main organizations that have been at the forefront of promoting an indigenous agenda in Laos have been NGOs, multilateral banks, and organizations within the United Nations system (Baird 2015). NGOs have introduced and repeatedly used the concept of indigenous peoples through various interactions with indigenous peoples and their ethnic Lao and international supporters, and have provided funding and other forms of assistance for particular natural resource management initiatives, where indigenous peoples’ rights are the main focus. In recent years, this has included providing support for local chapters of regional initiatives such as the Indigenous Knowledge and Peoples Network (IKAP) and the Co-Management Learning Network (CMLN).10 Both IKAP and CMLN in Laos have collaborated with the Global Association for People and the Environment (GAPE), a Canadian NGO. IKAP has also partnered with local organizations interested in indigenous knowledge issues. With regard to CMLN, GAPE has been working with local governments and indigenous peoples, located within and adjacent to the Xe Pian National Protected Area in the southernmost part of the country, in order to improve relations between indigenous peoples and government, and to provide indigenous peoples with more of a voice in managing the National Protected Area (Baird 2015).
Both the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) and the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), the main NGOs supporting the indigenous movement in Asia at regional levels, have taken a strong interest in natural resource management issues of various types, including those in recent years related to dramatic increases in large-scale land concessions to private corporations and other forms of land grabbing (NGO Forum on Cambodia 2006; see also Baird 2010, 2011a, 2013; Keating 2013; Neef, Touch, and Chiengthong 2013; Swift 2013), conflicts associated with protected area management (Colchester and Erni 1999; Howitt, Connell, and Hirsch 1996), and climate change mitigation measures related to land and forest management (AIPP et al. 2010). Indicative of this, the IWGIA has given GAPE funding to provide indigenous peoples facing critical land alienation with basic legal training, so as to support their efforts to both resist attempted land concessions and negotiate better deals when resistance is not viable. Thus, much of the NGO support for the concept of indigenous peoples in Laos has been linked to natural resource management issues of various types.
Multilateral banks, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), have also played important but quite different roles in introducing the concept of indigenous peoples to Laos and other countries in Asia (ADB 1998, 2002; World Bank 2005). The World Bank and ADB have both adopted operational directives on indigenous peoples that have been significant in promoting a global concept of indigeneity in Asia. These policies stipulate that if development projects supported by the banks have the potential to negatively impact on indigenous peoples, the proponents of the projects are required to develop “Indigenous Peoples’ Plans” in order to ensure that indigenous issues are being adequately considered and mitigated. As the ADB states on its website:
ADB’s indigenous peoples safeguards aim to ensure that the design and implementation of projects foster full respect for indigenous peoples’ identity, dignity, human rights, livelihood systems, and cultural uniqueness as defined by the indigenous peoples themselves so that they receive culturally appropriate social and economic benefits, are not harmed by the projects, and can participate actively in projects that affect them.11
Despite these policies, the insistence on Indigenous Peoples’ Plans has not had a great deal of measurable impact in Laos, due to the fact that the banks have done little to promote the concept of indigenous peoples in the public realm, leaving the concept as one that exists internally in the implementation of their own operational project policies. Moreover, some of the projects they have supported have not appropriately recognized groups of indigenous peoples (Manorom, Baird, and Shoemaker 2017).
The third organizational group that has had an influence on the indigenous movement in Laos is the United Nations. They have supported the development of the concept of indigeneity in Laos through the ILO Convention 169 (ILO 1989), the UNDRIP, and most recently through the United Nations Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (UN-REDD) program. In particular, UN-REDD, together with various international donors and NGOs, has attempted to introduce “Free Prior and Informed Consent” (FPIC) to Laos, a concept initially intended to ensure that indigenous peoples are fully informed and consulted about, and that they are in favor of, pertinent REDD+ projects before they proceed. Indeed, Article 19 of the UNDRIP requires governments to “consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.” However, since 2009, FPIC has not only been applied (in Laos and other countries) in cases of indigenous peoples affected by REDD+ projects, but also for other forest-dependent people regardless of their ethnicity or status in terms of indigeneity (GIZ 2011). In any case, the GoL would not have allowed FPIC if it had only been applicable to indigenous peoples. However, the GoL has approved guidelines for consulting with people from ethnic groups who have been negatively impacted by development projects (Vongsack 2013), so there does appear to be some development in the ability to differentiate between ethnic groups, provided that the concept of indigenous peoples is not applied.
Conclusions
The key conclusion when it comes to considering the impacts of the concept of indigenous peoples in Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos is that it is a concept strongly associated with nature–society relations. These include land and natural resource management issues, albeit in different ways, and with varying levels of impact in the three countries. It is also clear that, in general, the impact of the newly introduced concept of indigeneity has been uneven, not only between the countries discussed in this chapter, but within each of the countries as well, based on a number of political, geographical, economic, and historical factors. This certainly has a lot to do with the fact that the government of Cambodia recognizes the concept of indigenous peoples, while the governments of Thailand and Laos do not. However, the policies of Laos and Thailand with regards to indigenous peoples also differ significantly. Thailand has designated special cultural protection zones based on ethnic differentiation, while Laos, despite its refusal to develop policies that differentiate based on ethnicity and instead strongly advocating for equality between peoples from all ethnic groups, has nevertheless introduced special guidelines for consulting “ethnic groups” about the impacts of development projects.
Essentially, the present concept of indigenous peoples, one that is linked to the global indigenous peoples’ movement and emancipatory efforts to support groups seen to be disadvantaged and historically colonized, is being introduced to different places in mainland Southeast Asia with varying effects, depending on the circumstances. This leads to the development of hybrid policies and practices, and sometimes confused and contradictory positions, thus opening up a fascinating field for study. While the concept of indigenous peoples is increasingly gaining recognition in Asia, it is also certainly true that it remains a highly contested idea, one that is likely to develop and transform in different and potentially surprising ways in the coming years.
Ian G. Baird (PhD, British Columbia) is Associate Professor of Geography and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before coming to UW-Madison in 2010, he spent most of the previous twenty-five years living in Southeast Asia and working for NGOs. He has considerable experience conducting research in both lowland and upland mainland Southeast Asia, especially Laos, Thailand, and northeastern Cambodia. He works in particular with ethnic Lao, Thai, Hmong, and Brao peoples. He has been conducting research regarding indigeneity in Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand for many years. He edited special sections for peer-reviewed journals focused on “Indigeneity and Natural Resources in Cambodia” for Asia Pacific Viewpoint in 2013, and on “Indigeneity in Southeast Asia” for Asian Ethnicity in 2016.
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