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This thesis examines the enclosure of a common pool resource and the ways in which the changed property rights regime have been legitimised by reference to the common property arrangements inherent therein. It also reflects on the development direction of Laos, regarding natural resources management in particular. The thesis looks at legitimising discourses of common property and situates these discourses in the wider discursive context of post-socialist development, territorialisation and community benefits. This case of enclosure can be seen as a microcosm of wider, non-confrontational change in property relations that does not result in the direct contestation that might be expected and which hence tends to be overlooked by many researchers:

The thesis is based around a case study of a community backswamp in Southern Lao PDR where one community excludes the other sixteen neighbouring …