Micro-Geopolitics: Capitalising Security in Laos's Golden Quadrangle

Geopolitics

Volumn 19, Issue 2, 2014, Pages 377-405

  Dwyer, Michael B ^a  

^a CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL FORESTRY RESEARCH   (Indonesia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGRICULTURAL LAND; AGROINDUSTRY; GEOPOLITICS; NATIONAL SECURITY; POLITICAL ECONOMY;

LAOS;

EID: 84901843122     PISSN: 14650045     EISSN: 15573028     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2013.780033     Document Type: Article

References (136)

1. A. Mbembe, On the Postcolony (Berkeley: University of California Press 2001) p. 88
2. The Lao People's Democratic Republic was created in 1975, one of three new states, with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and Democratic Kampuchea, to emerge at the end of the Second Indochina War (known widely outside Southeast Asia as the Vietnam War).
3. K. Conboy, Shadow War: The CIA's Secret War in Laos (Boulder: Paladin Press 1995) pp. 71-72.
4. B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso 1991). The Lao National Tourism Authority describes the museum this way on its website: 'The provincial museum has a variety of artifacts made by Luang Namtha's multi-ethnic people. Of particular interest is the extensive collection of indigenous clothing as well as many agricultural tools and household implements used in daily life. The museum has an excellent collection of Buddha images, bronze drums, ceramics and textiles. Also of interest are the traditional hand-made weapons on display that were once used for hunting and national defense.' http://www.tourismlaos.org/web/show_content. php?contID=42, accessed 1 Dec. 2011.
5. Anderson (note 4); also see B. Cohn, 'The Census, Social Structure and Objectification in South Asia', in B. Cohn, An Anthropologist among the Historians and Other Essays (Delhi: Oxford University Press 1987). pp. 224-254.
6. J. C. Scott, Seeing Like a State (New Haven: Yale University Press 1998)
7. M. Hannah, Governmentality and the Mastery of Territory in Nineteenth-Century America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000).
8. Yao and Kui are exonyms; Iu Mien and Lahu are autonyms. Here I am using the terms shown on the map in Lao language (in the English map legend, only the label 'Yao' appears).
9. See, for example, L. M. Hanks, J. R. Hanks, and L. Sharp (eds.), Ethnographic Notes on Northern Thailand: Data paper number 58 (Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program, Dept. of Asian Studies, Cornell University 1965)
10. G. Young, The Hill Tribes of Northern Thailand: A Socio-Ethnological Report (Bangkok: The Siam Society 1966).
11. J. Schliesinger, Ethnic Groups of Laos (Bangkok: White Lotus Press 2003).
12. K. G. Izikowitz, Over the Misty Mountains: A Journey from Tonkin to the Lamet in Laos (Bangkok: White Lotus Press 2004 [orig. 1944]) pp. 74-75, 95-102.
13. M. Innes-Brown, and M. J. Valencia, 'Thailand's Resource Diplomacy in Indochina and Myanmar', Contemporary Southeast Asia 14 (1993) pp. 332-351.
14. M. Dwyer, Territorial Affairs: Turning Battlefields into Marketplaces in Postwar Laos (Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley, Doctoral Dissertation 2011).
15. J. Chamberlain, Participatory Poverty Assessment, Lao PDR (Manila: Asian Development Bank 2001) p. 53.
16. P. Vandergeest, 'Land to Some Tillers: Development-Induced Displacement in Laos', International Social Science Journal 55 (2003) pp. 47-56.
17. O. Evrard and Y. Goudineau, 'Planned Resettlement, Unexpected Migrations and Cultural Trauma in Laos', Development and Change 35 (2004) pp. 937-962
18. Action Contra le Faim, Summary of Reports on Resettlement (Vientiane: ACF 2004)
19. O. Ducourtieux, J.-R. Laffort, and S. Sacklokham, 'Land Policy and Farming Practices in Laos', Development and Change 36 (2005) pp. 499-526
20. I. G. Baird and B. Shoemaker, 'Unsettling Experiences: Internal Resettlement and International Aid Agencies in Laos', Development and Change 38 (2007) pp. 865-888.
21. Vandergeest (note 11) p. 52, for instance, describes the Lao government's 'reorganization of space' as trying to effect 'a concentration of population into clearly demarcated lowland areas and along major transportation routes, leaving most space uninhabited, covered by forest, and administered by state agencies.'
22. I use the term 'Lao Theung' (literally 'upland Lao') here because of its prominence in the provincial museum map. I place the term in quotes because of the substantial and often critical discussion that surrounds it
23. see G. Evans, 'Introduction: What is Lao Culture and Society?', in G. Evans (ed.), Laos: Culture and Society (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books 1999) pp. 1-34
24. V. Pholsena, Post-War Laos: The Politics of Culture, History and Identity (Singapore: Institute for Southeast Asian Studies 2006).
25. C. Alton, D. Bluhm, and S, Sannanikone, Para Rubber in Northern Laos: The Case of Luangnamtha (Vientiane: GTZ 2005).
26. W. Shi, Rubber Boom in Luang Namtha: A Transnational Perspective (Vientiane: GTZ 2008)
27. P. Cohen, 'The Post-opium Scenario and Rubber in Northern Laos: Alternative Western and Chinese Models of Development', International Journal of Drug Policy 20 (2009) pp. 424-430
28. A. D. Zeigler, J. Fox, and J. Xu, 'The Rubber Juggernaut', Science 324 (2009) pp. 1024-1025
29. M. Stuart-Fox, 'Laos: The Chinese Connection', Southeast Asian Affairs 2009 (2009) pp. 141-169
30. Transnational Institute (TNI), 'Alternative Development or Business as Usual? China's Opium Substitution Policy in Burma and Laos', 2009, available at http://www.tni.org/briefing/ alternative-development-or-business-usual, accessed 1 Feb. 2011
31. S. Thongmanivong, K. Phengsopha, H. Chantavong, R. Oberndorf, and M. Dwyer, Concession or Cooperation? The Influence of Land Investment Policy for Rubber Planting on the Land Use and Livelihoods of Rural Families: A Case Study from Oudomxai Province, Lao PDR, unpublished manuscript, 2009.
32. S. Crispin, 'Asia Hand: The Limits of Chinese Expansionism', Asia Times Online, 23 Dec. 2010.
33. also see, for example, D. Fullbrook, 'Beijing Pulls Laos into its Orbit', Asia Times Online, 25 Oct. 2006
34. B. McCartan, 'Roadblocks on the Great Asian Highway', Asia Times Online, 23 Jan. 2008
35. D. Gray, 'China Farms the World to Feed a Ravenous Economy', Associated Press, 4 May 2008.
36. Cohen (note 14) p. 427.
37. M. Foucault, Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-1976 (New York: Picador 2003).
38. I borrow this distinction between formal regulation and state regulatory practice from Andrew Walker, The Legend of the Golden Boat: Regulation, Trade and Traders in the Borderlands of Laos, Thailand, China and Burma (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press 1999).
39. See also Shi (note 14).
40. M. Kenney-Lazar, 'Rubber Production in Northern Laos: Geographies of Growth and Contractual Diversity', Field Report (2009), from the author.
41. State efforts to manage the (re)settlement of upland populations, often for a vague mix of economic and security reasons, is a longstanding theme in Southeast Asian studies. M. Dove, 'Theories of Swidden Agriculture, and the Political Economy of Ignorance', Agroforestry Systems 1 (1983) pp. 85-99
42. Scott, Seeing Like a State (note 5)
43. J. C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press 2009)
44. A Turton (ed.), Civility and Savagery: Social Identity in Tai States (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press 1999)
45. N. L. Peluso and P. Vandergeest, 'Genealogies of the Political Forest and Customary Rights in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand', The Journal of Asian Studies 60 (2001) pp. 761-812
46. A. Hardy, Red Hills: Migrants and the State in the Highlands of Vietnam (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press 2003). On Laos, and in connection with the issues discussed here, see especially Chamberlain et al. (note 10)
47. Vandergeest (note 11)
48. C. Lyttleton, 'Relative Pleasures: Drugs, Development and Modern Dependencies in Asia's Golden Triangle', Development and Change 35 (2004) pp. 909-935
49. C. Lyttleton, P. Cohen, H. Rattanavong, B. Thongkhamhane, and S. Sisaengrat, Watermelons, Bars and Trucks: Dangerous Intersections in Northwest Lao PDR: An Ethnographic Study of Social Change and Health Vulnerability along the Road through Muang Sing and Muang Long (Vientiane and Sydney: Lao Institute for Cultural Research and Macquarie University 2004)
50. Evrard and Goudineau (note 11)
51. Hardy (note 20).
52. I conducted exploratory fieldwork in 2006-2007, followed by collaborative fieldwork with Laos's National Land Management Authority in 2007-2008. The former introduced me to the basic dimensions of economic and social change in the northwest, while the latter focused on interviews with government officials, investors and other development professionals. I collected archival sources from Texas Tech University's Vietnam Center (cited below) in March 2009 and analysed them in 2009-2010.
53. S. Branford, 'Food Crisis Leading to an Unsustainable Land Grab', Guardian, 22 Nov. 2008.
54. E. Woertz, S. Pradhan, N. Biberovic, and C. Koch, Food Inflation in the GCC Countries (Dubai: Gulf Research Center 2008)
55. 'Man-Made Hunger', Editorial, New York Times, 6 July 2008.
56. J. Diouf, 'The Food Crisis and the Wrong Solutions', Kommunikation Global/Global Perspectives (Aug. 2008) p. 8. All quotes this paragraph are from this piece, available at http://www.globalperspectives. info
57. Grain, Annex to Seized! The 2008 Land Grab for Food and Financial Security (Barcelona: Grain 2008), available at http://www.grain.org/briefings_files/landgrab-2008-en.pdf, accessed 25 Sep. 2009.
58. Grain (note 26).
59. also see 'Rich Countries Launch Great Land Grab to Safeguard Food Supply', Guardian, 22 Nov. 2008
60. 'Outsourcing's Third Wave', Economist, 21 May 2009
61. A. Rice, 'Is There Such a Thing as Agro-Imperialism?', New York Times Magazine, 22 Nov. 2009.
62. K. Marx, Capital Volume I (London: Penguin Books 1990 [orig. 1873])
63. J. Glassman, 'Primitive Accumulation, Accumulation by Dispossession, Accumulation by Extra-economic Means', Progress in Human Geography 30 (2006) pp. 608-625.
64. S. Sassen, 'A Savage Sorting of Winners and Losers: Contemporary Versions of Primitive Accumulation', Globalizations 7 (2010) p. 26
65. also see D. Harvey, The New Imperialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2003) p. 145.
66. M. Davis, Planet of Slums (New York: Verso 2007).
67. T. Li, 'Centering Labor in the Land Grab Debate', Journal of Peasant Studies 38 (2011) p. 281.
68. See, for example, S. Borras and J. Franco, 'Global Land Grabbing and Trajectories of Agrarian Change: A Preliminary Analysis', Journal of Agrarian Change 12/1 (Jan. 2012) pp. 34-59, who call for much the sort of thing I am undertaking here.
69. I borrow the language of calibration to historical conditions from M. Perelman, 'Primitive Accumulation from Feudalism to Neoliberalism', Capitalism, Socialism, Nature 18 (2007) pp. 44-61. Ian Baird and Philippe Le Billon have made a claim similar to my own, in pointing out the need to examine historical memory as a driver of uneven impacts in land-grab processes
70. see I. Baird and P. Le Billon, 'Landscapes of Political Memories: War Legacies and Land Negotiations in Laos', Political Geography (2012) doi:10.1016/ j.polgeo.2012.04.005.
71. S. Borras, D. Fig, and S. M. Suárez, 'The Politics of Agrofuels and Mega-land and Water Deals: Insights from the ProCana case, Mozambique', Review of African Political Economy 38 (2011) p. 222; the other quotes from this piece that follow come from pages 226-228.
72. Ibid., p. 227.
73. D. Moore, 'The Crucible of Cultural Politics: Reworking 'Development' in Zimbabwe's Eastern Highlands', American Ethnologist 26 (2000) pp. 655-656.
74. On the Cold War in the global south more generally, see O. A. Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 2007).
75. See N. Chanda, Brother Enemy: The War after the War (New York: Collier Books 1986)
76. Westad (note 37) and M. Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror (New York: Pantheon 2004).
77. Innes-Brown and Valencia (note 9)
78. P. Hirsch, 'Globalisation, Regionalisation and Local Voices: The Asian Development Bank and Re-scaled Politics of Environment in the Mekong Region', Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 22 (2001) pp. 237-251
79. Walker (note 18)
80. V. Dheeraprasart, After the Logging Ban: The Politics of Forest Management in Thailand (Bangkok: Foundation for Ecological Recovery 2005).
81. Innes-Brown (note 9); Hirsch (note 39); Walker (note 18); Dheeraprasar et al. (note 39); J. Glassman, 'Recovering from Crisis: The Case of Thailand's Spatial Fix', Economic Geography 83 (2007) pp. 349-370.
82. J. Glassman, Bounding the Mekong: The Asian Development Bank, China and Thailand (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press 2010) pp. 64-135, 137-147.
83. Lao Radio, 'Heighten Vigilance Against Enemies' New Schemes', 7 Sep. 1988, trans. by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), Texas Tech University Vietnam Center and Archives, Vietnam Veterans Association Project - Laos, box 30, folder 4, accessed 11 March 2009.
84. Lao Radio (note 42).
85. Lao Council of Ministers, 'Instruction on Stepping up Population Management Work, Issued by the Lao PDR's Council of Ministers and Signed by Nouhak Phoumsavan, Vice Chairman of the Council', 1 Feb. 1988, trans. by FBIS, Texas Tech Archives, box 30, folder 4.
86. Quoted in D. Scott, 'Colonial Governmentality', Social Text 0/43 (Autumn 1995) p. 202.
87. also M. Foucault, 'Governmentality', in G. Burchell, C. Gordon, and P. Miller (eds.), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) pp. 87-104.
88. Lao Council of Ministers (note 44).
89. Ibid. for full quote, see Dwyer (note 9).
90. G. Evans, A Short History of Laos: The Land in Between (Crows Nest, New South Wales: Allen and Unwin 2002).
91. Dwyer (note 9) Chapter 4 ('Population Management Work: Forestry, Security and Nation Building, 1975-1990').
92. Scott, Seeing Like a State (note 5); Moore (note 36).
93. On focal sites in contemporary development debates, see Chamberlain et al. (note 10)
94. J. Rigg, Living with Transition in Laos: Market Integration in Southeast Asia (London: Routledge 2005); Baird and Shoemaker (note 11).
95. Lao Radio, 'The Open-Door Policy Is Linked to the Maintenance of Internal Security', 1 April 1989; trans. by FBIS, Texas Tech Archives, box 30, folder 4.
96. Chamberlain et al. (note 10); Rigg (note 51); Baird and Shoemaker (note 11); also Bolikhamxai Provincial Authority, Bolikhamxai Province Socio-Economic Profile, with Emphasis on District Development (Paksan, Lao PDR: State Planning Committee and UNDP [Project Lao/98/G81] 2000).
97. R. Warner, Shooting at the Moon: The Story of America's ClandestineWar in Laos (South Royalton VT: Steerforth Press 1996)
98. A. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books 2003); Chanda (note 38)
99. G. Gunn, 'Resistance Coalitions in Laos', Asian Survey 23/3 (1983) pp. 316-340
100. M. Stuart-Fox, A History of Laos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997).
101. See, for example, the case of Ban Chagnee, described by Weiyi Shi (note 14) pp. 32-33.
102. Ban Deng (Red Village) is a pseudonym inspired by Andrew Hardy's book Red Hills (note 20).
103. For B and C, see Shi (note 14); D is based on personal observation (2007), but also see M. Kenney-Lazar, 'Rubber Production in Northern Laos: Geographies of Growth and Contractual Diversity', Field Report June 2009; for E and F, see Thongmanivong et al. (note 14).
104. Author's data; see Dwyer (note 9).
105. Author data: 'Summary of Land and Forest Allocation 2004-2005 in Ban [Deng]', Vieng Phou Kha Agriculture and Forestry Office.
106. Ibid. 61. Our informant added that controlling his compatriots' farming practices was not currently a government priority.
107. 'Summary' (note 59).
108. Y. Goudineau and O. Evrard, Resettlement and Social Characteristics of New Villages, Vol. 2 (Vientiane: UNESCO and UNDP 1997) p. 23, emphasis added. Goudineau and Evrard use the terminology of 'left' and 'right' bank, which I have changed to 'east' and 'west' in order to match the figures more clearly; the Namtha River flows roughly southwest. I have substituted 'Khmu Rok' for 'Austro-Asiatic', in line with the authors' later reference to the 'Austro-Asiatic populations on the [Nam Tha's east] bank' as being Khmu Rok, p. 26.
109. Fieldwork interviews, 2007. On debates about resettlement in Laos, see Evrard and Goudineau (note 11); Baird and Shoemaker (note 11).
110. US Defense Mapping Agency Topographic Center, Washington DC, compiled 1975, map series 1501, edition 3, 1:250,000 scale, sheet NF 47-16 ('Luang-Namtha, Laos; Thailand; Burma'). On the secret war in Laos, see the references in notes 3 and 54, as well as D. S. Blaufarb, Organizing and Managing Unconventional War in Laos, 1962-1970: A Report Prepared for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (Santa Monica: The Rand Corporation [R-919-ARPA; approved for public release 5 Aug. 1997]).
111. B. Lintner, 'The CIA's First Secret War', Far Eastern Economic Review (16 Sep. 1993) pp. 56-58.
112. McCoy (note 54).
113. Muser [Mou Sua] is a Thai name for a Lahu sub-group; on Na Woua being an Iu Mien village, see McCoy (note 54) p. 336. 69. [Consultant details removed], Survey of... Villages in Vieng Phou Kha District, Luang Namtha Province (Vientiane: [details removed] 2004) p. 17. On Namjomh's location, see the village cluster [kumban] map of Bokeo Province at http://dpi-bokeo.com, accessed March 2011. The northern part of the Namjomh cluster was formerly within the Nam Nyu special military zone.
114. Another consultant I spoke to (in 2006) had surveyed the same village, and had also noted its year of establishment as 2000 despite the 'arrival' of 40 Lahu families from Bokeo province a decade earlier.
115. Survey (note 69) p. 17.
116. Lyttleton (note 20); Lyttleton et al. (note 20).
117. Survey (note 69) p. 17.
118. R. De Koninck, 'The Peasantry as the Territorial Spearhead of the State: The Case of Vietnam', Sojourn: Social Issues in Southeast Asia 11/2 (1996) pp. 231-258.
119. See Goudineau et al. (note 63)
120. H. Johnsson, 'War's Ontogeny: Militias and Ethnic Boundaries in Laos and Exile', Southeast Asian Studies 47 (2009) pp. 125-149.
121. Project report [details removed], early 2007, pp. 5-6.
122. Ibid., p. 5.
123. Ibid., p. 5.
124. Fieldwork interviews, 2007; on the 2+3 and 1+4 models, see Shi (note 14). On rubber development in northwestern Laos, see Shi (note 14); also Alton et al. (note 14)
125. S. Vongkhamor, K. Phimmasen, B. Silapeth, B. Xayxomphou, and E. Petterson (Y. Fujita, ed.), Key Issues in Smallholder Rubber Planting in Oudomxai and Luang Prabang Provinces, Lao PDR (Vientiane: National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute 2007); and Cohen (note 14).
126. On the '2+3' policy more generally, see Vongkhamor et al. (note 79); Shi (note 14); Cohen (note 14).
127. I. G. Baird, 'Land, Rubber and People: Rapid Agrarian Changes and Responses in Southern Laos', Journal of Lao Studies 1/1 (2010) pp. 1-47; Dwyer (note 9).
128. Shi's study covered Luang Namtha province only. On '2+3' and '1+4' in the neighbouring province of Oudomxai, see Thongmanivong et al. (note 14). As elaborated by Baird, 'Land, Rubber and People' (note 80), Dwyer (note 9) and others, the national commitment to '2+3' was much more widely operationalised in the north than in the south.
129. Also Vongkhamor et al. (note 79).
130. Shi (note 14) pp. 34-35.
131. Shi (note 14) pp. 46, 62, Appendix 1:4.
132. Project report (note 76) and interview, July 2007.
133. Project report (note 76).
134. In addition to the examples recounted above, Ian Baird reports a 2003 incident in the neighbouring province of Bokeo where the disappearance of a Lahu village into the forest was taken by local authorities as evidence of anti-government resistance. I. G. Baird, 'Laos', in D. Vinding (ed.), The Indigenous World 2004 (Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs 2004).
135. M. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-1978 (New York: Palgrave MacMillan 2007). Foucault's critical point was that the downside to this was the replacement of periodic crises with regularised scarcity - or, to put it in agrarian terms, of occasional famine with regular hunger.
136. See, for example, the working papers prepared for the International Conference on Global Land Grabbing, April 2011, available at http://www.future-agricultures.org/papers-and-presentations.