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doi:10.1111/sjtg.12013

Imagining the borderlands: Contending stories

of a resource frontier in Muang Sing
Yayoi Fujita Lagerqvist
School of Geosciences, The University of Sydney

Correspondence: Yayoi Fujita Lagerqvist (email: yayoi.lagerqvist@sydney.edu.au)

Muang Sing in Luang Namtha province, an administrative district of northern Laos bordering
Myanmar and China, has been portrayed by the Lao government and international development
agencies as a ‘poor’ rural region in need of development. To developers, Muang Sing’s remoteness
from major towns and the livelihoods of ethnic people such as the Akha in the uplands based on
swidden agriculture and opium production characterized ‘poverty’. To address this rural poverty,
state and development agencies devised land use zoning that would demarcate and regulate
various land uses in line with a rural development plan for the district. This vision for regulated
development began to go awry, however, as farmers and traders in Muang Sing launched their own
rapid social and economic changes. In contrast to the official image of a backward rural district in
need of outside assistance, this paper portrays farmers and local entrepreneurs of the Muang Sing
borderlands as actively transforming their lives and agricultural landscapes. This paper challenges
the official version of a remote, poor district untouched by regional trade through a focus on
narratives of local people. Ethnographic research reveals the dynamic micro-processes of agrarian
transformation during recent decades to highlight the centrality of borderland people in reworking
their lives and agricultural landscapes through cross-border relationships in China.

Keywords: Muang Sing, Laos, agrarian transformation, frontier, trans-boundary connections,

borderland

Imagining Muang Sing as a frontier

The Greater Mekong Subregion programme, spearheaded by the Asian Development
Bank (ADB), is projected to achieve three Cs: increased connectivity, improved com-
petitiveness and a ‘greater sense of community’ across countries bordering the Mekong
River (ADB, 2012). A web of transportation networks across these riparian countries is
the cornerstone of a programme to transform landlocked Laos into a hub of regional
trade. This imagined regional hub is a shift away from the usual outsider’s perception of
Laos as an isolated regional periphery or a ‘forgotten land’ in mainland Southeast Asia.
The ADB emphasizes connectivity as a way to lift countries such as Laos out of
poverty by increasing investment in commercial agriculture and natural resource-based
industries such as mining, forestry and hydropower. Building roads and communication
networks is envisioned as a way to connect urban areas with rural places and overcome
poverty. Jonathan Rigg (2006) has referred to this notion as ‘old poverty’ based on
assumed remoteness, lack of connectivity and the subsistence livelihoods of rural
people, often ethnic populations. This characterization of poverty has allowed govern-
ments and development organizations to create space for intervention in northern Laos,
such as policies to regulate shifting cultivation and/or relocate upland populations to the
lowlands (Rigg, 2005: 25–29).
The national government and development organizations have identified Muang Sing
as a remote frontier on the national borders with China and Myanmar (Figure 1), in need
of development to bring it out of isolation. This development plan ignores the fact that
people living in this borderland have been actively engaged in cross-border trade and

Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 34 (2013) 57–69

© 2013 The Author
Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography © 2013 Department of Geography, National University of Singapore and
Blackwell Publishing Asia Pty Ltd
58 Yayoi Fujita Lagerqvist

Figure 1. Map of research area.

exchanges for decades, if not for centuries (Walker, 1999; Grabowsky & Turton, 2003). In
particular, Akha and various Lue peoples span the border regions of Laos and China.
Although cross-border relationships were curtailed during the 1960s and 1970s as a result
of policies in Laos and China, farmers and traders have rekindled these ties in response to
more porous borders. In 1993, the German development agency GTZ began working in
Sing district to address issues of food security and rural poverty, again based on the notion
of ‘old poverty’. The programme, Rural Development in Mountainous Areas of Northern
Laos (RDMA), targeted ethnic populations that occupied the uplands and were ‘mostly
excluded from the country’s economic development’ (Lao-German Cooperation, 2006).
At that time in Muang Sing, Akha people comprised approximately 47 per cent of the
district population of 30 587, with Tai-speaking groups making up another 27 per cent,
followed by Hmong and Yao (12 per cent) and other groups (19 per cent). During the last
decade, a combination of factors, including opium substitution projects funded by
Western donors and the Chinese government, has forced large numbers of upland Akha
people to resettle in areas along the road. These resettlements, whether forced or
voluntary, have created conflicts over arable land in the lowlands long dominated by
Tai-speaking peoples (Thongmanivong & Vongvisouk, 2006; Thongmanivong et al.,
2009). I have written about the policies involved and resulting land conflicts in detail
elsewhere (Sturgeon et al., forthcoming) and lack space to repeat them here. Suffice it to
say that a borderland area populated by ethnic minorities engaged in opium cultivation
caused the Lao government to look for ways to eliminate opium, substitute other cash
crops such as rubber, and move upland peoples away from the border. This brief
background sets the scene for the stories recounted here.
Since 1993, GTZ has worked with the district government and villages in Muang
Sing to build basic infrastructure and provide access to agricultural extension, health
care and education. Development activities in Laos have often resulted in reorganizing
Resource frontier in Muang Sing 59

rural people and spaces into sedentarized and consolidated upland communities, and
sometimes moving them to the lowlands (Evrard & Goudineau, 2004; Vandergeest,
2003). Development interventions, however, were not the only actions that were
transforming rural livelihoods in the Lao borderlands. Even in the 1990s, local people,
ideas and investments were already crossing the border between Laos and China, a
process that would place Muang Sing at the forefront of agricultural development led by
entrepreneurial borderland farmers and traders.
This paper examines how a rural periphery of Laos bordering southwest China
became a site of regional agricultural trade in the 1990s following the formalization of
regional trade agreements between China and Laos. This resurgence of Muang Sing’s
centrality in trade shows the fluidity and persistence of the local trade networks
highlighted by Walker (1999). By using an ethnographic approach, this essay reveals the
dynamic lives of borderland people and their ability to capture emerging economic
opportunities one after another. The Muang Sing case contributes to recent scholarship
on the dynamic lives of borderland people in mainland Southeast Asia, highlighting the
ways in which cross-border arrangements continue to shape people’s lives (Sturgeon,
2005; Turner, 2010; Turner, this issue).
The paper draws on in-depth interviews conducted from 2003 to 2007 with local
government officials, traders and villagers from Muang Sing, development workers in
Laos, as well as local government officials and business people across the border in
China. Interviews with key informants were initially carried out under the auspices of
the Faculty of Forestry, National University of Laos as part of a regional land use change
study (see also Thongmanivong & Vongvisouk, 2006; Thongmanivong et al., 2009; Fox,
2009). As I lived and worked in Laos during this period, I continued to return to
interview some of the key borderland informants. The repeated interviews provided an
opportunity for me to trace people’s everyday practices over time. While the paper is
focused on the agrarian transformation occurring in Muang Sing, the approach here
links this district transformation to wider regional economic changes. The stories here
cover individuals who originated on either side of the border and some who spent time
in Thailand. The focus is on border dynamics as well as rapid changes in northern Laos.
Repeat interviews over time brought to light the complexities inherent in agrarian
transformations. The processes are filled with people’s confusion, frustration, tension,
anxiety and hope. Ethnographic study of borderlands especially focuses on people
whose lives both intertwine with and circumvent border control (see Diana, this issue;
Turner, 2010; Turner, this issue).
The paper begins by describing the border structure regulating regional trade begin-
ning in the 1990s, covering both the rules introduced by national governments and the
role of less formal regional border checkpoints. Changes in the regional economic
environment and the flexibility of border crossings through the less formal border
checkpoints facilitated Muang Sing’s re-emergence as a hub of agricultural trade.
The outline of institutional changes for border trade is followed by life stories of
traders and local farmers. These accounts show the resilience of local actors and their
ability to maintain trans-boundary social and economic connections despite political
obstacles that sometimes inhibited their mobility. These stories also highlight the key
roles local actors played in pioneering a new agricultural economy in the borderlands.
These life stories are replete with evidence of persistence, ingenuity, bravery and
dexterity in manoeuvring around the institutional hurdles imposed by the state.
The final section of the paper reflects on the ever-changing nature of borderland
landscapes, especially the rapid transformation from swidden and fallow landscapes to
60 Yayoi Fujita Lagerqvist

monoculture rubber. Other scholars have documented the effects of foreign direct
investment and ‘land-grabbing’ in Laos (Alton et al., 2005; Diana, 2006; Shi, 2008;
Dwyer, 2008). The transformation of the border landscape in Muang Sing, however, was
not caused by powerful global investors. Instead, the expansion of smallholder rubber
in Muang Sing since the mid-2000s was largely driven by local traders and farmers
who mobilized knowledge and capital through trans-boundary connections. The last
section of the paper provides a nuanced understanding of the agrarian transformation
occurring in the borderlands and the centrality of local agents in turning land into
capital.

The opening of the border and a surge of agricultural trade

Institutionalizing cross-border and regional trade

Official border posts between China and Laos were erected in 1992 based on a series of
bilateral negotiations that resulted in a formal agreement on boundary demarcation in
1991. A new bilateral trade agreement between China and Laos promulgated in 1993
paralleled the institutionalization of the regional trade regime in the Greater Mekong
Subregion. Fravel (2005: 76) claims that China sought to normalize political relation-
ships with its southern socialist neighbours, Laos and Vietnam, through trade agree-
ments, and to enhance the economic development of its southwestern frontier.
Following the new regional agreement, a Mohan-Boten border checkpoint was
established as a ‘first-tier’ or international border checkpoint. The road linking China to
Laos through this checkpoint was upgraded as part of the Economic Corridor financed by
the ADB. In 1991 a Mengman-Pangthong border checkpoint for Muang Sing was
registered as a ‘second-tier’ or regional border check point. As a ‘second-tier’ border, the
Mengman-Pangthong checkpoint was to service local trade between farmers living along
the border. Any trade under 50 000 yuan (USD 6250) was not taxed at the border.
Farmers and traders on both sides of the border were allowed to move products across as
farmer-to-farmer trade. Immigration and customs offices were erected on both sides.
Only ‘local’ residents were permitted to cross with an ID card, while non-residents
(including foreigners) were not permitted to cross. While the regional governments
promoted ‘first-tier’ borders as the main gateway for international and regional trade, the
less formal nature of the ‘second-tier’ borders increased the importance of places such as
the Mengman-Pangthong crossing (Cohen, 2000; Lyttleton et al., 2004). In the following
sections, stories of local traders highlight the growing importance of the ‘second-tier’
border crossings and their effects on agricultural land use practices in Muang Sing.

Phouy: a trans-boundary entrepreneur

A man I call Phouy (all names in stories are pseudonyms), who is the Chinese owner of
an agricultural trading business registered in Muang Sing, arrived from China in the late
1980s. His family was originally from Sichuan province, but Phouy grew up in a village
near the Lao border. He learnt woodcraft in Guizhou during the 1970s and returned
home in 1983. He saw the potential for setting up a furniture business in Laos, and in
1989, he moved to an ethnic Lue village in Muang Sing, rented a space under a stilted
house and produced custom-made wooden furniture.
In 1996, Phouy opened a guest house and a restaurant on the main street of the
town of Muang Sing. His new business catered to the Chinese traders and businessmen
who were now beginning to frequent Muang Sing searching for business opportunities.
At the restaurant, he also served locally-brewed rice liquor. The guest house business
Resource frontier in Muang Sing 61

was good, but Phouy began to question the high price of rice in Muang Sing. This led
him to a new business development: contracting local farmers to supply rice for his
restaurant. Among the regular clients at the guesthouse/restaurant were managers and
technicians from the Seed Company of the Meng La County Agricultural Bureau in
Xishuangbanna. The Bureau was also beginning to introduce in Laos contract farming
arrangements that provided farmers with high-yielding rice varieties.
In 2000, Phouy began a small agricultural trading business in Muang Sing. He
obtained permanent residency in Laos and registered his company at the district office.
He brought high-yielding rice varieties and other agricultural inputs such as fertilizers
from China and contracted lowland farmers in Muang Sing to grow rice. He used his
business connections to supply agricultural inputs to farmers in Laos and then sold the
rice in Mengla County, China.
Phouy began expanding into other crops that were in demand in China. He rented
about 2 ha of land from a Muang Sing farmer and, as was beginning to be common,
established a banana plantation with about 9000 saplings on the land. He then rented
an additional 2 ha of unused paddy land in a village near the town centre and set up a
rubber tree nursery. He hired both Lao and Chinese workers at the nursery to produce
rubber seedlings. He also brought his niece and her family from Mengla County to
manage the nursery.
In 2005, Phouy’s company began to transplant rubber seedlings to approximately 20
ha of land in Muang Sing. After living in Laos for nearly two decades, Phouy spoke Lao
and his business was known to Muang Sing farmers. Farmers who wanted to plant
rubber approached Phouy, who sold them seedlings and also helped farmers plant
rubber on their land. During the first three years, landowners were allowed to inter-crop
rice, maize and other crops. After the fourth year, however, the farmer and Phouy
would share ownership of the rubber trees. In a standard agreement, Phouy’s company
managed 50 per cent of the trees, while land owners retained the remainder.
When the rubber trees matured, Phouy brought his company workers to tap latex
from the rubber trees under his management. From Phouy’s perspective, having direct
control of the rubber trees was important to maintain the quality and maximum yield
of latex. His plan was to sell the dried latex to rubber factories in China. Although his
company did not originally register rubber planting as part of the business activities, his
business was already well-recognized by local farmers. Phouy himself was also aware of
local farmers’ interest in planting rubber and their lack of access to capital and material
inputs. By 2005, Phouy’s company managed to plant rubber with local farmers from
four villages in Muang Sing, an area of approximately 100 ha.
According to officials from the District Agriculture and Forestry Office (DAFO),
small-scale private dealings between investors and farmers, such as Phouy’s case, were
particularly troublesome since they were not officially registered to plant rubber. These
small-scale business operations promoting rubber planting challenged DAFO’s role in
maintaining forest cover in the district. The deputy head of DAFO noted increasing areas
that were zoned as ‘forest’ on land use plans, but were being slashed and burned for
farming. Farmers were also rapidly expanding rubber fields by clearing fallow forests.
These clearings challenged DAFO’s reported success in reducing the expansion of
swidden fields. The head of DAFO noted that the number of villages planting rubber
increased from 53 to 73 between 2004 and 2005. By the end of 2005, he expected that
the area of land covered by rubber trees would reach over 2000 ha. There was no clear
mechanism for DAFO to keep a record of small-scale investors, and local farmers were
sourcing the capital and inputs for rubber planting on their own.
62 Yayoi Fujita Lagerqvist

Local farmers were ahead of DAFO staff in their access to capital and their knowl-
edge about planting rubber, tapping and processing latex, and marketing the product. In
2005, there were approximately 10 rubber nurseries, including Phouy’s, that were
supplying seedlings to local farmers. Some were operating beyond Muang Sing to sell
rubber seedlings to northern Lao provinces including Bokeo and Xayabouli, where
rubber planting was also spreading. A farming family returning to Xayabouli with a
truckload of rubber seedlings had bought their seedlings in Muang Sing instead of in
China to avoid being cheated. Buying in Muang Sing also allowed them to invite
pioneer rubber farmers to teach them how to cultivate rubber in languages they
understood. None of the staff from DAFO were trained in rubber planting, management
or trade. Despite DAFO’s leading role since the mid 1990s in designing the district’s land
use and development plans, it was grappling with an unexpected and uncontrollable
transformation of the district agricultural landscape.

Keng: the power of negotiating

Not all private businesses were successful in acquiring land in Laos. Phouy’s experience
contrasted with that of Keng, an ethnic Tai (Lue) and a former government worker from
Mengla County in China. He was born in a Chinese village close to Meng Peng. He had
studied accounting in Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan, and married a Han
Chinese. His family now lived in Mengla County. He was fluent in Mandarin Chinese
and Lue, the language he used to communicate with the Lao government officials. In
September 2005, he was based in Muang Sing representing a Chinese agricultural
trading company, a subsidiary of the Seed Company of the Mengla County Agricultural
Bureau. The Muang Sing office had been set up in 2003 when Keng was in the process
of establishing a new business in Laos promoting contract rubber farming.
The Han Chinese-owned business that Keng represented had a factory in Mengla
County with capacity for processing 50 tons of dried latex a day. Since many rubber trees
in China were aging, especially those planted on the state farms, the company needed
to secure future supplies of rubber. Keng’s familiarity with agricultural business in the
borderlands made him a suitable candidate to oversee the company’s expansion of
contract rubber farming in Laos.
Although rubber was booming in Laos and many Lao farmers were beginning to
grow rubber, the company Keng represented was not particularly interested in buying
rubber from Lao farmers. Keng claimed that the rubber produced in Laos by local
farmers was of ‘poor quality.’ Keng thought that Lao farmers were still inexperienced
and knew little about rubber. Instead, the company was seeking land in Laos for
planting rubber directly. He was convinced that the company’s rubber investment
would bring ‘development’ and ‘prosperity’ to Laos.
Keng registered the company’s investment plan at the provincial office in Luang
Namtha instead of the district office, based on a belief that an approval from the
provincial governor would expedite authorization of contract farming at the district
level. In July 2005, his company’s plan was approved by the provincial governor,
including authorization to plant up to 500 ha of rubber in a site in northern Muang Sing
bordering Myanmar. In the business plan, written in Lao, it was stated that the company
would contract smallholders and plant rubber on their agricultural land. The company
planned to share profits from the sales of latex and timber at the rate of 45 per cent to
the company and 55 per cent to the farmer. Although the provincial governor approved
the business plan, Keng was still waiting to implement his investment activities in the
district. At the time of my interview in September 2005, DAFO in Muang Sing had told
Resource frontier in Muang Sing 63

him that they still needed to complete village boundary demarcation in the sub-district
where his company intended to plant rubber.
In keeping with the Lao national policy of land and forest allocation, zoning and
allocation of land to farmers, DAFO was responsible for demarcating village boundaries
in upland regions. The area in which Keng’s company planned to invest in rubber was
marked in the district plan as targeted to improve livestock production, meaning that
Keng’s company could not plant rubber there.
Foreign investors like Keng who sought investment approval from provincial
authorities troubled the director of DAFO. They also troubled other district government
offices including the District Investment Planning Office (DIPO), which were pressured
to authorize investment plans approved by higher levels of government. Plans endorsed
by the provincial government failed to consider the district’s own development blue-
print. District officials were wary of the rapid increase in smallholder rubber. Senior
DAFO officials lamented that although village boundaries were necessary, they would
bring to light overlapping claims in the sub-district and intensify tensions between
villages, farmers and investors. There was no spare land available for a new investment,
such as Keng’s.
Keng’s business operations were delayed by the district government’s foot dragging,
but also by new provincial legislation that restricted planting rubber along the national
boundary for security reasons. According to Keng, this legislation only came into effect
two days after his company’s business plan was proposed. Keng was frustrated by
frequent changes in government policies at different levels, stating that ‘Policies in Laos
are inconsistent. Our company has experience. . .the government shouldn’t be too
worried.’ To assert his company’s legitimacy, Keng pulled out a copy of documents that
were submitted to the Provincial Investment Planning Office and rolled out a poster-
sized blueprint for a rubber processing factory. The blueprint carried an official stamp of
the Mengla County government office. ‘This is the plan for a factory with the capacity
to produce 20 tons of dried latex per day. We plan to develop a factory in a sub-district
close to the Chinese border.’ He also explained that he had the financial resources to
support his new business.

Negotiating with the state in the borderlands

Although Keng was familiar with the social and cultural settings on both sides of the
border, he was frustrated by the daily ordeals of living in the borderlands, saying ‘border
crossings are unequal’. He was particularly referring to the Mengman-Pangthong border
crossing, claiming that ‘while Chinese vehicles coming into Laos are only charged 2 yuan
per day (by the Chinese authorities), vehicles from Laos going to China are charged 107
yuan for a period of 10 days (by the Lao authorities)’. Not only did the cost of border
crossings irritate him, but also the fact that in order to ensure smooth crossings, one had
to please customs officers with gifts such as boxes of cigarettes or cases of beer (see Diana,
this issue). Daily negotiations with custom officers were seemingly endless for Keng.
As Muang Sing became a hub of regional agricultural trade, the regional border
crossing was increasingly scrutinized by state authorities on both sides of the border. In
a study tour I organized jointly with the National Agriculture and Forestry Research
Institution of Laos and Yunnan University in June 2006, the former governor of Mengla
County explained that the Chinese central government imposed import quotas on
grains (maize, rice, soy) imported from Laos. Since 2005, imports of grain to China
above the quota have incurred a 30 per cent import tax and a 13 per cent sales tax. All
imported grains from Laos also needed to be quarantined at the border. A quarantine
64 Yayoi Fujita Lagerqvist

post was established at Mengman with an adjacent grain drier installed by a company
based in Kunming, another story of a borderland trader establishing a foothold in
regional trade.
Stories of local business operators in the borderland illuminate the importance and
centrality of cross-border social networks to the regional economy. In order to keep their
businesses afloat, borderland entrepreneurs, like Phouy and Keng, are constantly nego-
tiating terms of trade with authorities and adapting their business practices. Both Phouy
and Keng were Chinese by birth, but their lives straddled China and Laos amid the
ethnic populations on both sides of the border. Stories of their daily ordeals contrast
with the frequent portrayal of powerful Han Chinese investors capturing Laos’ resource
wealth. Stories of local traders add texture to the messy processes of transforming an
agrarian landscape. These stories are part of the bigger social and economic processes
that are influencing rural lives in the borderlands.

Farmers adapting their lives in the borderlands

I now turn to stories of local farmers who also play a central role in transforming the
border landscape. Like the stories of local business operators, farmers’ life stories are
about their mobility and connections with people across the border and everyday
negotiations with various agents. These stories also portray their success and failure as
well as their persistence, ingenuity, bravery and dexterity in adapting their lives to the
ever-changing social and economic landscape of the borderlands.

Seng’s life story

Seng is an ethnic Lue who grew up in a village near the Pangthong regional border
checkpoint. He was born in a village near Mengman in China. Seng and his family were
caught up in the decades of political changes that swept China and Laos. Prior to the
Cultural Revolution (1966–76), Seng’s father owned more than 50 mu of paddy and 80
mu of forest (15 mu equals 1 ha). In 1958, the state seized his family land. Large
amounts of village land were also absorbed by the state rubber farm, which was
established in 1960. At that time local villagers, who were ethnic minorities in China,
were excluded from their land and the development that occurred on state farms.
To make matters worse, a fire that broke out inside the state farm in the early 1970s
burned down Seng’s village. After the fire, the state farm incorporated local villages into
the state rubber farm and hired the villagers as workers. During this period, Seng and
several other young men fled from the village to cross the border into Laos. They arrived
in Muang Sing, which was also in the midst of civil war. A week after their arrival, the
young men had to decide whether to marry village girls or join Pathet Lao forces fighting
against the Lao Royalist regime supported by the United States. Seng decided to marry
a Lue girl in the village. While his new wife’s family sent her unmarried brother to fight
in the war, Seng remained in the village to look after the wife’s family.
Seng remained in Muang Sing after the civil war and cultivated paddy fields. In 1994
Seng began to take an interest in rubber. He cleared an area of forest on the border of
Laos and China and began to plant rubber in 1996. He was familiar with rubber because
of his own experience in China and was able to purchase 1000 seedlings in China and
bring them back to Laos. He had to bribe the Lao customs officers and tell them that he
was trying out a new crop. To clear forest and prepare about 2 ha of land for rubber, he
hired Akha people from nearby villages. Among the 18 villagers who began to plant
rubber in 1996, Seng was the only one with direct experience of cultivating rubber.
Resource frontier in Muang Sing 65

The severe frost during the dry season (winter) of 1999 and 2000 wiped out most of
the rubber that the farmers had planted. By luck, Seng was able to retain 900 trees. In
2004, he planted an additional 300 trees on a plot which he was using to cultivate
sugarcane. He purchased seedlings from China once again. This time, his son who was
studying in Mengman brought home the rubber seedlings.
By 2005, Seng was tapping latex from 300 trees. He produced dried latex blocks and
sold them for 6 yuan per kilo. The rubber blocks were sold to Chinese traders who picked
up other agricultural commodities including rice, maize, watermelon and bananas to sell
in China. The Chinese mobile phone network coverage reached Muang Sing, so it was
quite easy for Lao farmers to arrange pick-ups with traders from China. These traders
were often ethnic Lue, meaning that the main language among traders was Lue.
Seng had no spare land for planting rubber, nor was there any spare land in the
village for rubber expansion. His son, however, was involved in rubber plantation
outside their village. Together with the family of the village headman, Seng’s son
provided financial resources and technical advice for neighbouring Akha farmers who
wanted to plant rubber but lacked capital and experience. Seng’s son supplied the
necessary inputs and planted rubber trees on Akha farmers’ land with the agreement to
share half of the revenue from the sales of latex and timber. Having limited access to
land in their own village was no longer an obstacle for Seng and his son.
The transition to rubber farming for Seng and his family was enabled by their close
relationship with relatives in China whose lives had also transitioned from rice to rubber
during the 1980s. Seng argued that even if the Chinese stopped buying rubber, he could
still sell rubber to processing factories in Laos. He was certain about the future of rubber.

Jiam’s life story

Jiam is an ethnic Yao (Mien), who grew up in the western part of Luang Namtha
province. His family fled to Thailand during the civil war in Laos. When the refugee
camp in Thailand was closing, the family repatriated to Laos with other Yao refugees.
They arrived in Muang Sing in 1991, and were given housing materials and food to
establish a new village in the valley. Although the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees and the Lao government supported them with food aid, they did not provide
any agricultural land for the repatriating families.
Jiam’s family had to find ways to claim land in the new environment. Paddy fields
in the surrounding areas were mostly occupied by Tai Lue villagers. Akha farmers were
also beginning to make claims to sloping land nearby Jiam’s village. For newly-arriving
Yao families, the only means to make land claims was to purchase land already occupied
by neighbouring villages or to clear forest areas that were not being actively used. At the
time of their settlement, the district government had not yet demarcated village bound-
aries or defined acceptable resource management practices.
The shortage of agricultural land did not deter Jiam and his fellow villagers from
generating household income through agricultural activities. Some families followed the
practice of Chinese farmers renting paddy fields from neighbouring Lue villagers during
the dry season to grow watermelons and vegetables. Others began contract sugarcane
farming with Chinese companies on newly cleared forest land. Through these activities
and sometimes with the help of remittances from relatives abroad, some of the Yao
villagers gradually obtained enough capital to purchase agricultural fields, both lowland
and upland, from neighbouring Lue and Akha villagers.
In the mid-1990s, Jiam went to Thailand to work on a relative’s farm. His relatives
were growing fruit trees and vegetables (lychee, longan, pomelo, shallots and garlic) for
66 Yayoi Fujita Lagerqvist

sale. During his stay in Thailand, Jiam also learnt to cultivate rubber. After returning
from Thailand, he went to China and worked on a rubber plantation. By 1997, he was
ready to return to Muang Sing and plant rubber. He began by planting about 2700
seedlings on sloping land along the road to China. The following year he planted an
additional 4000 seedlings. However, like many other farmers during this period, he lost
two-thirds of his trees to the severe cold weather. In spite of the loss, Jiam continued to
plant rubber, and carried on with his other activities including fish farming and maize
production.
In 2005, Jiam began to tap latex from 200 trees. By 2007, he was tapping 700 trees.
Jiam dried his liquid latex into blocks and sold them to Chinese traders. Sometimes
rubber blocks were hidden beneath other agricultural products in the trucks to avoid
customs inspection at the border. He was constantly thinking of new ways to improve
production and profit from rubber. He used a latex tapping knife from Thailand,
uncommon in Muang Sing, which gave him greater control of the blade than a Chinese
knife. He knew that control of the blade was important for tapping latex without
damaging the tree. He also considered buying a machine used in Thailand to produce
rubber sheets, since he could sell rubber sheets in China at a price of 16 yuan per kilo.
With his knowledge and experience with rubber, Jiam was regarded as an expert. He
decided to establish his own nursery because he did not trust the quality of seedlings
from China. From his nursery he was selling rubber seedlings to other farmers outside
Muang Sing. In 2005, he sold 15 000 seedlings to Yao relatives in northern Laos. He was
also producing 4000 seedlings for farmers in Luang Namtha province. In addition to the
sales of seedlings, Jiam also advised farmers on rubber planting and management. His
knowledge was based on his observations in Thailand and China, and his own experi-
ence growing rubber in Muang Sing. Jiam’s success in rubber was not only recognized
by fellow farmers in northern Laos, but also by a Yao business person living in Vientiane
who offered 1.7 million THB (USD 42 500) to purchase his rubber plantation. Jiam was
determined not to sell or move from his village in the borderlands; the price offered was
simply not enough.
As the rapid spread of rubber in Luang Namtha province attracted national atten-
tion, Jiam was often invited to talk at workshops organized by development organiza-
tions and government offices working on upland agricultural issues. Jiam not only had
experiences in rubber, but he was bold and did not shy away from expressing opinions
in public forums. He was supportive of small-holder rubber, but he was also aware of the
labour constraints of ordinary households engaged in multiple agricultural activities. He
emphasized that one cannot be ‘lazy’ planting rubber. From his point of view, a
rubber-based farming system was entirely different from a swidden-based agricultural
system and required a different allocation of labour.

From swidden to a productivist landscape

The first section of this paper discussed how Muang Sing was considered to be remote
and isolated. Imagining Muang Sing as remote ignored its historical position as a hub of
regional trade and obscured the agency of borderland populations. In contrast to the
image of isolation, lives in the borderlands, such as those portrayed here, are charac-
terized by mobility. The shift in the bilateral relationship between China and Laos,
and the development of a market economy in the region, facilitated renewed mobi-
lity of people and goods across the border. Although the official border crossing with
China was formally established as a ‘first-tier’ border, the politically less important
Resource frontier in Muang Sing 67

Mengman-Pangthong crossing became the centre of regional trade because of its less
formal status. In the guise of farmer-to-farmer trade, regional agricultural trade thrived
during the 1990–2000s, attracting a myriad of local entrepreneurs, investors, traders
and farmers from both sides of the border.
The stories of Phouy and Keng are among many accounts of local traders who
sought new business opportunities in the borderlands. Their daily struggles to capture
new economic opportunities coincided with the opening of the Mengman-Pangthong
border as a ‘second-tier’ crossing. Their business ventures met with failure and success,
built upon everyday negotiations that were often very frustrating.
As capitalism spreads into the borderlands, it is not only the large business operators
with substantial financial resources and market connections who are thriving in the
borderlands. Local farmers whose lives traverse the borders also play critical roles in
regional trade and transformations of the border landscape. As the stories of Seng and
Jiam highlight, the everyday lives of farmers living in the borderlands are not bounded
by a single country, culture or community. In both Seng’s and Jiam’s cases, their
knowledge about the value of investing in rubber was shaped through their trans-
boundary experience. Their lives had been marked by war and displacement that
dispersed their family members across the borders. Yet, their trans-boundary social
connections and mobility have helped to foster knowledge and skills, making them
responsive to new economic changes. These life stories also highlight the porosity of
political borderlines and the ways in which land use practices are directly affected by
people’s everyday struggles to improve family life in the borderlands.
The state and development organizations’ vision of a remote and isolated periphery
masked the highly mobile and transformative lives in the borderlands. Designing a
development plan according to agro-ecological zones did not facilitate the transition of
rural farmers from subsistence to a market-based economy. Farmers in the borderlands
of Laos had an entirely different strategy. Instead of justifying their claims to land
through official processes, they legitimatized their claims to land by planting a long-term
crop, rubber. The planting of rubber required new ways of mobilizing labour and capital.
Farmers were able to do so through numerous emerging forms of small-scale contract
farming (see also Shi, 2008).
Interviews with farmers also revealed a sense of urgency. Many farmers felt that
unless they actively claimed their swidden and fallow forests, their land and the
potential stream of wealth accruing from it would be captured by others, whether they
were Chinese farmers from across the border or other investors who were beginning
to spread their tentacles into village territory. The majority of farmers interviewed
across Muang Sing emphasized the need to plant rubber as an investment and as a
way to secure land for future generations. Farmers were not stranded in isolation
without the ability to transform their lives. In fact they were part of the process
producing the new borderlands landscape. As the fallow forests turned into small-
holder rubber plantations and rubber was making its way farther into Laos, a new
process of land acquisition began to emerge. Land-constrained farmers began to col-
laborate with farmers who had land to form tree-sharing and profit-sharing arrange-
ments; not only was the landscape changing, but also new forms of labour
arrangements were emerging.
The rapid transformation of the agrarian landscape that unfolded in Muang Sing was
not due to lawlessness that had opened the way to a kind of ‘frontier capitalism’ led by
powerful global investors. Regulatory frameworks and institutions were in place to
manage people’s movement, where they lived and how they lived. Yet the regulatory
68 Yayoi Fujita Lagerqvist

frameworks often failed to anticipate the fluidity of trans-boundary lives and underes-
timated peoples’ ability to negotiate and adapt. Farmers like Seng and Jiam were among
the many people who were determined to secure their families’ future in the border-
lands. They were capable of transferring the knowledge gained through their trans-
boundary connections and mobilize assets to transform their agricultural production
systems.
In Muang Sing, the ground has rapidly shifted from swidden farming into a pro-
ductivist rubber landscape; farmers’ livelihoods have also changed significantly from
subsistence to commodity-based production. The stories I have introduced in this paper
are only a part of the micro-processes on this dynamically shifting terrain. The sprawling
smallholder rubber landscape in Muang Sing contrasts with the stories that often surface
in the debate over land concessions and the spread of ‘land-grabs’. The stories unfolding
in places such as Muang Sing are not depictions of global and regional investors
forcefully displacing local farmers and transforming lives and landscapes (cf. Baird,
2009). The case of Muang Sing provides a complex picture of a resource frontier
in-the-making through the everyday practices of borderland people.
The ethnographic method is particularly useful in understanding the micro-
processes of agrarian transformation in places such as Muang Sing. It highlights the
constant negotiations, adjustments and adaptations of people living in turbulent times.
As some of the stories show, people’s mobility and identity in the borderlands are not
easily bound by regulatory regimes; they hold the capacity to resist and collude with
different power-holders across political borderlines at different moments. However, not
everyone in the borderlands is capable of adapting to prevailing challenges. As Cohen
(2009) observes, and farmers’ life stories discussed in this paper highlight, the nature of
labour relationships between farmers are changing rapidly in Muang Sing. There are
many other stories yet to be told of farmers who plant rubber under tree or profit-
sharing schemes with more powerful investors, and who wind up losing their claim to
future benefits from the land for their families. There are others whose lives are entirely
based on meager wages from agricultural labour.
Life stories of borderland people particularly highlight their centrality in transform-
ing their lives and the spaces in which they make their living. Attention to the micro-
processes of agrarian transformation in Muang Sing allows us to revisit and unsettle the
notion of the rural periphery in Laos as a place of isolation and backwardness. On the
contrary, what is presented here are stories of connectivity, mobility and rapid adapta-
tion to emerging possibilities – the goals proffered by the ADB for establishing the
Greater Mekong Subregion. As the ground continues to shift, we must remain vigilant
with our eyes on the ground to understand emerging micro-processes of agrarian
transformation and the inherent instability of a resource frontier.

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