Abstract
The study examined livelihood changes in eight villages in Luang Namtha province of northern Lao PDR following the expansion in rubber plantations and analyzed its impact on gender roles and relations. All study villages are engaged in rubber production, but the impact is shaped by the context and history of the particular location. The study has demonstrated the importance of feminist political ecologist approach in analyzing the conjuncture and intersectionality, as well as the location that shapes these conditions to better understand the gendered impact of the introduction of rubber production. The concept of social interface has helped us to identify the shock that women and men face and the changes in access to resources as a result of the shock and the agencies that the people exercised.
Highlights
Rubber plantations, promoted by the governments of Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos to improve rural livelihoods, have reduced people’s access to forests
In line with Khamphone and Sato (2011), we note that such producers experienced a positive impact, whereas villagers who were only employed by rubber plantations experienced a negative impact from rubber production
As Agarwal (2003) and Kandiyoti (2003) noted, the household livelihood strategy was gender-specific, with women taking up less lucrative options such as daily wage labor and men taking up rubber, which was more lucrative
Summary
Rubber plantations, promoted by the governments of Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos to improve rural livelihoods, have reduced people’s access to forests. Feminist political ecology scholars have examined such gender-differentiated impacts, from a conjunctural and intersectionality perspective, taking into account other subjectivities like ethnicity and age (Elmhirst, 2011; Elmhirst et al, 2017; Nightingale, 2011). They examine how changes in the material environment create normative gender roles (Sultana, 2009) and highlight the importance of the gendered nature of everyday experiences (Terry, 2011). This article analyzes the gendered impact of change to rubber plantation in Northern Lao PDR in the context of gender norms and gender roles practiced by different ethnic groups. We study the impact of rubber plantations in different sociocultural contexts
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