Property Relations of the Hmong in Laos

Abstract

"State intervention in rural areas such as the implementation of the policy of shifting cultivation stabilization and land and forest allocation programme, many upland and highlands people have been shifted from living in the high mountains to the foothills or plain valleys with a different system of agricultural practices-from upland to lowland mode of production, which also represents the transformation from subsistence agriculture to cash crops. This paper will attempt to descript the change in property relations of the Hmong in Namon Neua, Laos, and to show how land sharing, a form of redistribution and coping strategies, can help with environmental protection as well as building and maintenance of social relationships. Properties discussed in this paper include lands and forest."