For ethnic Lao living along the Mekong River and its tributaries, hydropower dams have negatively impacted their lives and livelihoods. Many impacts, however, remain invisible in social and environmental impact assessments but have profound repercussions for the well-being of these communities. This talk  by Akarath Soukhaphon, Geography PhD Candidate at University of Wisconsin-Madison, makes visible some of these impacts among ethnic Lao communities in and around the Pak Mun Dam in northeastern Thailand, the Don Sahong and Xe Pian Xe Namnoy Dams in southern Laos, and the Lower Sesan 2 Dam in northeastern Cambodia.

Ashley Thompson, the Hiram W. Woodward Chair of Southeast Asian Art at SOAS University of London, uses Buddha’s life story—his return from heaven and the socio-political order organized around the dissemination of his image afterwards—to contemplate how ideas of absence, return, and transformation shape identity and cultural restitution in Southeast Asia today.

This event was hosted by the Southeast Asia Program at Cornell University, a NYSEAN Partner.