Paper short abstract:

What can we learn from the wide-spread transformations of houses? By taking the house and its transformations in upland Laos as a starting point, it is argued that houses manifest aspirations in particular intimate ways and are vital sites of future- and world-making projects.

Paper long abstract:

Modern houses and their "conspicuous construction" (Thomas 1998) are among the most prevalent and tangible manifestations of aspirations in contemporary Asia. The prominence of the house as a site of future-making project is related to its being "one of the greatest powers of integration for the thoughts, memories and dreams of mankind" (Bachelard 1994 [1957]) The ways in which we experience and envision houses is related to how we experience and envision life more generally. Houses embody, as Janet Carsten (2018: 103) recently stated, "the interconnections between individual trajectory, kinship and the state" and "encapsulate traces of lives previously lived and reveal how these are forged in the shadows of wider structures". The new imaginaries of worthwhile architecture provide insights into transforming visions of the past and future.

The case of upland northern Laos will be of particular interest to this inquiry: Closely tied to the ubiquitous claims for progress and prosperity in developing Laos is the image of the villa. Made of concrete, with gabled roof and front veranda, this image triggers aspirations of development and is a prominent background image for retouched family portraits. While the current processes of socio-economic change in Laos have received increasing attention by social scientists, the role of local aspirations and their manifestation in ʻmodernʼ houses is hitherto unexplored. By focussing on the materiality of modern houses in relation to the transforming social processes and imaginaries, this talk will illuminate aspects of current socio-economic change in upland Laos and beyond.