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Abstract
This contribution explores the perspectives of Laotian rural youngsters in the context of a major agrarian transformation, in which large monoculture plantations have permeated both the physical landscape and the daily lives of people. The study uses concepts from agrarian and youth studies to help us understand the lived experiences of being (or ceasing to be) a young farmer in rapidly changing agrarian structures. Based on ethnographic research in the province of Champasak, the study analyses how young people’s aspirations of a ‘better life’, either verbally expressed or enacted through other media, play a role in the way they understand and cope with outcomes of livelihood change vis-à-vis more powerful actors, including their parental households. Although young people’s aspirations reflect a desire for a rural modern life, which may include smallholder farming, there is a material impossibility to acquire or inherit farmland. In addition, subjective meanings around the idea of ‘being young’ unveil a push for salaried work (off-farm), which more rapidly fulfils the need for autonomy and peer identification. Land concessions for rubber and coffee plantations, which predominantly target young labour in the studied sites, have become a source of such salaried work, but not without major constraints and exploitative situations for the majority.
Acknowledgements
I extend my gratitude to a number of professors and scholars who provided comments on an initial draft of this paper: Ben White, Tania Li, Holly High, Roy Huijsmans, Ramsey Affifi and my colleagues at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS). Any shortcomings are my own. I also thank the Geneva-Asia Society and HEID for their fieldwork grants, and the University of Bern’s Centre for Development and the Environment (CDE) and the National University of Laos (NUoL) for facilitating the research permits that allowed this work.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 The ‘Agriculture, Community Land Management and Climate Change’ workshop, held in June 2011, was organised by the Global Association for People and the Environment and was attended by scholars, development practitioners and community members. The author was a participant.
2 This is the actual quote from the villager; by ‘cultivating dry’ she meant swidden agriculture.
3 Suspected excuses of this sort may come across as ‘hidden transcripts’ (Scott Citation1976). However, as Rigg points out, we researchers need ‘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’ (Citation2005, 61). For a critique on the notion of ‘hidden transcript’, see High (Citation2014).
4 The official definition of youth in Laos comprises people between 15 and 30 years of age. Since many people get married before age 15 in some studied villages, the range of 13–25 was used instead, for a more balanced number of interviewed married and unmarried youth. Between 18 and 25 percent of the population in each village belonged to this age group (13–25).
5 This included activities such as farming chores, cooking and meal times; collection of non-timber forest products (NTFPs) and fishing; village festivals, rituals or social gatherings.
6 The majority of interviewees, youth included, have at least one (household) mobile phone. The author worked with the images stored in their phones, as long as they had taken the image themselves, selected it for the exercise and explained why. Although auto-photographic material was collected in Paksong, it was not relevant to the specific stories presented here.
7 Rudkin and Davis (Citation2007) have written about the advantages of using this technique with youth, which encourages more direct engagement from respondents. Visual techniques are also thought to have a more inclusive effect on non-literate rural communities or people who are not used to raising an opinion or being asked for one (Beazley and Ennew Citation2006). In a rural milieu, Huijsmans (Citation2010) has also applied auto-photography, using disposable cameras with children and young students in Laos.
8 Fieldwork was possible through two permits granted by the central authorities: one for a research project on land acquisitions and food security, led by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and the University of Bern, and the other for a project on the feminisation of commercial agriculture, led by the National University of Laos and the University of Bern.
9 From 1955 to 1975, this war was fought between the royalist government forces, backed by the US, and the communist Pathet Lao, which was supported by North Vietnam.
10 Villages loosely participated for 2–3 years.
11 Interview with village authorities, 26 February 2014.
12 The average exchange rate over four years of fieldwork (2012–2015) was USD 1 = 7974 Lao kip (LAK).
13 The conversion rate when the concessions were granted was USD 1 = LAK 9000.
15 According to a village elder, conversion took place before Thongpao was established in 1961.
14 Narratives are based on interviews, informal conversations and observations held through January-February 2012, July-August 2013, January-March 2014 and January-February 2015.
16 Narratives are based on interviews and casual conversations held in July–August 2013 and in January 2014.
17 Narratives are based on interviews, casual conversations and observations made through January–March 2014, and January–February 2015.
18 If a couple gets married and receives land from their parents, they would need to get a new certificate for the land, which is costly. Normally they do not do this; the land remains registered under the parents. Parents also claim to prefer it this way, to preempt conflict over land in case of separation or divorce: If a daughter gets married and receives some uncultivated land from her parents, and then she gets divorced, they should split the land between the ex-husband and the ex-wife. To avoid this and other types of conflict, land is usually registered under their parents.
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Gilda Sentíes Portilla
Gilda Sentíes Portilla is a doctor in anthropology and sociology of development (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, HEID, Geneva, 2017). Her doctoral thesis examined the livelihoods of farming households and young people amidst land concessions for commercial agriculture in Lao PDR. She currently works for the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) in Copenhagen.