Wanjing Chen

Credentials: Laos

Address:
2016 SKJ Fellow

Wanjing Chen is a second year PhD student in the geography department. She studied in Beijing and Oklahoma before coming to Madison. Previously she conducted research on the labor conditions of rosewood furniture industry in China. It was in tracing the international rosewood trade that she became interested in Chinese investment in Laos. Since early 2010, Laos has experienced a boom of Chinese investment as China proposed to construct a high-speed railway through the country. Speculative Chinese capital triggered by the proposal has cast cumulative impacts on Lao communities, causing economic and social marginalization. In summer 2016, Wanjing will work as an intern in a Vientiane-based NGO, Land Issue Working Group, which focuses on promoting the awareness of influence from land-related developmental projects. Together with staffs in the organization, she will investigate injustice produced by Chinese inflowing capital, especially in relation to the planned railroad.