Dispossesion, semi-proletarianization and enclosure: primitive accumulation and the land grab in Laos

ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: In April 2008, the Vietnamese corporation Hoàng Anh Gia Lai Joint (HAGL) signed a memorandum of understanding with the Government of Laos (GoL) agreeing to finance the construction of a $19 million athletes’ village. HAGL financed this property complex in support of the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, a biennial regional sporting event that the GoL was hosting for the first time from December 9th to 18th, 2009, in the capital of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), Vientiane. The aid provided by HAGL was divided into two parts: a $4 million cash grant and a $15 million interest-free loan. In return, the company was given the rights to explore for mineral potentials in Sekong and Attapeu provinces of southeastern Laos, log timber from and plant rubber on a 10,000-hectare (ha) plot of land in Attapeu, construct two rubber processing factories in Attapeu, and develop a real estate complex in Vientiane. The $15 million loan would be repaid in part via rental fees on the 10,000 ha. This case of land acquisition is representative of a broader trend of land grabbing that has increasingly occurred in Laos and across the Global South over the last few years. A number of recently emerging reports from development agencies and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) have shown that investors from around the world have been purchasing and leasing massive amounts of land in developing countries. This process has occurred at the same time in Laos, but mostly in the form of land concessions whereby Lao law prevents foreign investors from purchasing land in the country, but land concessions allow them to lease land for a period of between 35 and 75 years, often with the possibility of renewing their contracts. Land concessions have become increasingly common throughout the country over the last half-decade, particularly for extracting land-based resources such as through mining, hydropower, and tree plantations. While the largest investors come from the neighboring countries – China, Thailand, and Vietnam – South Korea, Japan, India, and Australia are not far behind. As reports of the environmental and social consequences of land concessions have emerged it has led the GoL to enact an ambiguous policy of placing and then removing a moratorium on all concessions over 100 ha. Regardless, land concessions have remained the dominant mode of investment in land and the defining feature of the country’s resource-led development path. Development reports at the global level have posed their research question as the following: is this vast increase of investment in farmland generally a negative or positive change for the livelihoods of peasants throughout the developing world? In other words, are we witnessing a giant land grab or a development opportunity? This paper addresses this question from a different angle. Instead, the research question is not whether transnational land acquisitions are inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but instead how they are restructuring agrarian social relations of production and consequently what impacts such transformations might entail for rural livelihoods. Posing the question of land acquisitions as either positive, negative, or something in between is overly vague and fails address the central issue. Understanding how the social relations of production in rural areas are changing can help engender a much more comprehensive understanding of the consequences that such restructuring may hold for peasant livelihoods. In order to paint a fuller picture of the impacts that transnational land acquisitions are having upon agrarian regions, it is critical to understand who is impacted and how.

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