Upland Geopolitics: Postwar Laos and the Global Land Rush(Culture, Place, and NatureCulture, Place, and NatureCulture, Place, and NatureCulture, Place, and NatureCulture, Place, and NatureUpland Geopolitics)

Winner of the 2024 EuroSEAS Social Science Book Prize Cold War legacies in Southeast Asia enable new geographies of enclosure In the twenty-first century, land deals in the Global South have become increasingly prevalent and controversial. Transnational access to arable land in impoverished "land-rich" countries in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia highlights the link between the shifting geopolitics of economic development and problems of food security, climate change, and regional and international trade. Drawing on ethnographic and archival research, Upland Geopolitics uses the case of Chinese agribusiness investment in northern Laos to study the unbalanced geography of the new global land rush. Connecting the current rubber plantation boom to a longer trajectory of foreign intervention in the region, Upland Geopolitics reveals how legacies of Cold War conflict continue to pave the way for transnational enclosure in a socially uneven landscape. Upland Geopolitics is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) and the generous support of Indiana University. DOI: 10.6069/9780295750507

About the Author :
Michael Dwyer is assistant professor of geography at Indiana University Bloomington.

Review :
"Michael Dwyer's engaging analysis of upland geopolitics shows that Laos has been the mother of many outlandish ideas, but these ideas have had real, material, environmental and political consequences." (Journal of Peasant Studies) "This book and its focus not only raise critical questions about the stories of Laos but about how scholars can contribute to a lineage of attempts at understanding Southeast Asia in the world. This book and the questions it raises will be of interest to scholars and students focusing on natural resource governance, land grabbing, transnational investment, political ecology, and geopolitics, within and beyond Southeast Asia." (Eurasian Geography and Economics) "With an innovative methodology which accepts complexity rather than obliterating it, Upland Geopolitics epitomizes the difficulties and the struggles that state administrators face in their strive to project state power on a territory over which they proclaim sovereignty." (Asia Major) "To the land grab literature, Michael Dwyer brings the fruits of theoretical innovation and long-term research on an embattled resource frontier. . . Upland Geopolitics seems not only to capture the rural situation in Laos but also to convey its significance for contexts across the global south. Indeed, Dwyer's excellent book deserves a broad audience beyond those interested in the land rush, including also scholars working on highland Southeast Asia, hot zones in the Cold War, rural development, and agrarian studies." (Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography) "Mike Dwyer's Upland Geopolitics is indispensable for understanding the global land rush, or what is more popularly known as global land grabbing, despite the vast body of literature that has been produced on this topic over the past decade. . . Undoubtedly, this book is essential reading for the scholars, students, officials, practitioners, and activists, among others, navigating the complex political ecologies of upland landscapes in Laos and beyond." (Pacific Affairs) "An exemplary and insightful investigation of the political dynamics shaping the patterns of land enclosure in northwestern Laos . . . This geopolitically minded approach is essential for the next generation of scholars and activists seeking to understand and influence the trajectory of Southeast Asian uplands." (Journal of Asian Studies)