On the Road in Laos. An Anthropological Study of Road Construction and Rural Communities 9150609661

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Ing-Britt Trankell

ON THE ROAD IN LAOS An Anthropological Study of Road Construction and Rural Communities

Uppsala Research Reports in Cultural Anthropology, No. 12

1993

Cover photo: Children in a Tai Messy village

Publication of this work has been financially supported by Vilhelm Ekmans universitetsfond

Published and distributed by Department of Cultural Anthropology Uppsala University Tréidgiirdsgatan 18 S-753 09 Uppsala, Sweden . . . . . ..

© Ing-Britt Trankell 1993

ISBN 91-506-0966-1 ISSN 0348-9507 Photos, typesetting and lay~out by Jan Ovesen Printed in Sweden by Go tab, Stockholm 1993

CONTENTS PREFACE

vii 1 6 '7

INTRODUCTION Research Design Methodology

GENERAL SOCIO-ECONOMIC SITUATION Ethnicity The Socio-Political Position of Women Subsistence Production Systems Socio-Economic Description of Selected Villages in Vientiane Province Marketplaces and Commercial Centers Forestry and Agriculture in Bolikhamxai Socio-Economic Description of Selected Villages in Bolikhamxai

SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CHANGES Forestry, Agriculture and Land Use in Relation to the Road Land, Labour and Gender On-Farm and Off-Farm Transportation Needs Changing Landholding Patterns in Roadside Villages

12 12 19 25 34 52 56 64

80 80 81 83

Political and Socio-Economic Changes at Village Level

85 88

Wealth Ranking and Political -Economic Power

92

BIBLIOGRAPHY

95

v

PREFACE This work is the result of three months' research, the focus of which was the impact of a road construction programme on local communities, ethnic groups and gender relations in the Lao People's Democratic Republic. The

work was undertaken as an anthropological study within the Lao-Swedish Cooperation in the Road Transport Sector with regard to the rehabilitation of the National Road 13 South from Vientiane municipality to Pakkading district in Bolikhamxai province- The study was commissioned by the Gender Office of the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA) in collaboration with SIDA's Infrastructure Division. The research team, of which I was a member, was led by a Swedish consultant recruited through the Development Studies Unit, Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University and consisted further of a male

Laotian road engineer, a female Laotian secretary from the Ministry of Transportation, and myself as an anthropologist, also recruited by the Development Studies Unit. For the necessary transport of the team a Landrover with a driver had to be hired, whatever the mechanical shortcomings of this vehicle, its driver turned out to be an important asset for the team, not only for our travelling but also in terms of the research itself. The fieldwork for the study was carried out during seven weeks, from November 1 through December 20, 1991 under the direction of the team leader, Ms Agneta Hakangiird. I also acknowledge the assistance and cooperation of Mr Kharnphet, Ms Viengsamay, Mr Daravong and Mr Sun. The study was my first experience of working within the time constraint which unfortunately is the norm for much development anthropology, sometimes - and here rather appropriately .... referred to as 'hit-and~run anthropology Because of the very limited time allotted for fieldwork, the data from the various villages must necessarily appear rather sporadic and somewhat uneven. lt was a question of gathering as much material as possible during a short time, and at the same time to ensure a reasonable

vii

viii

reliability of the data. This means that a detailed and systematic comparison of data from the various villages is not always possible, since circumstances and even chance encounters partly determined the kind of information I was able to gain in each village. To make up for such shortcomings, I had recourse to various 'short-cut' methods, briefly discussed in the Introduction. But the obvious incompleteness of the brief 'village studies' should be noted. The present publication is a revised and expanded version of the report I submitted to the Development Studies Unit in April 1992. Since completion of the fieldwork within my assignment, I have had the opportunity to visit a number of villages in the northern provinces of Luann Prabang, Oudomxai and Phong Saly, and the comparative perspective gained from these experiences has implicitly contributed to the final shape of this work. I am grateful to my colleague and companion, Jan Ovesen, for his helpful comments on various drafts of the manuscript.

Vientiane, February 1993 In-Britt Trankell

\

I. INTRODUCTION The main objective of the Lao-Swedish Cooperation is to assist in providing the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) with a national transportation system and to improve the capacity for the country to build and maintain roads and bridges. As for Road 13 South, the idea is to upgrade the existing dust road, built by the French during the colonial period, to an all-weather main road. The road is considered an important link in the national transportation system, since it together with Road 8 also scheduled for upgrading - will connect Laotian and Vietnamese territory. Construction is partly funded by SIDA through a Swedish

construction company, which supplies the technology in terms of roadconstructing equipment, technical know-how, and training of Laotian engineers. From the Laotian side, the State Enterprise 13 S - which is a subsidiary of the Ministry of Corrnnunication, Transport, Post, Construction and Aviation (MCTPCA) is in its turn financially and practically responsible for the actual construction work as well as for supplying the labour. - .

An assessment of the socio~econornic effects of the road was considered relevant in order to provide a planning basis for a possible expansion of the programme to include feeder roads, as well as to provide information for future road construction policies.

* Road construction is subject to important national and international economic considerations. The importance of the economic 'opening up' of the country through infrastructural development, as well as its political concornitants, was realized already by the French colonial administration.

As Gunn observes, "[t]he colonial State project [. . .] served a direct political role (assisting troop movement and the pacification of the country) and an economic role (facilitating the extraction of raw materials and trade

1

2

flows)"(Gunn 1990:55). The advent of decolonization, national liberation

and a socialist regime has done nothing to invalidate Gunn's statement. Infrastructural development remains a precondition for economic development, and from a macroeconomic point of view (Swedish assistance in) road construction is generally deemed highly desirable. One international economist expressed his enthusiasm in the following way: [O]ne of the major obstacles faced by the new [economic] policy is the deficient road infrastructure. By preventing the creation of one national market out of several provincial markets, this obstacle prevents the liberalization of internal trade from having its positive effects on economic welfare. By the same token, the deficient road network makes difficult the transport of products to export markets, implying higher transport costs and less export. Swedish assistance to road construction in Laos can therefore be considered most useful to the implementation of the new policy (Bourdet 1989: 47).

There is no doubt, however, that also foreign economic interests - in the first place Thai and to some extent also Vietnamese are served by the road construction. With the comp eton of the bridge across the Mekong River immediately east of Vientiane, which is currently being constructed with Australian aid and which will be directly linked to the Road 13 South, trade flows will indeed be facili rared, and foreign observers have coimnented that the bridge will in the first place promote the continued and increased exploitation by Thailand of the natural resources of Laos. One western diplomat is reported to have said that the bridge "will make it much easier for the Thais to rape and devastate Laos" (quoted by Lohmann 199012). ...-

* From the point of view of the sociology of transportation, Cook (1985) has noted that both ordinary people and those who devote their time and effort to designing roads and transportation systems may want roads, although for

rather different reasons. Road planners tend to think primarily in terms of the movement of goods and the efficiency to be achieved by motorized transport (Cook 1985:299). Villagers, on the other hand, may be in favour of an improved road not SO much because of the prospects of better individual travelling facilities, but because of the anticipation of the arrival of more consumer goods at lower prices, and because of the wish for other

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... ~f3"'k. - h e above statement, however, seems to reflect the conflicts betwe'%l-ienl§r16h'§ 'l"e'vI*"él=§ '5"l"trré organization and the different perspectives held by the fairly strong women on the district level with their down~ to-earth experience of rural conditions on the one hand, and on the other hand the more centrally positioned women, who lack this rural perspective at the same time as they have to -l

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A village school. As primary school level, there are sri!! girls among the pupils

confront their male fellow party members with the demands of the rurally based members of the organ zation. Spokeswomen for the LWU in Vientiane stated that it has recently been decided to try out a project on 'birth-spacing' in the province of Luann |

Prabang, since | request for such a program has been made- by many members. This is again a modification of the original request of a birth control and a family ..planning program. Ni., 'T in I

* By way of comparison it could be mentioned that in neighboring Vietnam the effects of dog mol (i.e. the 'new mechanism', the Vietnamese version of

perestroika) on women are currently being discussed at the Centre for `Women's Studies at Hanoi University. In spite of the traditionally high

standards of education, Vietnam is presently and for the first time experiencing an increased rate of illiteracy, of which women are almost exclusively the victims (Le Thi, pers. comm.). Confucianism with its emphasis on the flame lineage and the importance of the core of matrilineal

22

relatives, in combination with the new importance of a household-based economy, is given as the explanation why families are reluctant to invest in the education of daughters. Though the ideology of Confucianism may be specific to Vietnam, similar cultural or ideological legitimations for favoring sons at the expense of daughters with regard to education and other life opportunities are not lacking in the Laotian context.5 One factor is the increasing dependence of households on wage labor. Since men are the ones who have the greater opportunity for finding employment and since their wages are in any case higher than those of women, it makes sound economic sense to invest in education for men (and boys), while women are mostly expected to work in agriculture anyway and therefore do not really need further education. A related aspect of this is the deeply engrained cosmological association between women and rice. The Rice Goddess is a mythological woman who sacrificed her own body to feed her starving children, from the ashes of her body the rice originated (Trankell 1989). Corresponding to this association, there is an emphasis .on women's relation to the local village territory, as well as to the spirits of the land, and consequently on matrilineal kin as the core of the 'house-based society' (cf. Macdonald 1987). This is evinced, for example, in the local custom observed in some of the Phuan villages to keep the bones of female ancestors in a that (stupa) placed on the family paddy-fields. The idea of female seclusion is maybe something which we tend to associate with Muslim ideology. But if the concept is thought of as something relative and depending on context it may be recognized as a phenomenon also in the Hindu-Buddhist cultures including Thai and Lao. It was, for instance, often stated that women's life opportunities were hampered by the fact that rules of decorum restricted women's freedom of physical movement beyond what was recognized as the social space of the village. I was told that women are prevented to work outside the village since they need a husband or another male relative to accompany them. 5 Ongoing research on the Lao educational system indicates that such differentiation between boys and girls exists already in the primary school. Because of the design of the centralized examination system, pupils frequently fail their exams and will have to spend a second or even a third year in the same grade. It is likely that quite a few pupils spend their five years of schooling in the first and second grade only. Due to early demands on girls for 'baby-sitting' and for looking after the needs of younger siblings, girls more often than boys become school drop-outs (B. Nordtveit, personal communication, June 1992).

23

According to the cultural codex, women are not supposed to move or travel without the company of a male relative. Following the same code for proper behaviour, women reported that they do not work outside the house or

beyond the village fields because they lack transportation, they need company, and because women are not considered to have the strength and energy for riding a bicycle.

Organization and Activities of the Lao Women's Union The Lao Women's Union of each district is headed by a committee of three women. The chairwoman is responsible for matters of ideology and acts as liason to the district chairman of the Party. The deputy chairwoman is treasurer and secretary and organizes practical work and charity. The second deputy chairwoman handles problems of health and child-care and acts as advisor to the members regarding the fulfillment of their 'goods' and

'duties', viz., to be a good citizen, a good mother, and a good wife for the husband, and to actively contribute to the building and development of society and the nation. Application for membership is open to women between 18 and 45 years of age. Membership is granted on the basis of an evaluation of the applicant's 'progressiveness, awareness and clean personal history'. Members are continually monitored by the committee and categorized as 'good', 'average' or 'weak'. The Union is divided into a large number of groups of 6-10 members who constitute the working units for all

practical purposes. To a Westerner, this may look more like a replica of the Party organ zation and discipline than an association for the promotion of sisterhood and female emancipation. Be this as it may, it is still worth stressing the importance of the efforts devoted to charity and social work by members of the Union and the contribution of this work to village unity and solidarity, which in many ways contrasts and even conflicts with the new economic mechanism, nae setthakit mai. Since teachers and health workers often do not receive any salary from governmental funds, the Women's Union is given the responsibility for collecting small amounts of rice for those who work for their 'merits', bun, or for the benefit of others only. The Lao Women's Union also supports the families of soldiers in the Lao People's Revolutionary Army in the same way. In order to raise additional public funds for schools and temples the Union arranges food and drinks for sale at temple festivals.

24

Though some examples of collective improvements for women may be found and ascribed to the efforts of the Women's Union,6 the individual woman cannot normally count on the Union's support in personal matters. The three 'duties' which emphasize the importance of the family-unit and faithfulness in marriage is wholly consonant with Buddhist notions of the lifelong marriage. So, for instance, if a woman is seeking divorce against the wishes of her husband, she can only hope for the support of her own family, since she will be up against both the juridical and the moral convictions of the rest of the community. In one of the villages I witnessed a divorce case being negotiated between the concerned parties, their families, and the village elders. Since the families involved had not been able to reach an agreement among themselves as to the division of the property and the custody of the couple's three children, the case was taken to the village

headman to be settled. The husband came from a neighboring village and during the last few years the couple had been staying with his family. The woman wanted to leave her husband, stating that they did not get along together, and to return to her home village together with the children. The husband's family did not want the children to leave. The husband himself refused to divide their common property which the two of them had worked for together. During the negotiations the husband was supported by his father and another male relative, both present and accompanied by the elders from their village council. Though the woman was known to the elders representing her home- village, none of these were personally related to her and her own family did not turn up to offer support. She was on her own and in fact she was the only woman in the assembly of almost twenty persons, apart from myself, the foreign anthropologist, who of course had no business to intervene. The husband accused her of being lazy and not working hard enough which was also the reason why he considered the

property as belonging to himself. The wife retorted that maybe she had not been able to work as hard as her husband required, but on the other hand he was responsible for having persuaded her to move out from her own village in order to stay with his family. While doing so he had promised her not only a good life, but had also assured her that he would be the one to take responsibility for the family and for the work in the fields. She said she had 6 Stuart-Fox (1986) re Poits a case where Tai Dam women in a Northern Province managed to raise public support through the Lao WomenIrs Union for the condemnation of wi Fe-beating.

25

been cheated since her husband did not care for her. Everyone present urged her to go back to her husband and as she refused, saying that it would not solve her problems, she was told that it was her duty to do so. Finally the village headman closed the discussion by announcing his decision that

she was to move back to the husband.

* If the prospects of an individual woman for soliciting support from the Lao Women's Union as far as family matters are concerned are thus rather bleak, the situation of groups of women from the ethnic minorities are hardly any better. To the extent that ordinary hill tribe housewives would ever contemplate to actively take part in the work of the Women's Union, they would probably face a double-bind situation based on the patronizing

and condescending attitude of their Lao Lum sisters. The following quotation - from an official Women' Union publication - should suffice to illustrate the situation: Laos has also been affected by backward customs and habits, especially among women of ethnic minorities and in remote mountainous areas. These women still suffer from an inferiority complex, considering themselves incapable of shouldering important tasks in society and suitable only to family chores. As as result, they are not brave enough to strive to liberate themselves from old restrictions (National Union of Lao Women, 1989:47).

SUBSISTENCE PRODUCTION SYSTEMS The development

of infrastructure has been considered an important

strategy to stimulate regional development and a way to promote overall economic growth and thus to alleviate poverty in rural areas where poor transport is considered the main constraint on economic growth in the region (Leinbach 1989:79). The intention here is therefore to discuss economic production and commercial activities with regard to possible impacts of the road construction program in the communities visited.

26

Households and Division of Labour The household, often consisting of a three-generation extended family, is the basic unit for production and consumption in what is nowadays essentially a family-based econorny.'7 As indicated above, residential rules favour uxorilocal residence, which means that the women stay put while the young men move in with the family of their wives, at least during the initial period

of the marriage. As a consequence of this, family ties on the matrilateral side are generally favoured among most of the paddy-producing lowland groups. The son-in-law is expected to work the land of his father-in-law for some time, but it is also generally expected that the couple establish themselves as an independent household as soon as the first child is born.

Parents depend on their children and grandchildren for their old age and ideally one of the daughters, preferably the youngest, is expected to remain with her parents and care for them during their old age. In return she will inherit the house and the rice-fields. . In their economic activities the Meuy ethnic group is somewhat different from the other groups in the area. The Meuy depend more on the forest both for hat-cultivation and for foraging of various forest products. Interestingly, they also differ in their household organization since their residence mies favour virilocal residence as opposed to the uxorilocality of the other lowlanders. Members of the household work the land together. The work on the fields is shared by husband and wife, and the male and female tasks are regarded as complementary. Ploughing and the preparation of seedbeds and fields in wet-rice, referred to as nag-cultivation, is men's work. The availability of male l a b o r and a draft animal for ploughing are crucial factors in wet-rice production and ever so often households explained their poverty as due to lack of male labour. Women do the transplantation and weeding, while water control is men's work. During the harvest, all available labour is used for cutting. Threshing is usually a male task, nowadays increasingly being mechanized by the use of mobile threshingmachines, while women remain responsible for carrying the sheaves of rice to the threshing place. In swidddening, the so-called hat-cultivation, the cutting and clearing of fields are male tasks, while the sowing and weeding 7 The agricultural cooperatives, sahaakorn, were never successful in Laos (Evans 1991). Even before the implementation of the new economic mechanism, naew sexarakhiz mai in 1988, cooperatives had to a large extent been dissolved.

27

_

of fields up to harvest time, is women's work. The weeding of fields in had-cultivation demands the main labour input, and female labour is therefore regarded as the crucial and restraining factor in swiddening. The handicraft specialty, or cottage industry, utsahakham, the various villages was also found to be house-based economic activities following the same principles for complementarity between male and female work tasks. In pottery, for instance, it is male tasks to find and supply the clay as well as to prepare the material, and to provide the wife with the potter's wheel and other utensils. It is female labour to provide the up (the visible shape), i.e. to mould the material into the proper shape and design. The pots are burnt by the men and the products are considered the property of the household. l

3?

Cultivation Systems In order to account for the main and most important types of economic production relevant to the project area, the communities surveyed here were selected with regard to their geographical location along the road. The main differences between villages with regard to economic orientation and farming techniques relate to ecological conditions determined by their

location as forest-related or river-related. This dichotomy is employed only as a matter of convenience of presentation, is not intended as a simplistic way out of the problem of describing the diverse complexities imposed by human environmental interaction. It is important to keep in mind that bidden agriculture, foraging and other forest-related subsistence activities on the one hand, and the irrigated wet-rice technology of the Mekong River-based villages on the other do not in this context represent extremes or any real discontinuities. Rather, in line with Ellen's discussion (1982) of small scale production systems, we should

remember that boundaries between categories of different subsistence strategies and their ecosystems are the result of human conceptualization, where certain parameters of the system are given a more dominant position than others in the total configuration.

The main population in the villages along the Road 13 South subsists on rice cultivation based on a combination of various techniques. The main techniques of rice agriculture is wet-rice cultivation on rained lowland fields and shifting cultivation practised on upland fields by means of 8 Women's weeding of fields alone has been estimated as accounting for 40% of the total l a b o r input in hat-cultivation (Birgcgard 1982, III).

28

swiddening O11 &i ration scheme. Where the conditions allow, hills are successively being terraced and used for permanent cultivation. Where irrigation facilities are available, a second rice crop, naa -saeng, is produced. There are certain features pertaining to wet-rice cultivation as compared to had-cultivation that have important implications with regard to legislation, ownership, technology and l a b o r exchange and which it might be important to keep in mind, especially in connection with the ongoing road construction. While bidden agriculture relies entirely on human energy, the need of ploughs, tractors or draft animals, and other capital I

Fishing in the rivers and gardening on the river banks are important supplementary substlvtenee activities

29

intensive equipment for wet-rice cultivation in combination with the continuous l a b o r investment. in the land by leveling, terracing and water control usually means that land is no longer a free asset, as in swiddening, but is turned into a commodity which can be privately owned and mortgaged, purchased and sold. In the lowland there is a strong cultural preference for wet-rice cultivation. Nevertheless, all project villages, except for one that was located on the Mekong Riverbank, reported had-cultivation as an integral part of the cultivation system. The persistent use of swiddens in spite of local preference for wet-rice cultivation therefore has to be explained. It should be noted that the (ethnic) Lao have traditionally restricted wet-rice cultivation to the flat plains along the river banks and, unlike for example the Tai Khao and the Tai Lue, they have never developed large~scale irrigation systems (Bray 1986:8l, 171). Instead of expanding wet-rice cultivation in the hinterlands by means of terracing and sophisticated irrigation techniques, the Lao have resorted to rain-fed agriculture in areas that are not naturally flooded. The extensive practice of bidden cultivation among the lowland farmers thus makes it clear that the problems of swiddening are by no means restricted to the various highland populations, but is a much more widespread phenomenon. It is usually believed that pressure on existing paddy land is the main reason behind lowland bidden cultivation. But other circumstances also need to be taken into consideration, such as farmers' allocation of available labour. The traditional technique and use of draft animals for ploughing puts a limit as to how much a household is able to cultivate in terms of rats' and hectares of paddy fields during the rainy season. By combining the different growth cycles of nay and hai, farmers are able to extend their labour in rice cultivation for the production of a second rice crop from Kai-cultivation and other upland

fields used in shifting cultivation. The lower productivity in had-cultivation is generally recognized, and apart from being supported by available statistics, it is often stated by rice farmers as the main reason for their preference for na-cultivation. The lower productivity seems to refer mainly to yield per land unit and yield in terms of l a b o r input, while yield in terms of seed ratio makes the lower productivity acceptable and even attractive to farmers, provided surplus labour is available, Earlier reports states that as much as 30% of the total staple rice produced in Bolikhamxai

province is harvested from ha cultivation (Birgegard 1982, III), which is

30

a clear indication of the importance of hat-cultivation in terms of farmers' food-security. Another aspect of had-cultivation is related to the village organization of l a b o r and labour exchange. Far-reaching changes were reported with regard to the traditional labour exchange in nay-cultivation, leaving room for individualized exchange and wage labour, where earlier the tradi tonal networks

of kin and n e i g h b o r s

provided

the framework

for the

cooperation on a more general, though still measured level of exchange known as aw wan say wan ('to take a day and give a day'). These changes did not, however, pertain to the hat-cultivation. Ban Na villagers referred to cooperation in had-cultivation as part of the samakhikan, the general solidarity between villagers as a collectivity with regard to the exchange of l a b o r , aw h a n g kan ('to take each other's strength'). In had-cultivation, work thus seems to be organized on a principle of generalized reciprocity, while in nay-cultivation the traditional norm was a balanced reciprocity. This kind of reciprocity is currently being progressively influenced by the

market principle.

* Activities on swiddens start in February - March with the cutting and burning and finish in November-December with the threshing. Wet-rice activities generally start with the preparation of seedbeds in May - June when the rain has begun, ploughing and transplantation takes place in July, and threshing in December. This combination of different techniques is characteristic for Laos even if it has also been observed elsewhere. Table 3 illustrates the annual cycle of agricultural labour for the different systems of cultivation. There are, of course, wide variations with regard to work schedule and time allocation between different localities, and

the table is therefore meant mainly as an example in order to illuminate the interrelatedness of the various phases of agricultural work.

31

Table Q L i l

AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES IN ROADSIDE VILLAGES 1 Dec.

2 Jan.

3

4

5

Feb.

Mar.

Apr.

6 May

7 June

8 July

9

10

Aug.

Sept.

1} Oct.

12 Nov

- p i l l ! l i l l - _ - - : I l l l h - l - - g g i I I n - _ _ - . - - . » ¢ l . - - _ _ - - _ 1 1 1 I l l 1 . - - _ _ _ - I . l » - l - _ _ - - - - l - - - - I I ! - - - - - - - - g l ! - h - »

Naa than, Lowland fields Qoocooooooooooolooiotooo

oooooioo

plough, plant

harvest harvcet

transplantation

water

prep

low

control,

seed-

level

weeding

beds

fields

Naa khok, Upland fields oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo prep

plough

transplantation

seedbeds

Hai, Swiddens Rice ottioooooooooooooooo

cutting, burning, planting, weeding

.•

was

harvest

control

.. • harvest

weeding

..

Second crops (selected examples)

ovooooooooooono

0000000000

chili, harvest beans, plant

ooooooocoooooo

chili, sowing, watering, fertilizing

peanuts, plan(

beans, harvest peanuts, harvest

banana, plant

b anana, plant

sugar, Plan(

When male and female allocation of time in agricultural work is considered separately, we get a tenderized version of the above table, as shown below in Table 4. One important point that emerges is the crucial importance of male work tasks during the initial phases of agricultural work such as ploughing and preparing seedbeds for nag-cultivation and clearing and

burning the land for had-cultivation. The cultivation of secondary crops is mostly a common male and female enterprise, so it makes little sense to separate those tasks according to gender.

32

Table 4 l

l

l

r

GENDER SPECIFIC AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES IN ROADSIDE VILI-AGES 1

2

3

4

Dec.

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

5 Apr.

7 June

6 May

8 July

9 Aug.

10 Sept.

12

11 Oct.

NOV.

l l ! - - I l i l - I l l l l h - l i - l l - - - n . . - I l . ¢ | - u | ! - - - I | . . | - - - ¢ - - a 1 d p q - - u i 1 - - - 1 4 . 1 . - a n 1 . 1 - a n n u m u n - _ a n - - - . | - - | - q n - | - - u - | | - - ¢ q . - - - -

Nan Hmm Lowland fIGldq L

I

ooooooooloooooooonooaooo

00000000

OOOOOOOOOOOCI

oo

OOOOOOOOOOOO

D

plough, plant

U

transplantation

o

II

D

low

control,

seedbeds

level fields

weeding

o

O

o

O

o

O

I]

harvest

water

prep

O

harvest

Nay kook, Upland fields oooooooooocoolooooooooooo-moo o

O

o

O

o oo

prep

O

O

O O

plough

transplantation

seabeds

oo o

water control

O

o

O

oo

harvest

Hai, Swiddens Rice

....

ooooooooooooooooilil

o o Oo

O O O O O O O O O

mmmuunnmmu cutting, burning, planting, weeding

II D III

cxrzzzurx

weeding

haI"Y€S[

Second crops (selected examples)

.000¢0¢.0..000\.

. • ..........

beans, plant

beans, harvest

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0

peanuts, plalit peanuts, harvest banana, plant

sugar, plant

LEGEND

• • •

chili, sowing, watering, fertilizing

chili, harvest

o made labour

nu fennalelabour I

human labour

_

banana, plant

33

The Importance of the Forest Along with the rather extensive cultivation there is a dependence on forest products for subsistence as well as for the market. Though the populations of the different villages rely to a varying extent on forest produce for their daily subsistence as well as for modest cash incomes, this reliance is

nowhere negligible. Among the important forest products are small game, birds and eggs, fruit, honey, spices, medicines, resins, latexes, dyes, fuelwood and charcoal, as well as structural materials such as rattan, bamboo, wooden poles and various fibres. Though the gathering of edible products from the forest is the responsibility of the women, foraging activities are mainly male business when related to construction material and commercial products. A good example of the latter is found in the production of tree oil, Nam man ying, which mixed with red ochre, Nam firing, is used for the red paint in the

temples. In the process of collecting the oil from the ton yang in the forest, it is considered as a male task to locate the tree, as well as making the fire in

the trunk which will make the oil flow, The oil is collected in bamboo containers and transported back to the house, where it is further processed and distributed by the women, who besides the red ochre oil based paint also produce other commodities such as torches, by mixing the oil with flammable material such as had tessy, palm leaves, or sawdust from Mai d e n g , rosewood. As pointed out by de Beer & McDermott, "[Ulseful forest materials other than timber [...] have been grossly undervalued. Perhaps nowhere are the consequences of the resultant neglect more severe and the potential benefits of reversing it more promising than in Southeast Asia [...]. The non-timber resources of these forests [....] have always been critical to meeting the basic needs of the rural population" (1989:7). The improved road, however, has so far favoured logging. What is urgently needed is programmes for the development of sustainable, diversified forest management systems, for which non-timber forest products play a very important role.

34

SOCIO-ECONOMIC DESCRIPTION OF SELECTED VILLAGES IN VIENTIANE PROVINCE Along the already constructed stretch (about 90 km) of the new road from Vientiane to the provincial border of Bolikamxai, four villages were visited in the course of the study. Basic population statistics for the four villages

are presented in Table 5.

Table 5 1

VILLAGES, ETHNICITY AND POPULATION Households Population

Village

Ethnic Group

Sangsai

Lao Phuan

129

796

402594

339

397

M/F

Labour

Children

Donsangphai

Lao Phllall

205

1.197

60{}f5q7

471

527

Nonxai

Lao Phuan

73

369

173/196

168

179

Na

Lao Messy

95

554

281/273

190

279

Note: Labour force is reckoned as the population between the age of 16 and 50 for women and 16 and 55 for men, excluding djsablcd persons. Children as a category applies to the population up to the age of 15.

Below follows a description of the villages, their production system and basic economic activities. The presentation is made to facilitate comparison and is followed by a discussion of road related impacts. The description of the first village will be relatively more detailed since many of the features are general and pertain equally to the other villages.

BAN NA: A FOREST VILLAGE Transect Walk The village is located at Km 81 South, Thaphabat district, Bolikamxai Province. The access road to the village, which according to our Laotian friends is not exactly up to the standard, was originally constructed by the army and has since then been used by the State Enterprise 3 for the transportation of timber. Loggers discovered a couple of waterfalls not known of before, behind the village land and planned to take travelers in

35

for tourism and business. As the Road 13 South Construction Company established itself in the immediate area it was agreed that a new access road would be constructed by the company and paid in timber and wood by villagers. In the later stage of negotiations the governmental ban on logging stopped the plans. Administratively the village belongs to Bolikhamxai province. Sociologically though, it represents the very periphery of Vientiane province, where the road comes to a halt, with its location close to the Thabok waterfalls and the Ban Hai road market, where buses and travellers usually make a stop before continuing further on along the dust road to

Pakxan. The village is said to have been built just after the war in 1945 and is located north of the road between the road and the hills. It is only 1.5 kilometers away from the main road and lies just behind a newly established shantytown inhabited by road constructors and swarming with all kinds of more or less adventurous and inventive people who for their business depend on the market and the road construction. A recent incident of severe fighting between villagers and newcomers in front of the village was reported. The village itself is composed of 95 households all belonging to the ethnic group of Lao Meuy. Lao Messy differs from other lowland groups with regard to social organization and religion. Residence rules emphasizes virilocality, and the local spirit cults focus on the ancestors on the male side. As opposed to other lowlanders in the area, they do not cremate the dead but prefer burial. Though confessional Buddhists, the village temple is modest and in outlay it resembles a 'village assembly halT of the kind found among the Tai Dam in the Vietnamese province of Son La. As in other nonChristian Meuy villages no monks or novices presently inhabit the buildings.

By contrast, the primary school next to the temple is exceptionally crowded and has more than one hundred pupils. In the afternoon, however, the temple yard is a busy place since it is also the location of a public well, and most children will meet here to fetch water for their families. Water is a scarce resource and during the dry season there is lack of drinking water, which means that villagers are queuing up for the water until midnight. Three of the four public wells were built during the sixties by USAID and are located close to the streams. Wells are dug and only 4-5 meters deep due to rock bottom beneath. In addition to the public wells there are three private wells located in villagers'

36

compounds. Along the village road continuing into the cluster of compounds and buildings there is a rice~mill, presently not being used. Due to the small yield harvested on few fields, villagers prefer to use the handmills. On the whole, mechanization of agriculture is at a minimum. There is one tractor in the village, bought by a villager from a former cooperative in a neighbouring village. As in other villages motor vehicles represent a new male monopoly: The tractor is used by the new owner on a renting basis for

the ploughing of fields in the village. The location offers but a narrow string of paddy fields just below the mountain slopes. Referring to their location along streams at the foot of the

hills the lowland fields are called nay hom hoe.

* The attempts at paddy cultivation are quite modest. Without irrigation and with limited access to paddy fields quite a few villagers entirely depend on bidden agriculture. Swiddens are not officially recorded but were discovered more or less accidentally as we discussed harvest results with villagers, some of whom happened to report yield but no land. During the discussions concerning the use of different cultivation techniques villagers first indicated that cultivation of hai and naa are not combined but should be regarded as separate practices. This was because families practising bidden agriculture did so only because they were landless and did not have access to paddy-fields. However, as our discussions proceeded, villagers admitted that those with some access to paddy fields grow rice mainly on these fields and are therefore less inclined to tum to swiddens in order to enlarge their landholdings. On the other hand, the social and cultural inducements to practise swiddening consist in the value of samakhi, the solidarity which traditionally governs work and l a b o r exchange within the village territory, and which is nowadays most pronounced in the sphere of had-cultivation. While paddy-fields are considered private or family property, people are reluctant to abstain from access to and involvement in had-cultivation, since this defines them as members of the social and moral collectivity of the village. There is a delicate interdependence between the various factors of production in wet rice technology to support this interpretation. For a

37

household with two adult persons availer-blefor work in the fields and with no access to mechanical cultivators, two hectares of paddy fields constitute the manageable maximum. However, given the pressure on land and the fact that bidden cultivations and paddy cultivation cycles only partially overlap in time it seems unlikely that households with labor available would not use this in order to clear new land. This is also supported by interviews with villagers, where families claimed that they combine paddy cultivation with bidden cultivation in order to secure a supply of rice for their own consumption. Several families also mentioned that they intended to clear new land for the cultivation of secondary crops . The village represents in this respect an example of the tendency among Lao lowlanders to encroach on forest areas or marginal land due to demographic pressure, especially in the Vientiane area, - a fact which has also been as noted by other observers (Lohmann 1990, Evans 1990). This is not a specific Laotian problem but is known also from both other parts of Southeast Asia and from the rest the world, and it represents one of the many threats to primary forests resources (Hafner 1990, World Rainforest Movement 1990).

The vicissitudes of farming means that villagers subsist only with difficulties on rice cultivation. The gathering and various use of forest produce is essential to the economy in this village also for households that are self-supporting in terms of rice. Farming is supplemented by cottage industry (utsahakham), and there is an extensive production of basketry,9 mainly sticky~rice containers, which are traded by the women into the markets of Vientiane and across the river into Thailand. Women's trading of various forest products, notably rnushroorns,10 constitutes another

important part of the economy. Charcoal processing for marketing is also reported. The surrounding bush and forest is an important resource for keeping and grazing cattle, and cattle trade represent yet another important off-season occupation in the village. 1lllll111lnl

S) The baskets are made of a bamboo variety called rnaiphaf good which is abundant

in the area and considered an important forest product. This bamboo has disappeared

from certain other villages where people have thus been forced to stop their own production of baskets. The local availability of the bamboo is considered sufficient to cover another 20 years of production.

10 Botanic identification of local mushrooms has not been done. A large number of local varieties are important to villagers because of their subsistence use or market value, among them are het punk, he! bot, la nook, phung, ko, may, khy khuay, tan, het f a y , than, tin had, Fong Jon, phntng let, khan Kong, den, and thane-

38

The gender roles related to the cottage industry are quite pronounced and well defined, and basket production serves in this case as a good example. As most cottage industry in the area it is mainly an off-season occupation, though many households faced with shortage of land have a full-time specialization in basket weaving. The production is usually defined as a

household enterprise and will start in the cold season immediately after harvest. lt is men's work to locate, cut and transport the specific bamboo and wood used in the construction. Frequently a woman and her oldest daughter will take responsibility

for the weaving and main construction.

Once the material is delivered at the house women will take over and continue the production by cutting and slicing the bamboo into thin strips of appropriate size for the intended item. Young girls learn to participate and acquire good sldlls at weaving at quite an early age. Wooden parts such as bottom and other possible details are cut by the men who are also responsible for finally assembling the various parts. Items are generally traded on a small scale by the women. As a more or less full-time occupation during the month after harvest a household is able to produce about 10 baskets a day. The average profit is calculated at 150 to 200 kip a basket depending on size and design

_

Participatory Physical Sketchmapping Physical sketchrnapping proved to be a good way to gain information about institutions in the village, such as the location of schools, wells, mills and also about common institutions for support in times of need, such as the existence of the [to khan loam, the public rice-barn, from which suffering households could be provided with some means of survival. The absence of such institutions were noticed in this village, though we learnt that a funeral

association existed were members contributed a fixed sum of money to families who had suffered a loss. In the course of the participatory physical sketchmapping the village was graphically described with its main institutions, buildings, and different quarters. The village was physically delimited from the surrounding fields, streams and forests by an oxcart track, used for local on-farm transportation of work-equipment, grain, etc. A general lack of ecological categories was noted, however, which was especially remarkable considering the complex economy of this particular village. This phenomenon was probably related to the general unwillingness on behalf of

39

villagers to provide officials with information. It was only through informal discussions that we were able to get a more clear view of land tenure and land use. Before turning to an account of land use, the discussion below is intended to provide a general overview of existing resources in terms of land and cattle.

Distribution

of Land and Cattle

Villagers often related poverty to the lack of either labour, land and draft animals. Since cattle ownership was reported as essential both to paddy field cultivators - as draft animals - and to swiddeners - for whom cattle trade constitute a supplementary source of income - we wanted to get a general idea of the distribution of cattle. Distribution figures for land and cattle are offered below. Table 6 DISTRIBUTION OF LAND AND CATTLE Total land-area, hectares Average landholding per household Cattle, total no. of heads

49.5 0.52 324

No. of households with no land No. of households with no cattle

32

No. of households with no land and no cattle

1'7 13

No. of households with cattle but no land

8

Although 32 households are officially recognized as landless, only four households reported no rice yield.

The cultivated area of the village land is stated as 49.5 ha. This means an average of half a hectare per household. Landholdings are in this village as elsewhere recorded under the name of the male household head, even where it is recognized as female property. Only in some of the cases where the household-head was a woman (typically a widow) were landholdings

registered in her own name. Land is officially classified into two categories, lowland and upland, and unofficially into three, taking into account the importance of swiddening in the informal economy. Only 40% of the households have access to lowland fields, while 60% are reported to work upland fields-

A s indicated, no

40

official figures are reported for bidden agriculture. Table 7 below offers figures for rice production from the 1990 season as estimated by villagers and village leaders.

Table; 7 CLASSIFICATION OF LAND WITH ESTIMATION OF AVERAGE YIELD Nay Noam, lowland fields

1.5 ton/ha

Naa shoo, upland fields

1 tonya

Naa had, swiddens

0.7 ton/ha

Nay Sham, locally referred to as the :we Hom h o e , the lowland fields for

paddy cultivation, constitute only one third of the area under cultivation. Khaw psi, the seasonal irrigated rice with a long growth cycle,l 1 is planted to a limited extent on these fields at the bottom of the valley. This rice is planted after the other kinds of rice and it is also harvested after the other rice, and after the soil has dried up enough to allow cutting. Khaw khang,12 refers to the early varieties of wet rice planted on the lower parts of the slopes. Naa khoo, upland fields, are located on the slopes of the hills and are progressively transformed into terraces. These fields are planted with khaw dok,13 which refers to the upland varieties of rice of fast growing rice usually requiring three months of growth, these are usually planted in the very beginning of the season. Nay had, swiddens are used for rice cultivation with the use of a dibble stick. In swiddens there is a practice of intercropping with rice, maize, taro and vegetables such as cucumber, pumpkin, and longbeans. The fields are I I The number of traditional and local varieties still cultivated is remarkable. The following traditional vanities of khan pit were mentioned: plan Nam, zhfb Nam and man pet, these were cultivated along with a number of modem vanities (which I recognize from Northern Thailand), such as khan l a n g and San phatong, as well as the high-yielding hybrids 'K-Kh 6' and 'K.Kh. l 6'. 12 Cultivated varieties are given as hiimapharn, rnak nom, i loop, duangmalay, mak vick, and khan phua mya.

13 The varieties cultivated are dog deng, pong to, dak

zoo, pa syo, and 'IR8'.

41

left after two years and presently rotated in a five year-cycle.

* The cultivation of secondary crops is referred to as hast seen, 'gardening', as opposed to h e ! n a , 'rice cultivation1 and is executed primarily on upland fields and swiddens. Paddy-fields are not used for the cultivation of secondary crops. The reason for this is given as lack of the required technology and other prerequisites for intensive production such as tractors, mechanical cultivators,

irrigation and fertilizers. This is difficult to

understand, since in other areas of this part of the world, small landholdings have proved to be viable in intensive cultivation and with fine results (Trankell 1989). Upland fields, though, and more often swiddens, are used for the cultivation of secondary crops after the harvest of seasonal rice, and besides, intercropping is practised on swiddens. Farming activities that take place after the fields have been cleared and burnt include the cultivation of cucumbers, maize and rice in this order. Harvest start with cucumber followed by maize, rice and finally cassava. Rice and most crops, such as pumpldn, eggplants, chili, yarns, maize, taro, beans, Chinese cabbage and various spices and herbs are cultivated for subsistence use. A few cash-crops, such as sugarcane, maize, pineapples, and bananas, are cultivated for the market with some success. The rice is mainly glutinous rice. in this village no rice is grown for the market, not even non-glutinous rice, which is not a staple. Non-glutinous rice has a value as medicine and special food, classified as diet, and as food for outsiders and guests. It is also used for the production of certain food items that are essential for the important ceremonial exchanges that accompany certain annual ritual events such as the Lao New Year and the

comrnernoration of deceased relatives. The celebration of these events are also important occasions for travelling, providing opportunities for visiting distant kin and family.

Villagers' Wealth Ranking Taking into account the limited area for cultivation in the village, other occupations, in most cases additional to rice cultivation, were noted. These included wage labour in the fields, the construction of irrigation channels and house construction. Five persons were employed by the road construction company. There were two blacksmiths who worked full~time,

42

mainly for the needs of the village, and one full-time shopkeeper. As villagers discussed notions of poverty and wealth, the importance of land and cattle were stressed. Villagers also noted the crucial importance of labour, especially male labour. The following examples of poverty due to lack of l a b o r were provided from the leader of group no. 5: - "In this nosy there are 16 households. One man is a full-time specialized blacksmith. But otherwise families are rice-farmers who cultivate rice for subsistence. In the dry season households engage in basketry, mainly the production of sticky~rice containers. The main part of the households (12) are considered poor in the sense that they are not able to produce rice

enough to support their families. To supplement their income they engage in wage labour for other families. One day of work in the fields is paid in kind by 12 kilo of paddy [the local expression is one or$ie]. People paid in cash receive 1,000 Kip. " - "Four families do not have enough labour. One household has only two women available for labor, a widow and her one grown up daughter, but with eight children to support. In a similar case the family is composed of an elderly man, his widowed daughter and her eight children. One young couple has six young children, none of whom is big enough to make a substantial contribution to the subsistence economy."

BAN DONSANGPHAI: A VILLAGE RECLAIMED FROM THE FOREST Transect Walk The village is located at Km 40 along Road 13 South. Construction of the access road started in 1989 by the Rural Bridge and Road Company, but it already shows signs of severe damages even though the construction has not been finished. 70% of the costs were covered by governmental funds, while villagers themselves paid the remaining 30%. The village is entirely Lao Phuan. It was established in 1963 by three kin groups (a total of 17 families) who had migrated south from Xiang Khouang to escape the American bombings of their villages. In the forest that surrounded their present location they found a small abandoned settlement which they used while clearing the land. The land has progressively been transformed into paddy fields and irrigation channels. The fields now yield a good and reliable surplus which is marketed.

43

The village is quite large, composed of 205 households and with a growing number of inhabitants, presently about 1,200. The overall impression is of a reasonably wealthy village, most buildings are big and well kept in spacious compounds. As many as six monks are presently residing in the temple. The school is in good condition, though teachers complain about lack of equipment. The pupils number 280, Villagers are also provided with a small health-care center with three health workers whose education was paid for by the villagers. There is a good deep public well and several other artesian wells which are well protected from floods. During the rainy season, water from these private wells are distributed at a reasonable cost to villagers who lack water from protected wells. To further improve the well~beirlg and health of the villagers, the cattle have been moved out from their traditional place under the houses. The neighbouring district of Hatxaifong has been given a citation for its efforts to establish models for peasant cooperatives and received heavy support by officials and governmental representatives. Similar aspirations to progress are found also in this village. Although the former cooperative is now dissolved, its previous existence is revealed by the number of physical and social improvements as well as by the extent to which tractors and other items of modern technology are being used in the village. Farming is also the main economic activity in this village. Rice crops grown on paddy fields is of increasing importance, even though some bidden agriculture is still practised. There is no second rice-crop, but even SO villagers manage to produce a marketable surplus of rice as well as some cash-crops. It was also noted that a Japanese company had surveyed the village in order to provide better irrigation facilities. Grazing for cattle is still available. The importance of cattle trade is reflected in the fact that common funds for the use of public expenses are created by the collection of a tax~fee of 5% of the value of slaughtered animals. Villagers control the breeding of cattle in order to be able to use the animals for seasonal ploughing, Surplus animals are sold for cash to the slaughterhouse in Vientiane. Foraging and fishing remain important economic activities for home consumption while cottage industry is almost absent. Participatory Physical Sketchmapping Villagers' sketchmapping turned out to yield a lot of information about the

44

village; their map was entitled 'Map and Borders of Bamboo Village'. Social links to other villages are noted by marking the connecting routes beyond the social and physical boundary of the village. Traces of the village's early history are also marked by the careful noting and naming of the original old, 'before-our-time' village. Physically, the village is shown to be delimited by various natural features such as forests, ponds and streams, the name and location of which are also carefully noted. The fields located inside the important main irrigation Channel represent village land held in common, but not open to outsiders and marked as Chung had pasason, the people's rice fields. Also remarkable is the richness of ecological categories applied in the mapping. As in other villages, the social entity of the village with its compounds and houses is marked and separated from surrounding fields by the thing k i e r , the oxcart-track. Within the village area the compounds and quarters are carefully noted, as are the cremation ground, the cemetery and its sacred grove, the public rice-bam, the health-care center, the two ricemills, and the 17 wells. Distribution of Land and Cattle Table 8 CLASSIFICATION OP LAND WITH ESTIMATION OF AVERAGE YIELD

sum, lowland fields Naa shoo, upland fields Naa had, swiddens

0.7 ton/ha

Naa nun, marshy fields

3.5 ton/ha

Nay

2.8 ton/ha 1.5 ton/ha

l l l l

IIII

The relatively high yield of the marshy fields is interesting, because it is achieved by fairly simple methods, provided that machines are available. The marshes were simply ploughed by a big, formerly cooperative-owned, tractor, after which the seed was broadcast by hand. After the sowing, the fields were occasionally looked after, but not much l a b o r was called for.14 14 A similar method has been reported from the Tai (Moorman 1968)_

Lije in

nolthem Thailand

45

The maximum landholding is 11 hectares. Three families have landholdings of this size, while villagers estimated that 2.5 ha of lowland or about 4 ha of upland fields would be enough to support a household. Besides yielding less, the upland fields are, according to villagers own estimations, three times harder to cultivate in terms of effort and time as compared to the well established lowland fields. Table 9 DISTRIBUTION OF LAND AND CATFLE

Total land-area Average landholding per household Cattle, total no. of heads

355.3 ha 1.73 ha 694

No. of households with no land No. of households without cattle or buffalos

34 68

No. of households with no land and no cattle No. of households with cattle but no land

29 3

The officially given figures for households with no land is 34, while villagers reported that 21 families had no land, while all households except one reported rice yield. Villagers reported that the remaining number (12)

of households cultivate swiddens. There is however no more village land to clear, and those who do not manage to support the family on rice~cultivation work the fields of others as day-labourers, or engage in tasks such as sawing wood or they do commerce. The new shortage of land is also noticed by the fact that no one is willing to sell land. Villagers' Wealth Ranking Some families are noted not to be self~supporting in terms of rice, since they recently settled in the village. The main part of the immigrant villagers have moved out from Vientiane, while a few others have returned from Thailand. When discussing the reasons for poverty, villagers stated that many of the better-off villagers have inherited their wealth, while the poor never had any fields. While stating that wealth is to have paddy enough to be respected and to be able to feed a family, there is at the same time a growing awareness that maybe this is not enough. Among the better-off

46

villagers themselves there is a clear awareness of the importance of investment in other things than land and cattle. They realize that grazing for cattle will not be available for much longer because of the capacity of the new technology to clear land formerly used for grazing, and they are consequently looking around for better investment of their surplus. Vehicles, such as trucks and passenger pick-ups as well as rice~mills and threshing machines are among the favored objects.

BAN SANGSAI: A RIVERSIDE VILLAGE Transit Walk The village is located on the plain between the main road and the Mekong River at Km 36 along the Road 13 South. The existing access road is connected to another feeder road which is a link to the river and constructed by the road construction company for the transportation of gravel and sand during the construction of the main road. The three km's stretch of access road was repaired by the road construction company in 1987 in exchange for five tons of paddy. The village's location close to the capital explains why electricity is provided. The village is composed of 129 households and has a total popul ation of 796 persons. The school building is still unfinished, and the temple is similarly only half completed. The village appears crowded and dusty, with few trees and green patches- In order to erect electricity poles several trees had to be cut down. A shortage of water is being noted. Villagers complain that water is already lacking, even though it is now just the beginning of the cold season. The four wells in the village do not cover the need for drinking water during the hot season, and villagers have turned to the ministry of

public health with a plea for concrete pipes for the construction of at least another two wells. Quite a few of the people we met showed signs of bad health and suffered from embarrassing boils and wounds. Villagers were busy harvesting the rice at the time of our visit. Because

of initial drought and subsequent flooding, the yield is low and will cover only about half of villagers' own needs. A striking feature in the work is the degree of mechanization and use of rather heavy modern equipment, such as tractors and trucks for the transportation of rice, as well as the use of threshing machines. Villagers claimed, however, that the majority still use

47

traditional technology, draft-animals and human labour, since the cost of the new technology, whether it is paid in cash or in paddy, is considered to high, especially if the low yield is taken into account. Threshing machines

are used mainly by those with large landholdings, who would otherwise have to employ day-labourers in order to get the work done. People seen threshing by hand in the fields said that they did so because there was an immediate need for the rice for consumption. Owners of threshing machines and rice-mills complained that business was difficult, OI' at least not what they had expected. There is a public rice-barn presently not being used, but the existence of

which indicates the former agricultural cooperative, which is now dissolved. The tractors were introduced along with chemical fertilizers as governmental support provided as credits to the cooperative. People pooled their labour in the cooperative, but not the land. While walking through the village we met an old woman who complained that her neighbours had taken her land away from her and that she was now destitute and had nothing to offer to her grandchild with whom she was sharing the household and who was supposed to look after her in her old age. People became very embarrassed and asked the women to leave us, since we were guests. The village leader, who is responsible for handling such problems, confirmed that conflicts over land were not unusual, but was unwilling to comment upon the the case. In connection with meeting the villages leaders, the changes that had occurred during the past three years, following the increasing importance of the monetary economy for the village, were discussed. The reform economy was said to have deeply affected existing relations of exchange in the village. Traditional exchange of labour was no longer carried out, but people traded their labor for day-wages. Families who had already harvested their rice were busy producing baskets and sticky rice-containers for the market. The bamboo used for the produce was, however, becoming a scarce resource, and men had to walk long distances in order to provide the women with the raw material. In spite of the fact that the village is located only three km from the Mekong River, fishing is said to be of minor importance. House construction, carpentry and the sawing of wood are other off-season occupations. Cattle represent a capital resource convertible to cash when needed; cattle trade and cattle breeding remains important also in terms of investment of own surplus production. Cattle are traded across the river to Thailand as well as into

48

Vientiane. A potter and his family have a pottery just outside the village, close to the river. The produce turns out to be limited to water pots mainly

for local needs. Distribution of Land and Cattle In this village cultivated land is differentiated into two main categories, lowland and upland fields. The upland fields are used for the cultivation of secondary crops after the harvest, while paddy fields are used mainly for grazing after the harvest. There is no second crop of irrigated rice.

Table 10 CLASSIFICATION GP LAND WITH ESTIMATION OF AVERAGE YIELD Naa sum, lowland fields, best quality close to the river

3.5 -4 ton/ha

Naa Zum, lowland fields, second quality, sandy soil Nad pion, na khok, upland fields of good quality Nay dom, naa khok, newly cleared upland fields

2.5-3.5 tom' ha 2 ton/ha