vientiane (June) UNDP (1997c) lsquoGrowth with equity in the sustainable development of the Lao Peoplersquos

Democratic Republicrsquo Discussion paper presented by the United Nations in Geneva of the Sixth Round Table Meeting held in Vientiane (19ndash20 June)

UNDP (2000) Sekong indigenous peoplersquos development programme inception report and extended programme strategy (author Jacquelyn Chagnon) Vientiane (January)

UNDP (2002) National Human Development Report Lao PDR 2001mdashAdvancing Rural Development Vientiane Laos

UNDPNORAD (1997) lsquoEthnic communitiesrsquo rural community development project (participatory planning and development targeting the provincial administration and the eastern upland districts of Sekong Province)rsquo UNDP-NORAD Vientiane (24 November draft)

UNEP (2001) State of the Environment 2001 Lao PDR Bangkok United Nations Environment Programme

UNESCOUNDP (1997) lsquoBasic needs for resettled communities in the Lao PDR resettlement and new village characteristics in six provinces volume I (main report)rsquo Vientiane (June)

Van de Walle Dominique (1996) Infrastructure and Poverty in Viet Nam LSMS Working Paper no 121 Washington DC World Bank

Van de Walle Dominique (2000) lsquoComments on the Lao PDR poverty analysisrsquo Unpublished paper

Van de Walle Dominique (2002) lsquoChoosing rural road investments to help reduce povertyrsquo World Development 30(4)575ndash589

Vandergeest Peter (1991) lsquoGifts and rights cautionary notes on community self-help in Thailandrsquo Development and Change 22421ndash443

Vandergeest Peter (1996) lsquoMapping nature territorialization of forest rights in Thailandrsquo Society and Natural Resources 9159ndash175

Bibliography 209

Vandergeest Peter (2003) lsquoLand to some tillers development-induced displacement in Laosrsquo International Social Science Journal 175 (March) 47ndash56

Vandergeest Peter and Peluso Nancy Lee (1995) lsquoTerritorialization and state power in Thailandrsquo Theory and Society 24(3) 385ndash426

Vatthana Pholsena (2002) lsquoNationrepresentation ethnic classification and mapping nationhood in contemporary Laosrsquo Asian Ethnicity 3(2) 175ndash197

Vientiane Times (2003) lsquoPoor districts can learn rich lessons from their border neighboursrsquo Vientiane Times 28ndash31 March p 11

Wadley Reed L (2003) lsquoZLines in the forest internal territorialization and local accommodation in West Kalimantan Indonesia (1865ndash1979)rsquo South East Asia Research 11(1) 91ndash112

Walker Andew (1999a) The Legend of the Golden Boat Regulation Trade and Traders in the Borderlands of Laos Thailand China and Burma Richmond Surrey Curzon Press

Walker Andrew (1999b) lsquoWomen space and history long-distance trading in northwestern Laosrsquo in Grant Evans (ed) Laos Culture and Society Chiang Mai Thailand Silkworm Books pp 79ndash99

Walker Andrew (2001) lsquoThe ldquoKaren consensusrdquo ethnic politics and resource-use legitimacy in northern Thailandrsquo Asian Ethnicity 2(2)145ndash162

Wang Mark YL (1997) lsquoThe disappearing rural-urban boundary rural transformation in the Shenyang-Dalian region of Chinarsquo Third World Planning Review 19(3)229ndash250

Weixing Chen (1998) lsquoThe political economy of rural industrialization in China village conglomerates in Shandong provincersquo Modern China 24(1)73ndash96

White Ben (1991) lsquoEconomic diversification and agrarian change in rural Java 1900ndash1990rsquo in Paul Alexander Peter Boomgaard and Ben White (eds) In the Shadow of Agriculture Non-farm Activities in the Javanese Economy Past and Present Amsterdam Royal Tropical Institute pp 41ndash69

Wille Christina (2001) lsquoTrafficking in children into the worst forms of child labour a rapid assessmentrsquo International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) International Labour Organization Geneva (November)

Wilson Caroline (2004)lsquoUnderstanding the Dynamics of Socio-economic Mobility Tales from Two Indian Villagesrsquo Working paper no 236 London Overseas Development Institute

Wilson Fiona (2004) lsquoTowards a political economy of roads experiences from Perursquo Development and Change 35(3)525ndash546

Windle J and Cramb RA (1999) lsquoRoads remoteness and rural development social impacts of rural roads in upland areas of Sarawak Malaysiarsquo in Victor TKing (ed) Rural Development and Social Science Research Case Studies from Borneo Phillips ME Borneo Research Council Inc pp 215ndash250

Wolf Diane Lauren (1990) lsquoDaughters decisions and domination an empirical and conceptual critique of household strategiesrsquo Development and Change 2143ndash74

Wolf Diane Lauren (1992) Factory Daughters Gender Household Dynamics and Rural Industrialization in Java Berkeley University of California Press

World Bank (1996) World Development Report 1996 From Plan to Market New York Oxford University Press

World Bank (1997) lsquoLao PDR sector memorandum priorities for rural infrastructure developmentrsquo report no 16047-LA (25 February) Unpublished document

World Bank (1999a) lsquoEffects of the Asian crisis on the Lao PDR a preliminary assessmentrsquo Poverty Reduction and Economic Management East Asia and Pacific Region (25 February) Unpublished document

World Bank (1999b) lsquoLao Peoplersquos Democratic Republic proposed agricultural development projectrsquo World Bank identification mission (SeptemberOctober aide-meacutemoire)

World Bank (2001a) lsquoLao PDR production forestry policymdashstatus and issues for dialoguersquo vol 1 (main report) Vientiane (June)

Bibliography 210

World Bank (2001b) World Development Report 20002001 Attacking Poverty Oxford Oxford University Press for the World Bank

World Bank (2002) Lao PDR Public Expenditure Review and Country Financial Accountability Assessment Joint Report of the World Bank IMF and ADB (28 June) Washington DC World Bank (Report no 24443-LA)

World Bank (2003a) Thailand Economic Monitor Bangkok World Bank (May) Available httpwwwworldbankorth (accessed 18 June 2004)

World Bank (2003b) lsquoFrom cyclical recovery to long run growth regional overviewrsquo East Asia Update World Bank East Asia and Pacific Region (October) Available httplnweb18worldbankorgeapeapnsfAttachmentsEAP+Regional+Overview$FileEAP+Regional+Overview+Oct+2003+10ndash14ndash03-finalpdf (accessed 18 June 2004)

World Bank (2004) lsquoStrong fundamentals to the fore regional overviewrsquo East Asia Update The World Bank (April) Available wwwworldbankorth (accessed 18 June 2004)

Wyatt David (1982) Thailand A Short History New Haven CT Yale University Press Yos Santasombat (2003) Biodiversity Local Knowledge and Sustainable Development Chiang

Mai Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development (RCSD)

Bibliography 211

Adams R 189 ADB 19 28 68 71 73ndash4 83ndash4 91 126 131 145 189 Africa 135 183 agency 110 167 183

see also structure and agency Aghion P 83 186 agrarian entrepreneurs 188ndash9 agrarian transitions 12 29 45 150ndash3 177 187 188 agriculture 35 39 54ndash61 71 94ndash5 115 120 129 131 136ndash7 143 150ndash3 157 166 170ndash2 174 175 176 177 183ndash4

see also structure and agency Akha 68 87 89 95 Ali I 126 130 Alton C 113 Anou King 45 50 area-based development 33ndash4 102ndash124 Asean 3 Asia 9 72 81 83 123 142 Asian economic crisis 23 48 assets 86 93 168 170 171 189

Bangladesh 177 Baulch B 162 Bebbington A 2 9 185 Bhumibol King 48 Blaikie P 152ndash3 177 Bokeo 112 Bolikhamxai 26 74 Brazil 13 Bryceson D 151 183ndash4 Buch-Hansen M 108 Buddhism 73 107 109 159 169 Burma 46 47 50 66 Bush S 144

Cambodia 81 capacity 101ndash2 capital 85 133 150 172

see also credit CARE 141 Cederroth S 177 Chamberlain J 29 30 47ndash8 67 72ndash3 82 112 113 114 116 132 139

Chambers R 71 Champassak 26 51 56 62 139 144 155 156 159 Chatthip Nartsupha 48 chin thanakaan mai (see NEM) China 46 47 50 51 95 143 145 151 186 187 189 Chuchai Supawong 48 citizenship 88 civilised civilisation 45 87 colonial era 30 44 Commander S 83 186 commercialisation

(see also modernisation modernity) 103 106 111 126 133 135 136 143 147 152 172 174 communications (media and electronic) 12 128 156ndash7 157 159

see also language communications (roads transport) 13ndash14 15 25ndash6 27 34 36ndash8 46 51 76ndash8 87 91 106 107 113 114 118-19 125ndash32 140 141 143 148 152 181ndash2 183 community 44ndash5 48 85 110 111 113 116ndash7 122 146ndash7 constitution 30 67 94 consumerism 58 141 158 159 160 172 183 Cowan M 185 Cramb R 131 credit 77 80 169 184 189 culture 86 87 110 113 117 136 147 148 157

Dansavanh resort 115 164 166 data 4-8 Datt G 76 77 170ndash1 De Koninck R 135 deagrarianisation 39 151ndash2 183 185 Dearden P 129 debt 164 185 decentralisation 101 Delgado-Cravidatildeo F 14 Denes A 68 138ndash9 140 Deolalikar A 163 depeasantisation 151 dependency 43 44 142 152 182 Dercon S 12 162 163 DFID 126 129 differentiation (see social differentiation) diversification 15 40ndash1 42 120 151 153 154 161 173 174 177 186ndash7 division of labour (see labour and labouring) drugs (see opium) dutiful daughters 166

see also gender

ecology 26 economic growth 22ndash3 24 84 132 150 economic mobility 162ndash3 Ecuador 13

Index 213

education 25 29 33 41 75 80 87 91ndash3 96ndash7 103 106 107 114 115 118 121 130 140 149 150 159 166 167 168 186 Egypt 189 elderly (see generation) employment 97ndash8 environment (see Natural resources) environmental degradation 72 81 102 133 134 139ndash42 145 148 182 Escobar A 184 Ethiopia 12 163 ethnic minorities (see minorities) EU 34 80 Evans G 20 30 85 86 95 108 110 Evans H 174 Evrard O 47 exclusion (see social exclusion) exploitation 96 186

factory work 96 137 148 151ndash2 154 156 159 186 FAO 85 131 farming systems and farming 61ndash7 86 112 113 152 170 172ndash3 174 175 176 184 186 187 female headed households 94 136 146 fish and fishing 57 61 95 119 139 141 144 146 164 186 Focal site strategy 102ndash19 food security 61ndash9 75 80 95 102 103 112 114 115 118 119 120 123 131 153 164 Foreign investment 21 23 Forests 15 58 66ndash9 102 105 109 110 113 115 119 133 138ndash42 161 Fourth Party Congress 20 Freeman N 45 French era and the French 30 47 52 Frisson 2 14ndash5

Gaiha R 163 Gannon C 132 135 Geertz C 98 gender 87 94ndash8 115 132 135ndash8 145ndash6 151 156 157ndash8 160 164 166 169 182 186 generation 93 94 116 132 137 146ndash7 148 151 156 157 160 164 173 182 189 geography 77 98 128 129 130 150 161 172 187 Gerdin I 177 Gibson J 130 Giddens A 1 Giordano M 116 Global South 185 187 Globalisation 91 152ndash3 Goscha C 45 Grabowski R 174 Grabowsy V 50 Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) 52ndash3 142ndash5 Green Revolution 43 136 177 Greene G 175 growth poles (see Focal Site strategy) Gutberlet J 13

Index 214

Haringkangaringrd A 136 Hardy A 53 Hart G 185 Hayami Y 40ndash1 151 177 health 25 29 33 75 80 87ndash9 90 92 96 103 106 107 114 118 130 140 149 164 165 Hentschel J 13 Hewison K 48 High H 159 highlands (see uplands) history 44ndash50 70 106ndash7 120 128 150 189 190 Hmong 9 49 64 105 106ndash7 113 117 121 122 129 145 146 Hoddinott J 162 Houa Phanh 74 92 116 122 132ndash3 Hulme D 162 163 Hulme D 163 167 human development 29 33 149 173 hunting 140 141 146 Hy Van Luong 186 187

IDRC9 illness (see health) ILO 29 34 58 59 134 155 156 157 159 IMF 22 72 immanent development 185 income 68ndash9 73ndash6 86 91 93 118 120 122ndash3 138 146 149 151 152ndash3 157ndash8 159 160 164 166 167 174 177 184 India 163 189 Indochina 45 46 Indonesia 39 42 44 111 151 177 Inequality 12 25 34 40 58ndash9 74ndash6 77ndash8 83ndash6 103 125ndash30 131 132 145 147ndash8 154 159 161ndash2 163 169 176 177 181 186 187ndash8 189 Instone L 106 intensification 129 131 134 136 169 177 Inthasone Phetsiriseng 155ndash9 investment 127 176 IRAP 27ndash8 Ireson C 136 irrigation 122 158 170 Isager L 102 Ivarsson S 45 102

Jamieson N 182 Jerndal R 30 45 Jerve A 113 JICA 26

Kakwani N 76 77 83ndash4 Kanbur R 187ndash8 Karen 58ndash61

Index 215

Kaufmann S 87 90 Kaysone Phomvihane 20 Kenyon S 148 Keyes C 45 Khammouan 26 51 57 58 60 62 93 155 156 157 161 Kheungkham Keonuchan 64 112 Khmu 9 73 87 92 106 117 119 122 Kikuchi M 40ndash1 177 knowledge 4ndash8 51 70 72 85 113 147 172 182 Knowles J 76 77 Krishnan P 12 162 163 Kunstadter P 128

labour and labouring 52 57 58 59 60 82 94 96 115 119 123 132 135 145 147 152 154 155ndash9 161 164 165 166 169 172 173 174 175 186 land 40ndash1 42 85 86 91 93 95 108 109 110 111 114ndash6 117 119 120ndash1 122 132 132 144 145 150 151 153 154 161ndash2 163 164 165 166 168 169ndash70 177 183 186 187 Land-forest allocation programme 15 102ndash24 174 176 language 72ndash3 87 89 90 91 145 Lao Loum 30ndash2 80 81 Lao Soung 30ndash2 80 81 Lao Theung 30ndash2 34 80 81 Lao Womenrsquos Union 95 LDC 20 leadership 113 120 147 168 LECS 73ndash6 83ndash4 170ndash1 Leinbach T 129 Lemoine J 47 87 110 118 Lestrelin G 116 Li T 108 life expectancy (see health) Liljestroumlm R 164 189 literacy (see education) Liu Z 132 135 Livelihood footprints 146 167 172ndash6 183 Livelihood transitions 12ndash3 15 24 35 138ndash42 172 182 186 189 Livelihoods 12 14ndash5 24 25 29 35 39 40ndash1 42 43 54ndash61 62 68ndash70 72 80ndash1 82 86 93 101 103 106 111ndash4 114ndash6 118 119 120ndash1 125 130 138ndash42 145 148 149 150 154 160 163 167ndash75 177 181 184 livestock 56 58 59 60 96 108 141 164 169 171 186 Localism 48ndash9 184 189 Lockwood D 91 logging 105 134 144 lowlands 45 46 47 54ndash8 61ndash2 69 87 145 147 159 163 182 LPRP 30 31 Luang Namtha 47 87 95ndash7 118 139 144 186 Luang Prabang 34 46 49 52 56 65 80 81 93 95 107 112 114 116 117 118 122 131 144 145 146 159 166 Lue 106ndash7 117

Malaysia 39 131 151

Index 216

Manich M 50 marginality 13ndash4 25 27ndash9 46 51 75 76ndash8 103 119 127 138 182 184 187

see also Social exclusion market integration 76ndash8 97 108 118 125ndash48 152 154 159 160ndash1 169ndash70 172 188 market relations 45ndash9 50 58 62 69 73 77 81 132 133 market transition 20ndash4 43 108 144 169 185

see also Transition Marlay R 45 Marques S 14 mechanisation 61 136 153 171 173 media (see communications) Mehretu A 13ndash4 Mekong 46 52ndash3 143 153 155 Methodology 3ndash4 6ndash7 8 migration and mobility 45ndash54 55 82 106 121 122 135 137ndash8 145 148 151 153 155ndash9 160 172ndash3 187 Mills M-B 151ndash2 Minorities ethnic 9 19 25 28 29 30ndash2 49 54ndash6 62ndash7 73 75ndash6 78ndash80 86ndash94 102ndash124 132 139ndash42 156 182 183 Modernisation modernity 14 19 20 33 42 43 96ndash7 110 128 148 153 161 176 183 185 188ndash90 Molle F 40ndash1 167 177 Montry Sanamongkhoun 26 62 moral economy 44 168 Muang Sing 47 139 Myanmar (see Burma)

Nakai Plateau 27 34 64 123 139ndash42 Nam Ngum 9 36 120 Nam Theun 34 139 Narayan D 165 Nation-building 30 102ndash3 106 127 Natural resources 9 26 29 53ndash4 65ndash7 69 111 138ndash42 144 168 NBCA 34 139ndash42 Neher C 45 46 NEM 3 20ndash25 83 126 140 149 Nepal 152ndash3 177 New poverty 13 19 20 29ndash35 39 43 170 184 185 186 Ngau P 174 NGOs 109 111 Non-farm activities 15 26 39 41 56 57 62 86 92 119 136 137 145 149 152ndash3 161 169 171 173ndash4 176 183 184 186 187 Nong Khai 6 NTFPs 46 47 56 57 60 67ndash9 95 96 114 119 123 134 138ndash42 147 NUOL 132ndash3

occupational multiplicity 39 40ndash1 56 57 150ndash3 154 177 off-farm activities 26 27 56 57 119 120 123 145 154 160ndash1 166 Old poverty 13 19 25ndash9 39 43 185 186 opium (narcotics) 47 49 80 94 95 117 118 160 Oudomxai 47 58 64 74 112 114 134 144

Index 217

Ovesen J 32

Pak Ou 3 49 56 65 92 104 106ndash7 117 122 146 161ndash3 Palaung 88ndash9 Pandey S 26 62 Papua New Guinea 130 Parnwell M 151 participation 105 113 114 121 148 Pathet Lao 107 peasants 159 188

see also depeasantisation peligion 88 109

see also Buddhism Peluso N 108 Pernia E 126 130 Peru 181ndash2 Phanh Phomsombath 29 47ndash8 72ndash3 82 112 116 Pheng Souvanthong 65 Philippines 39 40ndash1 42 44 111 151 177 Phongsali 27 89 PIP 27 127 Planning

(see also Policies) 21ndash2 23 26 112 187 188 pluriactivity (see occupational multiplicity) Policies 8 23 24 26 33 34 65ndash7 73 80ndash1 83 86ndash7 97 98 101ndash124 132 139 149 181 183 187 188 189 Porter R 135 Portugal 14 Post-development 19 20 29 33 34ndash5 185 188 Poverty

(see also Old poverty New poverty) 3 12 13 19 20 24ndash35 39 40ndash1 42 68 71ndash83 101ndash124 125 126 127 130 132 134 135 139ndash42 143 146 152 153 159 162ndash3 164ndash7 167ndash77 181 183ndash4 185ndash8

poverty dynamics 85 98 162ndash3 164 165 170 187ndash8 PPA 68 71 79 82ndash3 86 89 94 97 112 168 Privatisation 21 23 productivity 61 62ndash7 70 174 proletarianisation

(see also Social differentiation) 85 135 prosperity (see Wealth) prostitution 96 156 160

Raintree J 112 114 117 118 145 Rambo T 67 Ravallion M 8 125 150 Reform

(see also Transition and NEM) 12 20ndash5 149 186 187 Regional inequality 74ndash6 77ndash8 132 Reid A 46 47 49 Remittances 153 154 159 160 172ndash3 177 remoteness (see marginality)

Index 218

resettlement 9 34 81 87 106 108 116ndash23 140ndash1 174 see also Focal Site strategy and Land-Forest Allocation programme

Reynolds C 49 rice 27 35 42 45 54ndash62 65ndash6 68 108 120 122 147 169 177 rice security (see food security) Rigg J 22 30 45 49 83 127ndash8 151 Risk 130 161ndash6 Ritchie M 49 roads (see communications) Roder W 116 Room G 86 Roth R 108 Rozelle S 130 Rural development 101ndash24 150ndash3 158 177 181 185 186 188 rural industrialisation 151 186

Sakunee Nattapoolwat 151 Sang Thong 3 6 28 36ndash8 39 46 92 109 122 129 143 146ndash7 153 154 161ndash3 169 173 174 175 Saravan 26 51 53ndash4 62 68 137 138 140 144 Sarawak 131 Savannakhet 26 32 51 52 58 134 143 155 156 schooling and schools (see education) Scott J 44 128 security 105 108 110 127 128 sedentarisation (see resettlement) Sekong 31 133 self-reliance 44 46 48 49 115 119 189 Sen B 177 services (see health and education) sex work (see prostitution) Shenton R 185 Shepherd A 162 163 167 Shifting cultivation 9 25ndash6 27 29 34 45 54ndash5 59ndash61 62ndash7 68ndash9 70 75ndash6 80ndash1 102 103 105ndash6 107 110 111 113ndash4 115ndash6 133 134 141 143 161 Shoemaker B 57 62 161 Siam (see Thailand) Sikor T 14 Singhanetra-Renard A 128 skills (see education) social capital 9 168 social change 51 82 110 128 131 137 185

see also modernisation and modernity social differentiation 126 129 130 131 132 132ndash5 147 148 181ndash3

see also inequality social exclusion 9 72 86ndash94 123 132 148 182 Social networks 95 146 156ndash7 social theory 184 socialism 20 101 soil erosion 141

see also gender

Index 213

Index 214

Index 215

Malaysia 39 131 151

Index 216

Index 217

Ovesen J 32

Index 218

Index 219

Index 220

Zimbabwe 13

Index 221

BookCover

Half-Title

Copyright

Contents

Illustrations

Figures

Tables

Preface

Acknowledgements






6 Not in our hands




Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Appendix 4

Appendix 5

Bibliography

Index

Helen James

Jonathan Rigg

LONDON AND NEW YORK

Contents

Preface xv

Appendices

in text 184

Bibliography 198

Index 212

Illustrations

Plates

Figures

11 Map of Laos 4

Tables

Preface

Durham University

Acknowledgements

EU European Union

thuk nyak poverty

WB World Bank

12 ILO 1997 1994 and 1997

42 UNESCOUNDP 1997

(ADB 2001a53)1

(Evans 1995xi)

(Lao PDR 19899)

(ADB 1999a6)

(Lao PDREU 19994)

(ADB 2000b62)

(ILO 20009)

of total population

0005 million 01

Source UNDP (2002)

(ILO 200011)

(Lao PDR 20035)

Village established

1970ndash75

Lao PDR established

1975ndash1980

1997ndash1999

Flooding Flooding

Introduction

(Evrard 199712)

Source ILO 1997

Pheet Si Khai

Nao Neua

2 Forest products

2 Vegetable gardens

2 Chickens and pigs

2 Livestock

3 Vegetable gardens

3 Forest products

3 Fish 3 Fish

4 Local labouring

4 Vegetable gardens

5 Trading

6 Foreign

remittances

Lowland systems

Upland systems

Date of survey

SCA 1994

NTEC 1997

ADB 2000a

ADB 2001b

Source NTEC 199746

(UNDP 19865)

(UNEP 200139)

(MSIFSP 199527 and 29)13

Introduction

How much do we know

Rich(er) Poor(er)

Urban Rural

Lowland Upland

Accessible Remote

Non-farm Farm

Settled Shifting

Spatialgeographical

Social and cultural

Source UNDP 2002151

Mon-Khmer 56 235

Hmong-Mien 15 75

Tibeto-Burman 9 25

365 300

Total 100 100

Pak Ou 572 ndash043 000 208

(Evans 1995xxiv)

Social exclusion

(ADB 2001b36)

(RTM 200047)

(ADB 2001d 36)

(MSIFSP 199516)

(200221)

Summary

Introduction

Territorialisations

(Evans 1995xxxv)

(Lao PDR 2001a46)

Trade-offs

(Raintree 20035)

Conclusion

6 Not in our hands

(Lao PDR 2000d9)

(Lao PDR 2000a64)

(Lao PDR 2000a26)

(UNDPNORAD 199712)

Increased mobility

(ADB 2001b67)

(Lao PDR 2001a18)

1989 1999

1900sndash1960s

1960s-late 1970s

Mid 1980s-present

(Lao PDR 2000c44)

Rice sufficiency

Mrs Khamdii

Mrs Moun

(Mills 1999165 and 166)

Work in Vientiane

Work in Thailand

Lowland (rai)1 2

Upland (rai)1

Livestock (head)4

Household size

Poor 19 0 24 02 01 5 29

Get by 08 03 65 02 08 63 12

Middle 116 04 240 0 88 72 14

Godrsquos poor

Serendipity

(Wilson 2004)

A spiral of decline

Appendix I 185

Appendix I 186

Lue villages

11 22 3 2

133 326 221 63

32 20 17 na

33 62 71 na

Area (rsquo000 ha)

Upland rice 1988 26

Number of farmers

ndash Chazee 1994

UNEP 200138

Appendix III 189

Appendix III 190

Category of poor

Medium poor

Just managing

gt400000 kip (US$53+)

Appendix IV 192

Laos 034 038

199293 199798

Asian neighbours

030 036 044 045 046

2000 1998 1999 1997 2000

Appendix IV 193

Thailand 051 2002

020 032 033 048 057 065

1996 1996 1996 1996 1996 1996

Appendix IV 194

Appendix IV 195

Source

Tirto Central Java

Timbul Central Java

Wukir Central Java

Argo Central Java

1986 32 De Koninck 1992

1998ndash2000

55 Molle et al 2001

1998ndash2000

70 Molle et al 2001

Appendix V 197

Bibliography

Bibliography 199

Bibliography 200

Bibliography 201

Bibliography 202

Bibliography 203

Bibliography 204

Bibliography 205

Bibliography 206

Bibliography 207

Bibliography 208

Bibliography 209

Bibliography 210

Bibliography 211

see also gender

Index 213

Index 214

Index 215

Malaysia 39 131 151

Index 216

Index 217

Ovesen J 32

Index 218

Index 219

Index 220

Zimbabwe 13

Index 221

BookCover

Half-Title

Copyright

Contents

Illustrations

Figures

Tables

Preface

Acknowledgements






6 Not in our hands




Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Appendix 4

Appendix 5

Bibliography

Index

Jonathan Rigg

LONDON AND NEW YORK

Contents

Preface xv

Appendices

in text 184

Bibliography 198

Index 212

Illustrations

Plates

Figures

11 Map of Laos 4

Tables

Preface

Durham University

Acknowledgements

EU European Union

thuk nyak poverty

WB World Bank

12 ILO 1997 1994 and 1997

42 UNESCOUNDP 1997

(ADB 2001a53)1

(Evans 1995xi)

(Lao PDR 19899)

(ADB 1999a6)

(Lao PDREU 19994)

(ADB 2000b62)

(ILO 20009)

of total population

0005 million 01

Source UNDP (2002)

(ILO 200011)

(Lao PDR 20035)

Village established

1970ndash75

Lao PDR established

1975ndash1980

1997ndash1999

Flooding Flooding

Introduction

(Evrard 199712)

Source ILO 1997

Pheet Si Khai

Nao Neua

2 Forest products

2 Vegetable gardens

2 Chickens and pigs

2 Livestock

3 Vegetable gardens

3 Forest products

3 Fish 3 Fish

4 Local labouring

4 Vegetable gardens

5 Trading

6 Foreign

remittances

Lowland systems

Upland systems

Date of survey

SCA 1994

NTEC 1997

ADB 2000a

ADB 2001b

Source NTEC 199746

(UNDP 19865)

(UNEP 200139)

(MSIFSP 199527 and 29)13

Introduction

How much do we know

Rich(er) Poor(er)

Urban Rural

Lowland Upland

Accessible Remote

Non-farm Farm

Settled Shifting

Spatialgeographical

Social and cultural

Source UNDP 2002151

Mon-Khmer 56 235

Hmong-Mien 15 75

Tibeto-Burman 9 25

365 300

Total 100 100

Pak Ou 572 ndash043 000 208

(Evans 1995xxiv)

Social exclusion

(ADB 2001b36)

(RTM 200047)

(ADB 2001d 36)

(MSIFSP 199516)

(200221)

Summary

Introduction

Territorialisations

(Evans 1995xxxv)

(Lao PDR 2001a46)

Trade-offs

(Raintree 20035)

Conclusion

6 Not in our hands

(Lao PDR 2000d9)

(Lao PDR 2000a64)

(Lao PDR 2000a26)

(UNDPNORAD 199712)

Increased mobility

(ADB 2001b67)

(Lao PDR 2001a18)

1989 1999

1900sndash1960s

1960s-late 1970s

Mid 1980s-present

(Lao PDR 2000c44)

Rice sufficiency

Mrs Khamdii

Mrs Moun

(Mills 1999165 and 166)

Work in Vientiane

Work in Thailand

Lowland (rai)1 2

Upland (rai)1

Livestock (head)4

Household size

Poor 19 0 24 02 01 5 29

Get by 08 03 65 02 08 63 12

Middle 116 04 240 0 88 72 14

Godrsquos poor

Serendipity

(Wilson 2004)

A spiral of decline

Appendix I 185

Appendix I 186

Lue villages

11 22 3 2

133 326 221 63

32 20 17 na

33 62 71 na

Area (rsquo000 ha)

Upland rice 1988 26

Number of farmers

ndash Chazee 1994

UNEP 200138

Appendix III 189

Appendix III 190

Category of poor

Medium poor

Just managing

gt400000 kip (US$53+)

Appendix IV 192

Laos 034 038

199293 199798

Asian neighbours

030 036 044 045 046

2000 1998 1999 1997 2000

Appendix IV 193

Thailand 051 2002

020 032 033 048 057 065

1996 1996 1996 1996 1996 1996

Appendix IV 194

Appendix IV 195

Source

Tirto Central Java

Timbul Central Java

Wukir Central Java

Argo Central Java

1986 32 De Koninck 1992

1998ndash2000

55 Molle et al 2001

1998ndash2000

70 Molle et al 2001

Appendix V 197

Bibliography

Bibliography 199

Bibliography 200

Bibliography 201

Bibliography 202

Bibliography 203

Bibliography 204

Bibliography 205

Bibliography 206

Bibliography 207

Bibliography 208

Bibliography 209

Bibliography 210

Bibliography 211

see also gender

Index 213

Index 214

Index 215

Malaysia 39 131 151

Index 216

Index 217

Ovesen J 32

Index 218

Index 219

Index 220

Zimbabwe 13

Index 221

BookCover

Half-Title

Copyright

Contents

Illustrations

Figures

Tables

Preface

Acknowledgements






6 Not in our hands




Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Appendix 4

Appendix 5

Bibliography

Index