Becoming phu nam and other stories: Researching leadership practices in Laos and the ethics of cross-cultural engagement

Case, Peter

Abstract

This keynote lecture offers a co-constructed auto-ethnographic account of the researcher’s journey toward ‘passing’ as a leader (phu nam) within a state-run service in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. The researcher was a foreigner in Laos employed to lead a series of international development initiatives designed to improve agricultural productivity and assist the Government of Lao meet Millennium Development Goals with respect to food security and poverty reduction. Particular attention is paid to processes of learning about the politics, sociomateriality and the embodied enactment of leadership in particular places and spaces. Three phases of ‘becoming phu nam’ are identified and illustrated with reference to auto-ethnographic data. The keynote seeks to communicate three core messages: firstly, to offer anthropological insight into leadership practices in a non-Western and non-Anglophone context; secondly, to explore the ethics of engagement in development settings; and, thirdly, to illustrate how spaces for participatory research can be created even under politically austere conditions.

• Presentation Conference Type: Keynote
• Conference Name: Lincoln University Business School Research Day
• Start Date: Jun 16, 2022
• End Date: Jun 16, 2022
• Deposit Date: Aug 23, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 23, 2022
• Keywords: Leadership, leadership learning, leadership as practice, sociomateriality, Laos, Lao DPR, rural development
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9903133
• Related Public URLs: https://www.lincoln.ac.uk/