Overview

As Laos navigates development and globalization, Being Present examines the shifting role of ethnography in capturing the country’s changing realities. Ethnography has long called on researchers to immerse themselves in the worlds they study—but what does it mean to “be present” in the field today? Being Present investigates this question through innovative research on Laos, a country rapidly changing at the crossroads of Southeast Asia and China. This volume brings together a new generation of scholars to explore Chinese-built railways, shifting farmlands, urban mourning rituals, and changing aspirations in Laos. Covering infrastructure, health, trade, and spirituality, these studies challenge assumptions about ethnography. They show how immersion and reflexivity remain essential in a connected world. Being Present offers a fresh look at contemporary Laos and a timely reflection on ethnographic practice.

Full Product Details

Author:   Rosalie Stolz ,  Paul-David Lutz
Publisher:   NUS Press
Imprint:   NUS Press
Weight:   0.454kg
ISBN:  

9789813253032

ISBN 10:   9813253037
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   31 December 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD by Liana Chua INTRODUCTION by Paul-David Lutz and Rosalie Stolz PART 1: ETHICS, IMMERSION AND AFFECT CHAPTER 1 Fieldwork, literally – 'indolence', immersion and perceptions of poverty in upland Laos by Paul-David Lutz CHAPTER 2 Ethical evaluation—and its absence—at a wake in Luang Prabang by Charles P. Zuckerman CHAPTER 3 Embarrassment and social belonging: Pathways of participant feeling in northern Laos by Rosalie Stolz PART 2 EXPERIENCING INFRASTRUCTURE CHAPTER 4 The politics of dammed rivers and their futures: insights from the Nam Ou basin in northern Laos by Sumiya Bilegsaikhan Taij CHAPTER 5 Refrigeration after relocation: What refrigerators can (not) do to improve lives in a resettled community in northwestern Laos by Floramante S. J. Ponce CHAPTER 6 Cycling as method, train as transect: Exploring infrastructural friction and flow through mobile ethnography on the Laos-China Corridor by Jessica DiCarlo CHAPTER 7 Closer together, but still apart: reflections on the Laos-China Railway and the (re)making of neighbour relations by Phill Wilcox PART 3: SPIRITS, EFFICACY AND THE STATE CHAPTER 8 Potency and phitsanu medicinal efficacy in the southern lowlands by Elizabeth M. Elliott CHAPTER 9 'Do just enough for riid': the contemporary understanding of health and the reduction of rituals in Yrou communities by Thipphaphone Xayavong CHAPTER 10 When new shamans enter the stage: traditional customs and ecstatic healing among the Akha by Giulio Ongaro AFTERWORD by Sophie Chao

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Author Information

Rosalie Stolz is a postdoctoral researcher at the Global South Studies Center, University of Cologne, Germany. She conducts research among Khmu-speaking uplanders of northwestern Laos with a focus on the prevalent transformations of houses. She is also the author of Living Kinship, Fearing Spirits. Paul-David Lutz is an anthropologist and (former) rural development advisor with a longstanding focus on Laos. Currently, he is a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie des Mondes Contemporains, Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. His ongoing research focuses on animism in the context of agrarian transition among ethnic Khmu.

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