Your search found 2 records
1 Suhardiman, Diana; Scurrah, N. 2021. Institutional bricolage and the (re)shaping of communal land tenure arrangements: two contrasting cases in upland and lowland northeastern Laos. World Development, 147:105630. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2021.105630]
Common lands ; Land tenure systems ; Customary tenure ; Institutional development ; Highlands ; Lowland ; Land use planning ; Land access ; Land governance ; Collective action ; State intervention ; Political aspects ; Farmers ; Households ; Livelihoods ; Strategies ; Rural areas ; Villages ; Local communities ; Case studies / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Houaphan / Viengxay / Khouan / Navit / Pa Khom
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H050547)
(1.70 MB)
This article examines the factors shaping communal land tenure and livelihood practices in two villages in Houaphan province, Northeastern Laos. It employs the concept of institutional bricolage to show how local actors combine communal tenure, state intervention, donor programs and local power relations to (re)shape formal rules and day-to-day land tenure and livelihood practices. In particular, it highlights how state territorial strategies in lowland and upland rural spaces have differently shaped state interventions in communal land use and access, producing hybrid forms of communal land management rules and practices. The two cases highlight different processes by which communal tenure is eroded or adapted in the process of state incorporation, raising questions about competing authorities over land and the interests and objectives of different actors in land administration. The village cases illustrate how local communities’ (in)ability to shape, adapt, and reproduce institutional rules and arrangements pertaining to access and use of communal land is closely interlinked with: 1) how farm households perceive communal land tenure in relation to their livelihood options and farming strategies; 2) how power relations among local communities and between local communities and state actors shape decision-making processes and distributional outcomes; and 3) the role of the state in sustaining and advancing its control over land and how this changes over time.
2 Suhardiman, Diana; Phayouphorn, A.-M.; Gueguen, A.; Rigg, J. 2023. Silent transitions: commercialization and changing customary land tenure systems in upland Laos. Land Use Policy, 126:106541. [doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2023.106541]
Land tenure systems ; Customary tenure ; Commercialization ; Land access ; Land rights ; Tea industry ; Shifting cultivation ; Land use ; Equity ; Farmers ; Agrarian reform ; Institutions ; Households ; Strategies ; Villages ; Case studies / Lao People's Democratic Republic / Phongsaly / Khwaykham
(Location: IWMI HQ Call no: e-copy only Record No: H051670)
(0.61 MB)
What happens to local institutional arrangements regarding access and use of communal land under the forces of agricultural commercialization? Taking Khwaykham village in Phongsaly province, Laos as a case study, this paper sheds light on this question as farm households in the settlement have progressively transitioned to commercial farming, specifically tea cultivation. Traditionally, farm households’ access and rights to use the land were embedded in their swidden agriculture practices. The adoption of tea has increasingly fixed land use rights, making land sticky at the household rather than communal level. How, why and with what effects this occurs are the focus of the paper. We argue that while this transition to tea cultivation has benefited – in income terms – most farm households in the village, it has also created an agrarian context for increased inequity between those households who rapidly took the opportunity from the tea boom and others who have missed out on it.
Powered by DB/Text WebPublisher, from
