Construction Pioneers. Building Innovation in Upland Northern Laos (CoPi)

• Applicant: Dr. Rosalie Stolz
• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 515954247

In rural Southeast Asia, the built landscape is changing drastically. Concrete in particular is rapidly gaining importance as a building material. This project aims to investigate the turn to concrete in a region, the uplands of Northern Laos, where until recently houses were built exclusively from local, renewable building materials, wood and bamboo. There, houses are generally built by the local community rather than (external) professionals, and construction is interwoven with sociality and cosmology in many ways. Individual 'construction pioneers' have now started to build houses with concrete elements and are acquiring new building techniques for this. They play a significant role in shaping the form and design of houses and thus actively contribute to the transformation of the built landscape. Based on ethnographic field research in various Khmu villages in the uplands of Northern Laos, this project will investigate the emergence of the so-called construction pioneers and their innovative building practices in a social context. The research will focus on the questions of (1) who is or considers themselves to be a construction pioneer, (2) how the qualification of lay people in the use of a newly introduced construction material takes place, and (3) what role and status construction pioneers have in the local community and what other processes of social change are associated with their emergence. To answer these questions, different methodological approaches will be used during the ethnographic fieldwork, which, among other things, do justice to the practical dimension of the acquisition of skills by the construction pioneers. This project aims to make a new contribution to the ethnology of the house by looking at the transformation of vernacular architecture, focusing on the reflections, aspirations and imaginations of local construction pioneers. While the spread of concrete houses often appears as a passive development, this research aims to focus on the actors who contribute significantly to the construction and spread of concrete houses and deal with a new building material in innovative ways, shaping not only the construction process but also the form of the houses and thus the living environment of the inhabitants. Beyond Southeast Asia, this research focuses on inconspicuous agents of change and develops possible answers to the question of how something new comes into a (local) world.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Belgium, New Zealand
• Cooperation Partners: Professor Dr. Eli Elinoff, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Pierre Petit
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Sandra Kurfürst