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During the last two decades, Laos has undergone major transformations due to a massive influx of foreign investment. Improved communications and new forms of mobility have dramatically altered rural life. Changing Lives in Laos brings together contributions from young scholars that look closely at these transitions and the resulting rise of a new social, cultural, and economic order. The essays in this volume draw on original fieldwork and provide fresh analyses of topics such as the structures of power, the politics of territoriality, and new forms of sociability in emerging urban spaces.
 

Laos has long been considered by ethnologists as a unique place of study. To this day, diverse ethnic minorities make up over half the country’s population. In earlier times, several good ethnographies were made but usually they were narrow in scope. War and revolution then made fieldwork impossible in Laos until the 1990s, when some international researchers returned, often in difficult and precarious conditions, bringing new theoretical perspectives. This volume brings together several such studies by this new generation of researchers, their fieldwork often joint projects in collaboration with Lao researchers. Published in collaboration with the École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), the book is a tribute to the late Grant Evans, whose work remains emblematic of this ‘anthropological turn’ in Lao studies.