This talk examines the intersection of Chinese and Vietnamese pulpwood and rubber plantations with the lands of the Indigenous Brou people in southern Laos. It will feature Dr. Miles Kenney-Lazar, Senior Lecturer at the School of Geography at the University of Melbourne. Based on his book Socializing Land (University of Hawai’i Press, 2025), Kenney-Lazar conceptualizes land as a web of social relationships that entangle peasant farmers, state officials, civil society groups, and plantation capitalists. He examines how and why ties to land are socialized in different orientations, being pulled and stretched in contradictory ways that shape control over land by capital versus the peasantry. This talk will reflect on how the histories of socializing land might affect control over resources as Laos pursues more “sustainable” paths of capitalist development.
This talk is presented by the Centre for Southeast Asia Research (CSEAR) and the Department of Geography.
