Organizer: The Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawaii
Description:
The Mekong region has undergone rapid economic development the past few decades which is underscored by the commodification of land and natural resources. This has led to environmental degradation, loss of resource-based livelihoods, and dispossession. These processes of commodification and their impacts, and the forms of resistance against dispossession, are contingent on the conditions of the biophysical environment, among other factors. In our talk comparing the Mekong River and the insurgent forests of Burma, we discuss how the politics of commodification and resistance are shaped by nature’s materiality.
