Air pollution has emerged as a major public health and economic threat in Southeast Asia, yet Laos has received limited attention in scholarly and policy debates despite significant mortality and economic losses. This article analyses the drivers, lived experiences, and governance of air pollution in Luang Prabang, Laos' premier tourist destination and a UNESCO World Heritage city. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, field observations, and satellite data, our findings challenge dominant policy narratives that attribute haze primarily to traditional swidden cultivation. Instead, commercial agrarian change, particularly cassava expansion, grass cultivation, and cattle pasture expansion linked to regional and Chinese cattle demand and a prolonged urban landfill fire, drove air pollution in 2023. These sources stem from labor shortages, economic insecurity, poor urban waste planning, and a reliance on fire as a low-cost management tool. Despite significant health, livelihood, and tourism impacts, haze remains underappreciated and underfunded. Weak monitoring infrastructure, fragmented institutional responsibilities, and the absence of disaggregated health data render air pollution uncertain and socially normalized. The article argues that air pollution in Luang Prabang represents a form of slow violence, maintained by epistemic gaps and administrative silence within a development model that prioritizes expanded agriculture and tourism over environmental protection.

Abstract In 1975, the communist Pathet Lao, with strong support from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was able to take full control over Laos, changing its name to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and adopting a one-party socialist political system modeled on those of Vietnam and the Soviet Union. Many political opponents of the new regime were sent to concentration camps in remote parts of the country, where they languished without proper food or medicine for many years without even trials. Others escaped across the Mekong River to Thailand, where they became political refugees living in and outside of refugee camps set up not far from the border. Before long, those opposed to the new government and their Vietnamese supporters started to politically and militarily resist. Because the Thai government would not allow them to stay permanently in Thailand, many became political refugees in the United States, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere, but that did not stop their political activity related to Laos. An overview of post-1975 transnational diasporic politics associated with Laos is provided here. This is done through following the experiences and political organizations that Khamphoui Sisavatdy, an elected member of the National Assembly of Laos in 1972, participated in after 1975, starting as a refugee staying in Nong Khai, northeastern Thailand, and then later as an immigrant to the United States. Even though he was living in the United States, Khamphoui and other first-generation Lao immigrants remained focused on the politics of Laos. The intention here is to complicate the understanding of national borders and politics to avoid the territorial trap that frequently affects political understandings. The example of Lao post-1975 transnational politics is useful for demonstrating how politics can transcend national boundaries in particular ways, ones not sufficiently investigated and documented in Southeast Asia.

Armed conflict between the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) and the military of Thailand in northern Thai-land began in mid-1967. By the end of the 1960s, there were a number of CPT stronghold bases in the remote uplands of Northern Thailand. Large numbers of ethnic Hmong and Lua people joined the CPT, and the CPT strongholds were in areas where these groups had previously lived. During the 1970s, once the strongholds were established, the CPT organized a small project on the history of ethnic groups that had not been re-ported on so far. Led by a scholar formerly from Bangkok and involving ethnic Hmong and ethnic Lua men, the project was expected to collect, compile, and analyze ethnic group histories and create a written history in Central Thai language. While the project was never completed – and no documents appear to have sur-vived from it – the Hmong man who worked on the project has provided an oral account of what happened, one that reveals some aspects of CPT political thought, particularly in relation to ideas about ethnic minority histories. The main argument here is that the CPT, as with other communist regimes in Asia, saw ethnic har-mony as important for its broader political project, and tried to enhance good relations through the devel-opment of a politically acceptable history that would also fit with Hmong and Lua expectations. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the CPT’s approach to ethnicity issues.

In 1975, the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) was established by the communist Pathet Lao, with strong support from Vietnam. A wave of both political and military resistance to the new government emerged, although little is known about the ideology behind this resistance. This article assesses the ideological landscape of the resistance, which I refer to as the 'Really Secret War', since it is even less well known than the 'Secret War' that preceded it in the 1960s and early 1970s. In particular, I consider the ideological diversity of post-1975 anti-Lao PDR groups located in Laos and among the Lao diaspora. Many involved with the resistance self-identified as 'right-wing', 'left-wing', and 'neutralist', but the movement was driven more by nationalism than anything else. The resistance movement was highly diverse, and included royalists, republicans, neutralists, socialists, and former communists, all of whom feature to some degree in the complex and little-known political history of modern Laos.

The Mekong is amongst the most important rivers in the world with regard to biodiversity and livelihood. Over the last few decades, however, the river has experienced dramatic hydrological changes, mainly due to the construction of large hydropower dams on the mainstream Mekong and its tributaries. Other potentially crucial factors include sand mining, erosion, embankment construction, and water extraction. In March and early April of 2024, we organised focus group interviews to discuss the changes that have occurred during the dry season with local people living in different communities along the mainstream Mekong River: 32 villages in eight provinces in northern and northeastern Thailand, 9 villages in Champassak Province, southern Laos, and 3 villages in Stung Treng Province, northeastern Cambodia. In this paper, we present some of the results of this research, particularly focusing on water level and suspended sediment discharge changes, as local people along the Mekong River have varied understandings regarding whether there is more or less water in the Mekong River during the dry season. We argue that riverbed incision resulting largely from hydropower dam development and sand mining have, in particular, led many people living along the Mekong between northeastern Thailand and central Laos to incorrectly believe that there is less water in the Mekong River during the dry season compared to the past, while dry season water releases from upriver hydropower dams have led those in northern Thailand, lower northeastern Thailand, southern Laos, and northeastern Cambodia to assess that there is now more water in the Mekong River.

In 1964, the National Forest Reserve Act (B.E. 2507) of Thailand classified all unoccupied forested areas as forest reserve, or pa sanguan. It became illegal to obtain individual land titles in forest reserves, thus reducing the land rights of farmers. In addition, roads could not be built, electricity access could not be provided, and agricultural support programs could not operate on land without land titles. However, in recent years, Thailand’s National Committee on Land Policy (Khana Kammakarn Natyobai Thidin Haeng Chat) has been promoting the Kor Tor Chor (KTC) program for communal land titling, designed to create land tenure clarity but not to provide full ownership rights. The objective of this article is to assess the vertical geographies associated with the KTC program in Nan Province, northern Thailand, and their implications with regard to land rights and accessing government funding, one of the key objectives of KTC. The article reveals that vertical land classification aspects associated with watershed classification present particular challenges to KTC. In particular, we argue that while farmers are generally happy with the benefits that have come to them due to KTC, vertical geographical circumstances have significantly influenced the abilities of village communities to benefit from the KTC program.

The Cold War is often depicted in binary terms: communists against anti-communists, the left against the right, or the free world versus the communist world. However, during the latter part of the Cold War, particularly following the 1979 war between China and Vietnam, earlier Cold War binaries no longer applied, and new alliances were established. These alliances often brought people with the same enemies together, despite having little in common ideologically. This article examines the historical circumstances and Cold War geographies of ethnic Khmu anti-Lao PDR and anti-Vietnamese insurgents, including their alliances with right-wing governments in Thailand and the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC). As neutralists, these Khmu occupied a political space rarely discussed in relation to the Cold War. Although the PRC provided training, weapons, and supplies to the neutralist Khmu between 1979 and 1983, later their political leader, General Kong Le, had a falling out with the Chinese, and the PRC stopped supporting his largely ethnic minority soldiers. However, up until 1989, the Thai government continued to allow the Khmu to maintain bases in Thailand for launching military operations inside Laos, until the Thai government adopted the “Battlefield to Marketplace” policy. Some Khmu continued resisting inside northwestern Laos during the early 1990s, but with declining numbers of soldiers and decreased outside support, armed resistance ended in 2003. It is critical that the geographies and alliances of the later Cold War be differentiated from those of the earlier years of the Cold War. This transnational insurgency deserves attention.

Confronting the reality of climate change requires accessible and effective resources to drive coordinated efforts against its detrimental impacts. Among potential solutions, public interest in tree planting emerges as a cost-effective and multifaceted strategy to combat climate change. This study specifically explores the integration of spiritual leaders into climate change coping mechanisms through tree plantation initiatives. Conducted through applying a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach, the study employed a survey-based design, focusing on followers of spiritual leaders in Pakistan, where such leaders hold significant influence. A total of 180 followers were interviewed face-to-face and data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to summarise responses collected through a Likert scale, a commonly used social measurement tool. Despite the absence of explicit communications from their spiritual leader regarding tree planting, respondents exhibited a remarkable willingness to plant a substantial number of trees on the advice of their spiritual leaders. This indicates a vast potential for raising awareness about climate change and encouraging tree planting through the influence of spiritual leaders, although various challenges remain. Still, integrating these spiritual leaders into climate action plans could channel their substantial influence toward climate-resilient activities.

Magic (xaiyaxat) has long played an important role in Lao society, in everyday life, but especially during times of particular danger. Therefore, it is not surprising that magic was important for anti-Lao PDR insurgents during the 1970s and 1980s, particularly for providing protective qualities for soldiers and thus increasing their confidence to engage in armed conflict. This article considers a group of insurgents who operated between Buengkan District in northeastern Thailand and adjacent parts of Khammouane and Bolikhamxay Provinces in central Laos, and were protected and emboldened by the mysterious magical beliefs and practices of an ethnic Lao spiritual leader named Kong Manychanh. While different groups and individuals relied on magic to varying degrees, this article demonstrates the important role that magic played during this period, including how magic was used for protective purposes through spells (mon katha) and protective items made sacred through magical practices (visa akhom).