At the stage of research design, researchers should have a set of criteria for choosing their research sites and research subjects. This is determined largely by the research aim and objectives, with some consideration given to feasibility. However, when researchers start their fieldwork, things do not always go as planned. My own experiences reflect how far prior justifications, often crafted assuming the best, are forced to change when researchers enter the ‘field’, where feasibility becomes the key issue. During proposal preparation in Durham in 2008/2009, I was strongly inclined to conduct my research in both northern and southern regions of the country: studying villages in Luang Namtha province in the North and Champasak province in the South. However, as it turned out, my field research was conducted only in Luang Namtha due to feasibility issues. The first concerned physical access. The distance between Champasak and Luang Namtha is almost 1,400 kilometres, requiring almost 40 hours’ bus travel from the North to the South. It quickly became clear
18 Though this was a regulation, the implementation of this regulation varied; while state officials in Sing district, Luang Namtha province insisted that their official accompanied me during my research, officials in Long district allowed me to go to the study villages on my own, without being accompanied.
72 that I would spend too much time travelling between the two regions, instead of doing research.
The second consideration relates to the regulations that the GoL imposes on foreign researchers. Research projects have to be approved by the government, and permission also has to be sought from the local authority. A particular characteristic of rubber plantations in the South of the country is that they are dominated by large-scale concession plantations involving a loss of villagers’ agricultural land to Vietnamese rubber companies.
Talking to some NGOs and scholars who work on rubber expansion in the South, these companies have good connections with local state officials (research diary, 13 September 2009). This implies that my proposed work was not welcomed by these local officials, who were concerned that it might highlight villagers’ concerns and become a radical critique of the activities of Vietnamese rubber companies and, therefore, local officials. Due to these two factors, I decided to head to Luang Namtha in the northern region where rubber plantations are operated mainly under smallholder investment and a contract farming system.
Before meeting up with people from the Luang Namtha Provincial Agricultural and Forestry Office (PAFO), I had established my own criteria for choosing my study villages. As my research aimed to understand how different levels of spatial and economic integration influence the way that people engage in the rubber boom, I had the intention of undertaking fieldwork in villages with different levels of market and spatial integration. This was, therefore, likely to involve a comparison between lowland and upland villages. My second criterion was about patterns of villagers’ engagement with rubber plantations.
These two main criteria were discussed with a deputy head of the Luang Namtha PAFO and PAFO’s staff members who recommended that I undertake surveys in lowland villages in Namtha district which are intensively integrated into the market and where smallholder investment is the dominant form of rubber plantation. They also recommended that I visit Nalae district to identify survey villages which do not show a high level of market and spatial integration. Moreover, the local government’s policy whereby rubber was considered as a new alternative to lift Nalae out of the list of 47 poorest districts of the country was another condition encouraging me to undertake research in Nalae district. The first survey trip was thus conducted in two districts, Namtha and Nalae. In Namtha district, following discussions with Namtha DAFO officials I was accompanied to two lowland
73 villages (Baan Thung and Baan Moon) and two upland villages (Baan Klang and Baan Hmong) (see Appendix 1 for a summary of the surveyed villages).
In the end, and after consideration, I decided not to conduct my research in any of these villages. My decision was based on a consideration of whether the villages suggested by Namtha DAFO’s officials could generate data that would meet the aims of the research, as well as issues of feasibility. While both lowland villages were ‘accessible’, at least in terms of language, only fifty per cent of Baan Thung’s households were involved in rubber plantations. In Baan Moon, while all households were involved in rubber plantations, many of them made their living from being state officials, trading rather than relying mainly on agriculture. The two upland villages were different, but again did not seem to suit my research. While the village of Baan Klang might have provided a picture of how concessions have transformed and re-shaped the lives of villagers who rely mainly on agriculture, there was already a Lao student collecting data for his Master’s thesis in the village, and villagers did not seem to be pleased by the prospect of being researched by two researchers visiting them almost at the same time. Finally, in Baan Hmong, the villagers had a long history of engagement in rubber plantation and the village is often referred to as a ‘model’ for resolving poverty. As a result, the village has been visited by many researchers; I was told that two other students were conducting research in this village – not to mention others who had completed their work (such as Manivong et al. 2003; Alton et al. 2005; Manivong and Cramb 2008; Chanthavong et al. 2009).
In Nalae district, I met and held discussions with a deputy head of the Nalae DAFO and some of DAFO’s staff members. In this instance, feasibility became a crucial concern. One village which best suited my research was accessible only by walking, which took about 3-4 hours. Due to the concern of local officials over my ‘safety’ and ‘convenience’ regarding staying overnight in the village, I had no choice but to travel back and forth between the district centre and my study village every day. Thus conducting research in this village was not practical as I would spend most of the time walking between the district centre and the village rather than undertaking the research. This village was not, therefore, on my survey list. DAFO officials took me and a lecturer from NUOL to one Khmu village, Baan Phu, located around 35 kilometres or one hour from the district centre. Since it is one of the district’s poorest villages, studying the role of rubber would have been very interesting.
However, this village was not chosen simply because it was, in practical terms, almost
74 inaccessible. Villagers also seemed to be very busy in their fields. Its setting was also a point at issue. As a small district, Nalae did not have any car or motorbike rental shop. Though there was a bus running through the village every day, the timetable would only have allowed me a few hours to collect data before taking the bus back at around four o’clock. I was also taken to a lowland village located close to the district centre. Every household was involved in rubber either under contract with the Xiang Jiao Rubber Company from China or through villagers’ own investment, or both. Though I realised that this lowland village might not best suit my research it seemed to be an exceptional village for Nalae – a district where over 85 per cent of the population are uplanders. As mentioned earlier, the particular contexts of Nalae as one of the poorest districts in the country and the district’s strategy to use rubber trees as a new alternative for resolving the challenge of poverty were of interest to me. I also collected some data from Baan Dai, another village of potential interest.
However, at the time that I collected the data, Baan Dai could be accessed only by a long-tail boat, this raised safety concerns. About two weeks after I undertook my research in Baan Dai, I began to discuss another potential village with DAFO officials. This was the upland village of Baan Don Tha, a Khmu village where I finally conducted my research. I visited this village with DAFO’s internship-like staff19 to hold discussions with the village’s headman and committees and found that this village was one of the poorest in the district and most households had planted rubber trees under a contract system of relations with the Xiang Jiao Rubber Company. This village might not have suited my research as well as Baan Phu but, practically, it was accessible. The selection of my research site in Nalae district was, therefore, very much a compromise between the academic criteria that I had drawn up in Durham, and the important issue of feasibility.
While I chose Baan Don Tha to represent a village where levels of spatial and economic integration are less intense, I selected a village in Sing district as a case where levels of regional and market integration are significant. This district is close to China - the most important market for Luang Namtha’s agricultural products. Selection of a study village in Sing, however, presented another kind of challenge. On my first trip to Sing district I went with a lecturer from NUOL, and we were accompanied by the Sing DAFO’s senior official
19 There are many people, especially young people who have recently graduated, who want to be recruited as state officials, so they work as volunteers with the government. Generally, they do not get paid by the government. They are often assigned to accompany development organisations or business companies to the villages where the projects are delivered; therefore they get remuneration from these organisations.
75 who was also a member of the party at the district level. We visited two Akha villages and one Yao village. Smallholding and contract farming patterns were found in the two Akha villages (Baan Na Kao and Baan Na Mai) where villagers were intensively involved in producing sugarcane for the Chinese market. The Yao village of Baan Yao was the first village in Sing district where people had planted rubber trees. Most households there had set up their own plantations, with an average plantation area per household of around eight hectares. While both the Akha villages suited my research needs and requirements, accessibility to both of them again became an issue. DAFO officials expressed their worries about my conducting research in two villages which are difficult to access, less comfortable, and even ‘underdeveloped’. This caused me to turn to a Yao village which was easy to access and, at that time, still met my justifications for a research site. However, on my second trip to Sing, I had the chance to talk to local people in town, which kindled my interest in also conducting my research with Akha people, not only because they are a majority of the upland populations in Sing district but also because they are intensively involved in rubber. I convinced a DAFO official to take me to one Akha village (Baan Daen) located close to the Lao-Chinese border. The situation in this village was of great interest to me as villagers were intensively involved in cash crop and rubber production through cross-border (Chinese) connections. Villagers from this village had also experienced a loss of some of their forestland to the Police Office, which was then said to have passed the land to a Chinese rubber company. However, this village was located about 22 kilometres north of Sing town, taking almost an hour for the DAFO official and me to access by motorbike, climbing up the hills. Though this village was most attractive to me, I realised that I could not carry out my research here on my own, given the government’s regulations and restrictions on my travel and access.
It should be noted that official perspectives on rubber plantations in Sing district also determined where my research was carried out. While Luang Namtha’s provincial government generally promoted rubber plantations as a new alternative to alleviate poverty, there were variations among state officials at the district level. Some of Nalae’s DAFO officials, while they promoted contract farming rubber plantations to villagers, expressed their worries about how far rubber could resolve people’s poverty and environmental issues. Sing’s DAFO official who accompanied me strongly believed that rubber was the best way to lift people, and especially uplanders, out of poverty as well as to resolve the ‘problem’ of shifting cultivation in the uplands. His view on rubber raised
76 concerns on my part over the potential impact on my research subjects if I conducted my research in a village where, due to their loss of land to the Police Office, people might heavily criticise state officials. With this in mind, I took the decision to undertake my research in a village where smallholder investment was the dominant form, taking the view that this would protect my informants from any possible impacts emerging while they were being interviewed by me in front of the officials. A trekking trip was used as the strategy to explore the potential villages without being accompanied by state officials. After visiting a few upland villages which were geographically accessible, I convinced the DAFO official to take me to Baan Houay Luang Mai, an Akha village where I finally carried out my research.
People in this village were intensively integrated into the market, mainly through sugarcane production. Its geographical location close to the Chinese border meant that it was well connected to the Chinese market. This village was thus suitable as a comparison settlement to Don Tha village where levels of market integration were less intense. Rubber in this village had developed under the villagers’ own investment, and there was no contract farming in the village. I felt, therefore, that any unintended consequence of its inhabitants being my research subjects would be minimal.
Thus, after much travel and consideration, I arrived at my study site selection, based on levels of spatial and economic integration (with Don Tha village being a case of less intense integration and Houay Luang Mai village of more intense) and different patterns of villagers’ involvement in rubber trees (the 2+3 contract farming system in Don Tha village and a smallholder pattern in Houay Luang Mai village). However, concerned that I could not stay overnight in the villages and also worried about being accompanied by local officials which would inevitably affect the quality of the data I could obtain, I decided to extend my field research to two other villages expecting that, while I might not gain in-depth data, this would allow me to obtain a wider data set permitting comparison. I thus headed to Long district to undertake research in a village where rubber plantations had been set up as part of a concession programme and a village where the 1+4 contract farming system operated.
I was introduced by a Lao friend of mine to his colleague who worked for a non-government organisation (NGO) in Long district. This person became my gatekeeper who introduced me to local officials, traders, and an interpreter. He also recommended which villages I might consider to conduct my research in. When I arrived at the Long DAFO with an official seal from the Luang Namtha PAFO, this Lao friend, with his personal connections to local
77 officials, was able to convince DAFO officials to allow me to go to the villages with my interpreter but without any accompanying officials. Thus, the villagers were more relaxed when they talked about the impacts of the concessions and the 1+4 contract farming system, and often commented critically on the role of the state agencies and officials in the process. Moreover, being able to make a connection with local people who live, work with, and have personal connections to local state officials made it easier to choose research sites which met my criteria. A survey in Long district was carried out in two Akha villages where the 1+4 contract farming system was the dominant form of plantation; as both of these villages were quite similar, I selected Baan Pha Lad due to its geographical setting which made it the more accessible.
In Xiengkok borderland where the plantations largely operated under a concession system, there are only a few villages. I visited two villages; both were resettlement villages and parts of their agricultural land had been taken by the Jundai Rubber Company who claimed that it had gained permission to use the land from the army. I chose Baan Kaem Khong, a village of Kui and Lahu peoples, to conduct my research, again due to the practical matter of accessibility. Details on the four study communities will be returned to in Chapter 5.
In sum, the selection of my research sites was very much a compromise between academic criteria and feasibility. This is a common experience that researchers face when they start their field research. Foreign researchers from the global North may encounter issues of feasibility when they arrive in the field in the global South, realising the impracticality of their selection criteria in the face of the conditions they face. While I shared this experience and had to change my research site from two different regions to only one region, as well as selecting villages that were ‘second best’ in terms of their academic suitability, doing research in the transition socialist Lao PDR also poses another set of limitations and challenges. As noted by some researchers (Scott et al. 2006; Thøgersen and Heimer 2006;
Cornet 2010; Daviau 2010; Gros 2010) who work in other post-socialist countries, research activities, especially those conducted by foreign researchers, are subjected to state control and censorship in various ways. Thus, in my case, local state officials were taking part in the process of selection of research sites. Moreover, concerning the possible impacts of the research on research participants and the perspectives of the state agencies and officials in each area, this also directed me in terms of where my research should or should not take place. A researcher who works in the transition socialist settings not only faces these
78 tensions between academic, practical and political criteria, but such issues also extend to the methodologies used. These issues will be discussed in the following section.