State land concessions and the spatial politics of rural planning

The problems associated with land grabbing are often linked to poor or weak planning processes. Such a framing, however, assumes that planning is an objective and rational exercise, thus ignoring the ways in which it is politically constituted. Through an examination of the intersections between state land concessions and rural planning, this chapter shows how planning is contested and relational, driven by the power-laden interactions of heterogeneous actors involved in planning processes. With a specific focus on the establishment of agro-industrial plantations in southern Laos, the chapter demonstrates that the social and environmental tragedies of plantation expansion are integral to the practice of state planning rather than aberration. They occur when previous and current planning exercise intersect with one another and plantation companies with powerful political connections are given permission by the state to plant beyond the plan, demonstrating the chaotic and political nature of planning itself.

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