It is common for Laos to be depicted as ‘traditional’
and, by implication, ‘old’, as if the country and its
people are sepia tinted. The ‘repeasantisation’ of life that
is sometimes argued for in studies of the recent progress
of European rural livelihoods (van der Ploeg et al., 2000,
p. 403) builds, if not explicitly, on just the sort of existence
which is thought to exist in countries like Laos. In
Laos, however, we find the beginnings of a process of
depeasantisation. The ‘old’ rurality, imagined or not,
does not address the emerging tensions brought about
by population growth, market integration, state intrusion
and environmental decline. The old is being abandoned
by rural households as they embark on three
principal routes to survival, consolidation or accumulation.
First, through intensifying agricultural production,
utilising new technologies and integrating more
intimately into the market as a means of revivifying
agriculture. Second, through modernising and commercialising
certain traditional, non-farm activities
(such as weaving or the collection of NTFPs). And
third, through embracing various new non-farm activities.
There are two things to note about these broad
categories of response. To begin with, the old and traditional
become new. When cloth is sold, when NTFPs
are gathered and sold at a level never seen previously,
when rice is grown in new ways there is an accompanying––
and profound––change in the psychology of
production. Furthermore, and second, there also emerges
a much sharper geography of winners and losers as
the stakes grow and as the entree into the poker game
becomes harder to negotiate and more exclusive.