Material Itineraries of Electric Tuk- Tuks: The Challenges of Green Urban Development in Laos

Abstract

In the context of global climate change, development organizations aim to align their aid schemes with new environmental concerns. Since the transport sector is crucial to achieve carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the introduction of environmentally-friendly transportation systems and technologies to developing countries has become a major focus of development aid. This paper examines one such sustainable transport project in Laos, centering on the introduction of electric vehicles (EV). At the beginning, aid professionals envisioned the establishment of an EV network, in which batteries, hydroelectric powerplants, the CO2 market, and numerous other entities would be rolled out in the capital of Vientiane and several other towns. A few years later, it had been downscaled to introduce a small number of EVs to the World Heritage town of Luang Prabang. The article analyses this process of transformation by examining the network extensions and cuts that shaped the trajectory of the EV into Laos. It further scrutinizes how the contexts of more-or-less urban places influenced the material itineraries of the project. This process, which led to the eventual implementation of EVs in Luang Prabang, and their subsequent disappearance, provides a window of opportunity for analyzing the significant challenges of green urban development in Laos and Southeast Asia more generally.

Keywords:

• Electric vehicles (EV)
• green technology
• technology transfer
• development aid
• projectification
• network
• Luang Prabang Laos

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and constructive comments. I would like to thank Casper Bruun Jensen for his insightful comments and generous feedback in the process of writing this article. Finally, I thank all the informants, especially the Ministry of Public Works and Transport of Lao P.D.R., Lao Academy of Social Sciences, and the members of the consultant team for their guidance and generously sharing their views in the field.

Notes

¹ Luang Prabang was the capital during the pre-dynasty and prospered as the economic center of the northern part of Laos. Built on a peninsula formed by the Mekong and the Khan River, the town became a World Heritage Site in 1995, due to its distinctive fusion of Lao traditional architecture and French colonial-style buildings.

² The phenomenon is also known as green gentrification (Gould and Lewis 2016) and environmental gentrification (Checker 2011).

³ CDM is a complicated system, which involves not only the CDM Executive Board and the national authorities of the involved countries, but also a range of other participants and auditors, not to mention the private firms that are the major beneficiaries (Fiske 2009). The approval process is also complicated and the measures for climate change mitigation are highly contested. JCM sought to develop an easier alternative that would support more Japanese projects and companies.

⁴ All names of individuals are pseudonyms.

⁵ This was possible because the consultant team and I temporarily shared working space at the office of the MPWT of Lao P.D.R. which I often visited during field work between 2012 and 2014.

⁶ A tuk-tuk is a motorized three-wheel taxi, which can be seen in various developing countries and also goes by names like auto-rickshaw and bajaj. A jumbo, also known as a samloh (which means “three wheels” in Lao and Thai) is smaller and less powerful than a tuk-tuk.

⁷ Problematic for my initial interests and expectations, this situation also made abundantly clear that it is no longer particularly path-breaking to display how human and non-human actors are connected in building networks. After all, the consultant team already seemed to know what a network is, and members had a clear idea of how it would need to expand to bring EVs to Laos (cf. Riles 2000).

⁸ Towards the end of the study, a consultant team member proclaimed that “the conditions of Laos do not at all seem sufficiently convincing JICA” (Personal conversation with the member of consultant team, August, 2013). Informally, I have heard other explanations that I cannot share, but which do not change the general picture.

⁹ While development projects based on the expansionist logic of creating numerous thin links often appeal to cities with global aspirations (Ong 2011), their effect is often patchy forms of urban materialization that leave existing infrastructures untouched (author).

¹⁰ As of August 2019, 147 JCM projects were underway, three of which took place in Laos: the implementation of a floating solar energy generator, installation of a high-performance electric transformer to a power transmission system, and suppression of slash-and-burn agriculture in Luang Prabang (GEC 2019).

¹¹ The company was chosen because it had previously built a production factory for electric tricycles, which had been sold in the Philippines since 2012. Akin to Ong’s comparative “art of being global,” where cities “cite” others that have achieved success, the Philippine experience became a citation for Luang Prabang, where it helped to create “legitimation for particular enterprises” (Ong 2011: 17).

¹² Like arguments previously surveyed, the authors also noted that Laos produces sufficient hydroelectric power to make the introduction of electric vehicles advantageous (Matsui et al. 2011: 151).

¹³ The initial aim to create a public bus service is described in the report. “Introduction and Implementation of Low-emission Public Transportation System by the Application of Electric Tricycles in Lao P.D.R.” However, as the passengers only reached 20% of the target number, the project gradually increased the use of electric tricycles as taxi service from April 2016.

¹⁴ Laos’s official tourism slogan.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science [18J30002].

Notes on contributors

Miki Namba

Miki Namba is a lecturer at Kagoshima University, Japan. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, her research is broadly concerned with the complex relation and interaction between human society and infrastructure in Laos. Her research currently focuses on an ephemeral bamboo bridge in Laos and the multitemporality of livelihood and infrastructure.