Land, State, and Society in Laos: Ethnographies of Land Policies
entrench the Lao state and its “tech-
nologies of governing” in places that
had hitherto largely escaped the state’s
reach. Similarly, Dwyer (2013) presents
two detailed case studies showing that
the literature’s focus on the foreign or
corruptive dimensions of land grab-
bing misses the most important point,
namely their strong embedding in the
national and local political landscapes
of Laos.
resettlements, focusing on the need to
consider individual agency in mobility;
some Laotians have indeed been driven
by aspirations of “escaping poverty”, as
the official motto declares, and entering
what they see as a “modern” life (see
also High 2014). The problem is not so
much mobility per se, but the failure
of the state to provide the conditions
for its success. High tries to go beyond
the domination/resistance paradigm,
showing how people have appropriated
and reformulated the state’s discourses
on development in light of their own
desires.
Even if High, Lund, Tan and
Dwyer’s approaches are different, they
share a common interest in the way
land policies have become central to
spreading “state relations” in Laos. Such
state relations refer to social relations
predicated on bureaucratic procedures,
administrative authority, political deci-
sions, or reference to anything emically
indexed to “the state” by the interacting
parties. I use this concept as opposed
to “state–society relations” to refrain
from an overly substantive view of the
state as different by nature or separable
from society. Even if the state/society
dichotomy is a pervading representa-
tion in modern societies, it should not
be taken at face value: it is a construc-
tion, not a fact (High & Petit, 2013; Li,
2005; Mitchell, 2006; Sharma & Gupta,
2006). Further, a too binary concept of
state–society relations does not cap-
ture interactions between state officers
themselves, who may have divergent
opinions or interests, nor does it cap-
ture interactions between local em-
ployees and citizens who use the law or
other state rhetoric in promoting their
views.
Another critical viewpoint has
been developed by Lund (2011), who is
concerned by the way land policies are
linked to and participate in the creation
of political subjectivities. He argues
that these policies do not reflect the
Laotian state’s pre-existing sovereignty
over land, but rather create it. In local
contexts, land issues have long been
settled by village or family authorities.
The