Material subjects: Wetland enclosure and the making of a speculative peasantry in peri-urban Vientiane

Peri-urbanization in Asia, which is driven by state-led mega-projects, has incorporated peasants on the fringes of cities into the urban fabric through land dispossession and displacement. This paper enriches ongoing debates on peasant experiences in urbanization, with a focus on the role of non-human nature. We apply an urban political ecology analysis that dialectically integrates analyses of political–economic forces and materiality, showing how they mediate peasant dispossession and post-agrarian subjectivities. Drawing on research conducted on the eastern fringe of Vientiane, Laos, where a stretch of agrarian wetland lay, we demonstrate how partial real estate enclosures transformed the ecology of the entire area. Altered flows of water engineered by state officials and project developers constrained agricultural production and peasant livelihoods. The drainage and filling of land combined with a burgeoning property market left landowners with little option but to treat their land as real estate. By engaging in land deals and micro-level property development, these former peasants actively integrated themselves into the emerging urban economy, albeit with uneven success. Our research highlights how the intersection of material nature with the forces and influences of state and capital mediates wetland enclosure, peri-urbanization, and the production of post-agrarian subjectivities.