ABSTRACT
In December 2012, the internationally esteemed community development worker Sombath Somphone was abducted at a police checkpoint in Vientiane, Laos. Sombath’s disappearance raises important questions about authoritarian states and where the boundaries lie between community development work and activism. This chapter explores how political–economic shifts or particular events can see individuals and organisations who are working with authoritarian governments quickly “recategorised” as oppositional activists, as well as considering the precarious spaces that community development organisations (and workers) inhabit in Laos. In theorising the overlaps between activism and development, attention is given to development programming that is grounding in a “thinking and working politically” approach. Using Sombath’s work as a case study, the chapter argues that as development work becomes more political and more politically savvy, the boundaries between what constitutes “development” and what constitutes “activism” also become more blurred. Accordingly, it argues for greater dialogue between scholars of development and activism.
