Capitalizing on Compensation: Hydropower Resettlement and the Commodification and Decommodification of Nature–Society Relations in Southern Laos

Green, W. Nathan; Baird, Ian G.

doi:10.1080/24694452.2016.1146570

Cited by 36 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…In Laos, as elsewhere, struggles over land create conlict among groups that are not equally endowed with political, social, and economic capital. Obviously, national and local elites have the upper hand in deining, for example, which "commodities" are eligible for compensation or not (Green & Baird, 2016). he inhabitants of Vientiane, who for the most part belong to the Lao ethnic group, were able to oppose and eventually transform the plans of the Chinese building project because academics, local bourgeoisie, and city political elites let on the sidelines of the project were able to unite under the banner of national integrity.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land, State, and Society in Laos: Ethnographies of Land Policies

Petit¹

2017

World Food Policy

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Land policies are a contentious topic in Laos. he banning of swidden agriculture in the 1990s prompted widespread resettlements, while land allocation was implemented during the same period; the following decade saw massive land grabs. Unfavorable to small farmers, these processes transformed everyday social relations with land, which used to be managed at the village level but presently fall more and more within the administration's domain. However, State employees are not alone in using a new lexicon to refer to land issues; those impacted by such measures are also adopting it to protect themselves, sometimes with relative success. Gossip and rumor can afect the authorities' decisions. And land policies can never be implemented without vernacularization, which ends up constructing a practical order on land negotiated-in uneven terms-by the local administration and the local actors. Ethnographic case studies throughout Laos illustrate how the state has become an inescapable mediator between people and land, transforming the social fabric and reshaping people's agency.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Land, State, and Society in Laos: Ethnographies of Land Policies

Petit¹

2017

World Food Policy

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“…The process of commodification frequently becomes highly competitive and political owing to the controversies created by nature's complex and dynamic biophysics (Green & Baird, 2016;Robertson, 2006). As Bakker (2003, p. 32) argued, "specific constraints imposed by different biophysical characteristics of nature resources will give rise to specific issues in their appropriation into production."…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Claiming geothermal water: Critical legal geography and the scalar politics of hot spring development in China

Feng

Peng

2019

Geographical Journal

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This article contributes to the ongoing scrutiny of conflicts over nature with respect to the legal realm. We argue that legal geographies have been central to the boom in geothermal water extraction in China and its environmental and social effects. We examine the contesting of the legal definition of geothermal water and how it is embedded in the creation and production of China's hot spring landscape. Specifically, we focus on the biophysics of this particular natural resource to examine the scalar politics of how local governments grab natural resources, and the ways in which they produce socio-economic consequences. The analysis illustrates the significance of critical legal geography in current political ecology studies, and suggests paying close attention to the contradictory and slippery legal practices involved in the governance and commodifying of nature. K E Y W O R D SChina, geothermal water, hot spring, legal geography, qualitative method, scale

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“…Nielsen and Nilsen (2015: 203) describe such negotiations as a ‘compromise equilibrium’ between dominant groups with an interest in exploiting spaces of accumulation, and subaltern groups whose consent is needed. In Laos, Green and Baird (2016) show how compensation facilitates the expansion of capitalist social relations by producing new commodified relationships to land, assets, and some natural resources, while simultaneously decommodifying other resources. Rather than protecting the rights of the displaced, these arrangements favour the interests of elites by keeping costs to a minimum, whilst ensuring that resettlement is done just well enough so as not to impede construction (Wilmsen and Webber, 2015a).…”

Section: Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, subsumed within categories of class, peasant, and marginality, people and the ways in which they respond to resettlement projects by forging different futures do not always feature prominently. This is not simply about local agency in compensation negotiations (see Green and Baird, 2016; Habich, 2016), but about how resettled people experience and challenge the rearrangements of labour and the commodification of local resources facilitated by resettlement projects. Second, there could be deeper engagement with the production of space and uneven development through resettlement, be that through spatial integration or capital mobility/immobility (Smith, 1984).…”

Section: Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a critical geography of resettlement

Rogers

Wilmsen

2019

Progress in Human Geography

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Resettlement is a governmental program with inherent spatial effects in that it drives the rearrangement of capital, labour, and land, and seeks to render people and space more governable. This article examines the extent to which this disruptive phenomenon has been theorised. We first review the existing literature, finding a distinct polarisation between mainstream studies and more critical scholarship. We then propose a critical geography of resettlement centred on its multiple logics, agents and expertise, and subject-making and spatial practices. An invigorated critical geography of resettlement is needed to challenge the legitimisation of an expanding resettlement industry.

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Capitalizing on Compensation: Hydropower Resettlement and the Commodification and Decommodification of Nature–Society Relations in Southern Laos

Cited by 36 publications

References 53 publications

Land, State, and Society in Laos: Ethnographies of Land Policies

Land, State, and Society in Laos: Ethnographies of Land Policies

Claiming geothermal water: Critical legal geography and the scalar politics of hot spring development in China

Towards a critical geography of resettlement

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