Risky spaces, vulnerable households, and mobile lives in Laos: Quo vadis flooding and migration?

Abstract

This chapter details how different sources of vulnerability underpin flooding and migration in Laos, based on field research in areas where sudden-onset and long-duration floods occur. It highlights how the intersection of flooding and migration is far from straightforward. Heavy reliance on agriculture increases susceptibility to the vagaries of the weather and heightens the risk of flooding, as reflected in the 2011 and 2012 flooding episodes. The decision to migrate may be shaped by a number of considerations including in situ vulnerability factors, assets available to households, and the overall livelihood strategies of the household. In the case of flooding and migration in Laos, four villages in two provinces at different altitudes were studied to explore how vulnerability manifests and are constructed in Laos by communities and households in different resource and environmental contexts. Migration was also made easier by the presence of personal or family networks in Thailand and the existence of brokers.

Published in

Title: Living with Floods in a Mobile Southeast Asia : A Political Ecology of Vulnerability, Migration and Environmental Change
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

SLU Authors

• Ernerot, Jacqueline

  • Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Human Geography
Environmental Sciences

Publication identifier

• ISBN: 9781138793248
• eISBN: 978-1-315-76143-5

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/130314