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Variegated transitions: Emerging forms of land and resource capitalism in Laos and Myanmar

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  • Miles Kenney-Lazar

    (National University of Singapore, Singapore)

  • SiuSue Mark

Abstract

Since the mid- to late- 1980s, Laos and Myanmar (Burma) have gradually and unevenly opened their economies to capitalist relations of accumulation. Both countries have done so by granting state land concessions to private capital for resource extraction and land commodification projects, particularly since the early 2000s. Yet, resource capitalism has manifested in distinct ways in both places due to the ways in which capital has interacted with unique pre-capitalist political-economic and social relations as well as the diverse political reactions of Lao and Myanmar people to capitalist transformations. In this paper, we analyze such differences through a conceptualization of ‘variegated transitions’, an extension of the variegated capitalism framework, which investigates the political economic transitions towards capitalism in marginalized, resource extractive countries of the Global South. In Myanmar, the transition from military to democratic rule has been marked by protests and land occupations combined with center-periphery fragmentation and ongoing civil wars, all of which have led to a heavily contested process of land concession granting. In contrast, a stable, comparatively centralized political system in Laos that restrains popular protest has enabled an expanding regime of land concessions for resource extraction projects, albeit hemmed in at the edges by sporadic, localized forms of resistance and appeals to the state.

Suggested Citation

  • Miles Kenney-Lazar & SiuSue Mark, 2021. "Variegated transitions: Emerging forms of land and resource capitalism in Laos and Myanmar," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(2), pages 296-314, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:53:y:2021:i:2:p:296-314
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X20948524
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Peck, Jamie, 2012. "Constructions of Neoliberal Reason," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199662081.
    2. Anthony Bebbington & Leonith Hinojosa & Denise Humphreys Bebbington & Maria Luisa Burneo & Ximena Warnaars, 2008. "Contention and Ambiguity: Mining and the Possibilities of Development," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 5708, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    3. Miles Kenney-Lazar, 2018. "Governing Dispossession: Relational Land Grabbing in Laos," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 108(3), pages 679-694, May.
    4. Jamie Peck & Jun Zhang, 2013. "A variety of capitalism … with Chinese characteristics?," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 357-396, May.
    5. Jun Zhang & Jamie Peck, 2016. "Variegated Capitalism, Chinese Style: Regional Models, Multi-scalar Constructions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(1), pages 52-78, January.
    6. Andreas Mulvad, 2015. "Competing Hegemonic Projects within China's Variegated Capitalism: 'Liberal' Guangdong vs. 'Statist' Chongqing," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 199-227, April.
    7. Mark, SiuSue & Belton, Ben, 2020. "Breaking with the past? The politics of land restitution and the limits to restitutive justice in Myanmar," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
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    Cited by:

    1. Wong, Grace Y. & Holm, Minda & Pietarinen, Niina & Ville, Alizee & Brockhaus, Maria, 2022. "The making of resource frontier spaces in the Congo Basin and Southeast Asia: A critical analysis of narratives, actors and drivers in the scientific literature," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).

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