On this special edition of Bodega Pop with Gary Sullivan on WFMU, Rattana Bounsouaysana will share her family’s journey from Laos to the United States through their memories of Southeast Asian and English language popular music.

Laotian film maker Mattie Do, journalist Manyphone Vongphachanh, and Noel Clehane, Global Head of Regulatory & Public Policy at BDO, will discuss current economic struggles and opportunities in Laos. This event is sponsored by Asia Society Switzerland, BDO, a global for-profit advisory firm, and the University of Zurich.

Hosted by the University of Michigan Center for Southeast Asia Studies, Davorn Sisavath, California State University Fullerton, will discuss how cluster bomb metals are circulated and consumed, and how such actions shape life-making practices in the war’s aftermath.

Previously rescheduled, the Sydney Southeast Asia Centre, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and NYSEAN will host Dr. Thanachate Wisaijorn who will share personal insights from his ethnographic fieldwork in Ubon Ratchathani into the powerful role of language and how language choice impacts interpersonal relationships.

Dr. Miles Kenney-Lazar, Assistant Professor of Geography at the National University of Singapore, will examine the property systems that underlie plantation expansion in Laos, which is linked to global processes of land grabbing.. This talk is organized by the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Department of Geography and Environment, and Political Ecology Working Group.

At this seminar, Dr. Ming Li Yong, a fellow at the East-West Center, will discuss the effects of uneven public participation within multi-level stakeholder consultations, specifically related to the Government of Laos’ proposed hydropower dams within the Lower Mekong Basin. Perspectives from local communities, civil society, and government representatives will be highlighted to better understand the issues surrounding transboundary water governance.

Join the Center for Strategic & International Studies for a conversation with Ambassador Peter Haymond, U.S. Ambassador to Laos, on U.S.-Lao relations, followed by an expert panel to discuss the future of development cooperation in Laos and the Southeast Asia region.

Join Stimson for a discussion with George Black, Susan Hammond, Sera Koulabdara, and Shelley Inglis about the opportunity to address unacknowledged legacies of war in Laos.

Using survey experiments in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Malaysia, which vary along regime types, and the salience of ethnic division, Mai Truong, PhD. Candidate in Political Science at University of Arizona, show that regime types, ethnic division, and the nature of policy-based movements interact to influence public support toward cross-movement coalitions under authoritarian rule.

During its secret war in Laos (1961–1975), the United States recruited proxy soldiers among the Hmong people. Following the war, many of these Hmong soldiers and displaced Hmong migrated to the United States with refugee status. This talk by Ma Vang, Assistant Professor and founding chair of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Merced, examines the experiences of Hmong refugees in the United States to theorize refugee histories and secrecy. The talk shows how Hmong refugees tell their stories in ways that exist separately from other narratives of U.S. empire that cannot be traditionally archived. Highlighting examples of the refugee soldier, Hmong women’s narratives, and Hmong-American literature, the talk outlines a methodology for writing histories that foreground refugee epistemologies despite systematic attempts to silence those histories.

In this talk, Kathryn Sweet (Social Development Advisor and Independent Scholar, Vientiane, Lao PDR) will explore the reasons for and the results of contestation within the Lao health sector during the initial decades of the Cold War from the early 1950s to 1975. The presentation will provide much-needed context for the diverse health infrastructure, staffing, and professional and technical standardization inherited by the Lao PDR regime. It will also look at the Ministry of Health’s challenges when confronted with the task of uniting these divergent health services into a uniform national healthcare system.

The Chinese-financed effort to build a national railway through Laos is well underway. The line from Kunming, China to Vientiane, Laos is a core part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with the aim to connect Chinese markets to Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Myanmar. While the benefits to China are obvious, it seems uncertain to what extent Laos can benefit from this mega-project, from the infrastructure itself, but also other projects, e.g. Special Economic Zones.

What are the implications on the ground of these megaprojects? How has Laos as a host country negotiated and implemented the BRI with Chinese counterparts? Why are they agreeing to potentially bad deals? And what does this tell us about local institutions and Lao-Chinese relations? Are there any major risks, or social and environmental concerns? Are other host countries in similar situations?

Join Asia Society Switzerland for this webcast with Jessica DiCarlo, whose study of the Lao-China railway showcases how infrastructures relate to on-the-ground political and social relations in host countries.

(Image: © Carl Zoch via Asia Society)

In Laos and Northern Thailand, Xieng Mieng is a very popular trickster character that represents the common man’s ability to lay low the mighty. In this new production, artists Caroline and Suzanne Borderies (puppeteers), Mirna Lekic (pianist), and David McCorkle (narrator) retell some adventures of the notorious trickster with shadow puppetry and live music.