Our colloquium series is back for 2022\, both online and in- person!
Join us on Tuesday 20th September with:
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Dr. Juliet LuAssistant Professor
Department of Forest Resources Manage
ment
School of Public Policy & Global Affairs.
The Smell of Chinese Money
How Chinese Rubber Inves
tments are Transforming Northern Laos
The smell of tapped rubber trees\, of their milky liquid latex congealing in the tropical heat\, has become synonymous in northern Laos with the influence of Chinese capital. F rom 1997 to 2007\, Chinese land investment in Laos increased tenfold with r ubber being the top crop invested in. Some welcomed this influx for its pot ential to drive economic development\; others decried a Chinese “takeover” of its small southern neighbour.
These contrasting hopes and fears mi rror a global debate over the merits of rising transnational land investmen ts\, particularly those originating from countries whose political and econ omic systems – like China’s – are feared as opaque and impervious to intern ational governance mechanisms and norms.
Through the case of Chinese rubber investments\, Dr. Lu explores the ways Chinese capital is extending beyond its borders and the resultant impacts on local economic development\ , regimes of resource management\, and patterns of state formation in Laos. She argues that Chinese rubber companies differ from other transnational l and investors\, but not in the ways most critics fear.
Instead of fun ctioning as an unrestricted\, unaccountable force of capitalist exploitatio n\, she documents how Chinese rubber companies in Laos are constrained and disciplined through their responsibilities to larger Chinese and Lao state development and diplomatic agendas. These findings contribute to broader un derstandings of how Chinese state capital is understood in a global context \, and how transnational land investments are shaped by intertwined host- a nd investor-country state agendas.
This in-person event takes pla ce on the traditional\, ancestral and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam)\, who have lived on this land since time immemorial.
Register to receiv
e Zoom meeting details via email if you would like to attend remotely.
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CATEGORIES:Featured Events,Featured Homepage LOCATION:Room 229 GEO:52.201854;0.123739 URL;VALUE=URI:https://geog.ubc.ca/events/event/colloquium-juliet-lu/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://geog.cms.arts.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/26/2022/09/Juliet-Lu-Featured-Image.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Vancouver BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0800 TZOFFSETTO:-0700 DTSTART:20220313T100000 TZNAME:PDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR