Close encounters: development, aspiration and intimate politics between the Hmong of Laos and China

• Applicant: Dr. Phill Wilcox, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 578367285

What is a good romantic relationship, and what, if anything, does money have to do with this? Are these questions somehow different in a transnational context that involves very different places and people? What does developing one's own life through exercising one's own agency around intimate matters tell us about development more broadly, and how do macro-level questions of development reflect in everyday private actions and, arguably, vice versa? These are the central questions of this project, which connects development and aspiration with the politics of intimacy. It will be researched in Laos, one of the poorest countries in the world. Key interlocutors for the project will come from the Hmong ethnic minority, one of the poorest ethnic minorities of Laos. Long typified as being in need of help to develop from the political centre of Laos, a country that is, itself, poor. Hmong women and girls are depicted frequently in official discourse as victims of human trafficking from Laos to China. At the same time, in everyday sentiment in Laos, frequent stories of Hmong women dating wealthy Chinese men for material gain abound. Therefore, it is vital to investigate what the nature of encounters between Hmong and Chinese actually is, asking how far people have agency and how they exercise it. What are they hoping to achieve in such alliances, and what does this look like not only to women who participate in intimate engagements with Chinese men, but to others around them, specifically, young Hmong men? Undoubtedly, China is a force of change in Laos, especially as its influence and visibility in Laos are now very apparent. This project starts from the basis that China occupies an ambivalent position in the Lao imagination. On one hand, China represents a model and trajectory of development that Laos could do well to follow. Chinese people are often regarded as materially wealthy and can help the Lao economy to grow. On the other hand, China is a predatory entity that seeks to purchase Lao land and, by extension, the local population. This project investigates how people make sense of this contradictory landscape through personal, intimate encounters. Through thinking with this intimate politics, the project investigates how people develop their own lives and, in so doing, connects macro-level questions of development with the very micro, demonstrating how development is a process that works within individuals. By thinking from the ground up, and project also gathers insights on how development is internalised, and what this means for youth developing their own futures in the age of global China.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants