World Food Policy
Everyone in Laos has learned
what (s)he can say and what (s)he can-
not. Self-control is an embodied quality
and everyone seems to know what the
touchy topics to avoid in public are (Pe-
tit, 2013). “Boo waô”, they say, “Don’t
speak about that”—or you can create
problems; “Gaanmüang ... ”, “It’s poli-
tics ... ”—a friendly reminder that the
conversation is starting to lean toward
a sensitive issue. This of course applies
to land policies. I had a discussion in
Attapeu with a Laotian project manager
whose program partly dealt with land-
use planning and allocation. I told him
that I shared his interest in land issues,
but he immediately denied having any
interest in “land issues”. I presume his
reaction was motivated by a fear of being
seen as critical of the Vietnamese rub-
ber plantations in the province, as many
NGO workers were. This would then be
a case of self-censorship. Censorship is
well-attested in relation to land issues,
as evidenced by Baird’s (2010) experi-
ence with a Canadian NGO working on
land rights in Bachieng District.
authorities to the government’s immo-
rality in granting land concessions to
foreign companies.
Jôm can be a means of political
action. In Vientiane, a 1,640-hectare
shopping, industrial, and residence area
was recently slated for construction on
a 50-year concession in the vicinity of
That Louang marsh. The project, run by
Chinese companies, was compensation
for China’s help in the building of sport-
ing infrastructure for the SEA Games in
2009 (Stuart-Fox, 2009; Tan, 2012). The
inhabitants of Vientiane were shocked
with this project and took every op-
portunity to express their dismay and
anger. This anxiety was certainly fueled
by some land owners, including Party
members, who were afraid that their
expropriation would not be properly
compensated, as often happens. It was
also stoked by a nationwide fear of the
invasive Chinese presence in Laos: it
was rumored that Chinese alone would
settle in this area and that 50,000 of
them were expected (Stuart-Fox, 2009,
pp. 142–143). It is unclear to what ex-
However, widespread censor-
tent gossip was instrumental in the
ship and auto-censorship do not seem
reorientation of the initial project—
to impede the diffusion of “politically
which was reduced in scope though not
incorrect” information. Laotians enjoy
cancelled—but it seems to have been an
chatting about touchy issues in private
circles and among people they trust— important factor.
At the southern end of the coun-
or when they feel confident, as the anec-
try,
Attapeu
was another place where
dote with the taxi driver illustrates. This
kind of critical conversation or gossip is complaints were voiced about the huge
called jôm, which can be translated as concessions granted to companies in
“grumbling” or “complaining”. Jôm top- exchange for infrastructure provid-
ics range from the corruption of local ed for the 2009 SEA Games. 9 Villag-
9
Providing infrastructure for an international event like a conference or a sporting competition is a
common bargaining chip for companies negotiating access to land at the national level; see Dwyer
(2013, pp. 314–321) for another telling example.
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