From Lagging Behind to Losing Ground: Cambodian and Laotian Household Economy and Large-Scale Land Acquisitions

Gironde, Christophe; Portilla, Gilda Sentíes

doi:10.4000/poldev.2043

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…However, recent studies show how the land grabbing metanarrative in the Laotian context overlooks important processes and impacts of large-scale foreign land acquisitions and land alienation in general (Baird, 2011;Friis et al, 2016;Gironde and Portilla, 2015;Kenney-Lazar, 2012;Schönweger and Messerli, 2015;Suhardiman et al, 2015). For example, Kenney-Lazar (2015) contests the 'weaknesses' of the Lao state vis-à-vis investors by demonstrating the importance of state power and legitimacy for the successful implementation of investment projects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Small-scale land acquisitions, large-scale implications: Exploring the case of Chinese banana investments in Northern Laos

Friis

Nielsen

2016

Land Use Policy

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a b s t r a c tThe scholarly debate around 'global land grabbing' is advancing theoretically, methodologically and empirically. This study contributes to these ongoing efforts by investigating a set of 'small-scale land acquisitions' in the context of a recent boom in banana plantation investments in Luang Namtha Province, Laos. In relation to the actors, scales and processes involved, the banana acquisitions differ from the stategranted large-scale land acquisitions dominating the literature on 'land grabbing' in Laos. Starting from the experience of a rural village in Laos, where two Chinese banana investors leased land on six-year contracts in 2010, we trace the strategies employed by the investors to gain access to the land, the experience of the villagers in the process and the outcome of the acquisitions in terms of land use change. The findings reveal how the investors established networks of local middlemen who facilitate negotiations over land directly at the village level, thus enabling them to circumvent any formal involvement of government authorities. The informal acquisition process also ensured a rapid and successful implementation of the plantations with consequent land use change, including the destruction of field structures, plot borders and irrigation systems, as well as erosion and heavy chemical input. Drawing upon the literature on 'powers of exclusion' and 'control grabbing', the paper argues that despite the apparent small-scale and short-term nature of these leases, the forceful acquisition strategies pursued by the investors coupled with the rapid land use conversion and associated cultivation practices results in strong and longer-term alienation of land from the local communities involved. This implies the need to take these more informal forms of land acquisitions into account when designing policies to address the negative implications of land grabbing in Laos and elsewhere.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Small-scale land acquisitions, large-scale implications: Exploring the case of Chinese banana investments in Northern Laos

Friis

Nielsen

2016

Land Use Policy

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“…Cambodia offers a potentially important example as it is the second-most targeted country for LSLAs globally [15]. While the term 'land acquisitions' is employed in the literature to refer to any type of land deal regardless of origin and type of investment, 'economic land concessions' (ELCs) such as those that occur in Cambodia specifically refer to a subset of LSLAs, wherein the state grants land, in either concession or lease form, to foreign and national investors in areas that are categorized as pertaining to the state [16,17]. Since 2000, lands leased through ELCs encompass 2277 kha and contained roughly 16% of Cambodia's forest cover in 2000.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct and indirect land-use change caused by large-scale land acquisitions in Cambodia

Magliocca

Khuc

Brémond

et al. 2020

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) have received considerable scholarly attention over the last decade, and progress has been made towards quantifying their direct impacts. There is also a growing recognition of the importance of indirect effects of LSLAs, such as 'spillover' or indirect land-use change (iLUC), and the substantial challenges they pose for attribution and quantification. In fact, the relative contributions of direct and indirect LUC associated with LSLAs are unknown. This study aims to address these knowledge gaps using Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) in Cambodia, now the most targeted country for LSLAs in Southeast Asia. We leverage findings on archetypical pathways of direct and indirect LUC in Cambodia, developed through previous mixed-methods synthesis efforts, to quantify remotely sensed forest loss to specific ELCs. During 2000-2016, Cambodia roughly 1611 kha of forest, or 22% of total forest cover. Although ELCs (as of 2016) contained roughly 16% of Cambodia's forest cover (2000), forest lost within ELC boundaries accounted for nearly 30% (476 kha) of total forest lost by 2016. Furthermore, iLUC contributed an additional 49-174 kha of forest loss (3.0%-10.7% of all forest lost in Cambodia) over the same period. Thus, iLUC contributed to Cambodia's total forest loss at the rate of 11.4%-40.8% of direct LUC caused by ELCs. Such findings suggest that the total amount of LUC caused by LSLAs may well be underestimated globally. This and related synthesis research efforts can be valuable approaches for better targeting remote sensing analyses to specific locations and time periods needed to disentangle and quantify forest loss due to direct and indirect land change processes.

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“…Savan-nakhet is the second-largest city in Laos, with 125,000 inhabitants, and constitutes a strategic centre, along the Mekong River, connected to the Thai and Vietnamese road networks through the East-West Economic Corridor and to Vientiane Capital through road 13. Increasing regional integration and economic cooperation, through the Greater Mekong Subregion development framework, has boosted investment in the resource sector (hydropower, mining, land grabbing) and in infrastructure development (Baird 2011;Kenney-Lazar 2012;Gironde & Senties Portilla 2015). This integration has also contributed to increasing trade market and migration flows in the province while destabilising the tradition of subsistence agriculture in surrounding rural areas (Andriesse & Phommalath 2012;Lainé 2015).…”

Section: Vietnamese Migration In Laosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interrogating Dislocated Masculinities and HIV Vulnerabilities: A Case Study of Vietnamese Migrants Workers in Southern Laos

Phetchanpheng¹,

Petitet²,

Nguyen³

et al. 2020

moussons

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Souvanxay Phetchanpheng et al. the Economic Quadrangle, a transnational area roughly corresponding to the Golden Triangle, few villages benefit from the economic expansion of the region. The commercial market is largely dominated by Chinese entrepreneurs and local people have a minimal commercial role. Through their transnational networks, Chinese businessmen and corporations are the main beneficiaries of the economic benefits of the North-South Corridor linking Kunming (Yunnan, China) to Bangkok (Tan 2014). In the district of Tonpheung for example, the construction sites (road, casino, hotels, etc.) of the "Golden Triangle" special economic zone started in 2008 offered few jobs to Laotian people. The majority of workers on these sites are Burmese and Chinese (Tan 2014). Similarly, the vast rail construction site started in the north of the country, which will connect by 2021 China with Laos, has drained about 5,000 workers, most of whom are Vietnamese and Chinese nationals. For this scheme, part of Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative, only a small number of Lao workers, perceived as less skilled, have been employed. 1 The work opportunities offered to the younger Lao generation are consequently often limited to agrarian work and to occupations in the civil service. This intensification of cross-border migrations in the Great Mekong region has mostly been examined through the lens of border control and state sovereignty, but little is known about the lived experiences and trajectories of these Vietnamese and Chinese migrants (Molland 2017). These mobilities undertaken in a context of socioeconomic vulnerability may create new economic opportunities, but also new marital situations for couples and families. Indeed, these situations offer renewed sexual encounters for married male migrants, while heightening vulnerabilities to infectious diseases, among which HIV. This paper analyses these issues through an ethnographic fieldwork among Vietnamese migrant workers in southern Laos, in the city of Savannakhet. We mobilise the concept of dislocating masculinity (Cornwall & Lindisfarne 1994) to explore within our field of research and from a broader perspective the question of embodiment, agency and the relation between masculine styles and social contexts. Increasing transnational mobilities have indeed shaped new forms of bodily, sexual or affective intimacies intrinsically tied to power, gender, race, class and structural socioeconomic factors, which must be understood in their historical, social and cultural context. Intimacy, emotions and sexuality have long been neglected in migration studies because of the overwhelming paradigm of political economy whose equation of migrants with workforce left little space to the study of their affective, romantic and sexual desires and identities. Feminist, post-colonial and queer epistemologies and the increasing feminisation of migrations in the past decades have brought back these topics, pushing scholars to call for a "sexual turn" in the study of migration (Mai & King 20...

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From Lagging Behind to Losing Ground: Cambodian and Laotian Household Economy and Large-Scale Land Acquisitions

Cited by 5 publications

References 25 publications

Small-scale land acquisitions, large-scale implications: Exploring the case of Chinese banana investments in Northern Laos

Small-scale land acquisitions, large-scale implications: Exploring the case of Chinese banana investments in Northern Laos

Direct and indirect land-use change caused by large-scale land acquisitions in Cambodia

Interrogating Dislocated Masculinities and HIV Vulnerabilities: A Case Study of Vietnamese Migrants Workers in Southern Laos

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