Paper short abstract:

Drawing on local stances on the biography of houses among the Khmu of upland northwestern Laos, this paper attempts to complicate the notion of conservation.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on local stances on the biography of houses among the Khmu of upland northwestern Laos, this paper attempts to complicate the notion of conservation.

While in Laos Luang Prabang has been the centre of heritagization and conservation attempts, rural houses in the northern uplands of Laos have not been marked yet as particularly worthy of conservation, neither by external actors nor by local residents. Discussing the reasons for this lack of conservation efforts, it will be highlighted that rather than conservation, innovation stands at the forefront of national but also local discourses on houses – albeit in different terms.

In addition, houses, according to Khmu perspectives, are not pieces of architecture detached from their residents. Instead, with regard to the common bamboo and wooden houses, the biographies of houses and the occupying house groups are synchronous, and houses are not supposed to outlive their resident house groups. Accordingly, houses are frequently de- and re-composed or rebuilt. Now, that concrete enters the scene, houses that were never meant to be permanent, are becoming durable with yet unknown social effects. Bamboo houses are not vanishing, though; as a building type, they are unintentionally conserved in the form of makeshift houses that are upgraded or replaced when resources for building a ‘proper’ house are assembled.