Silent transitions: commercialization and changing customary land tenure systems in upland Laos
What happens to local institutional arrangements regarding access and use of communal land under the forces of
agricultural commercialization? Taking Khwaykham village in Phongsaly province, Laos as a case study, this
paper sheds light on this question as farm households in the settlement have progressively transitioned to
commercial farming, specifically tea cultivation. Traditionally, farm households’ access and rights to use the land
were embedded in their swidden agriculture practices. The adoption of tea has increasingly fixed land use rights,