HKU Landscape undergrads capped their senior year with the Final Review for our Thai-Myanmar Border Studio. This year, students focused on a set of controversial and long-delayed development projects along the Thailand-Myanmar border, including dams on the Salween and Yuam rivers, a coal mine concession in Chiang Mai province, industrial zones in Mae Sot, and the planned large-scale water diversion tunnel from the Salween to Chao Phraya basins. Taught by professor Ashley Scott Kelly and teaching assistant Sandra Saw Yu Nwe, this studio teaches students not merely how planners or architects or landscape architects might be involved in large-scale planning projects but also how cultural anthropologists or political scientists might approach, evaluate, and address development throughout Southeast Asia.
Students learn how development happens from both desktop research and field visits, covering topics including: environmental histories of northern Thailand and southern Myanmar; participatory and customary mapping; transnational environmental and human rights advocacy; land governance and tenure; and migration, labor and border industries. For 10 days in mid-March students traveled overland roughly 600 kilometers in Thailand from Chiang Mai to Mae Sot in Thailand, meeting with several environmental and human rights advocacy groups, including International Rivers, The Border Consortium (TBC), Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN), EarthRights International (ERI), and indigenous community groups.
After returning to Hong Kong, students individually spent 8 weeks to propose landscape planning strategies that together: react to strategic and long-running resistance through community mapping, villager research or citizen science; address power and knowledge in reforestation programs; enable or nurture multiple migration pathways in the agricultural sector; and confront investment and contested value systems in dual-governed regions.
At their final review, students defended their proposals to a large panel of experts, including: Prof. Emily Yeh (Dept. of Geography, University of Colorado; past president, American Association of Geographers); David Gallacher (Executive Director, Environment, AECOM); Prof. Jeff Hou (Dept. of Landscape Architecture, University of Washington); Winnie Law (HKU Centre for Civil Society and Governance); Alice Hughes (HKU School of Biological Sciences); Jiraporn Laocharoenwong (Dept. of Anthropology and Sociology, Chulalongkorn University); Jayde Roberts (School of Built Environment, Univ. of New South Wales); Sidh Sintusingha (Melbourne School of Design); Zali Fung (Social Equity Institute, Univ. of Melbourne); Merve Bedir (Center for Spatial Justice, Istanbul; Critical Media Lab, Basel); Peter Cobb (HKU Humanities and Digital Technologies, Faculty of Arts); and several planners and designers from HKU Planning, Architecture, and Landscape Architecture.
The students, Ashley, and Sandra express their gratitude to our jury members and HKU's continued support for engaging in essential discussions about landscape development across sectors and geographies in the region. Congratulations to the students!
Posted by: Ashley Scott Kelly (Design for Conservation)
