Negotiating post-resettlement livelihoods: the Chinese special economic zone and its impact in northwestern Laos

Abstract

© 2018, © 2018 Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID). Special economic zones (SEZs) are often employed by the state as a development mechanism to attract foreign direct investment and as a key engine for rural transformation. Drawing on fieldwork in northwestern Laos, this article examines the development impacts of the SEZ, the broker state and the development investor. Deprived of their lands, many post-resettlement villagers were not incorporated into the economy of the SEZ. Re-peasantisation is thus both a path to alternative livelihoods among the uprooted population and a strategy employed by the investor to contain the surplus labour.