ABSTRACT This article scrutinises how a Chinese Project under the Belt and Road Initiative has produced diverse post‐resettlement (im)mobility trajectories in northern Laos. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Banmai—the largest relocation community of the Nam Nua 1 hydropower project—it analyses how various mobility and staying infrastructures influence the aspirations and capabilities of migrant labourers and students , involuntary stayers , voluntary stayers , acquiescent immobile actors , reluctant stayers , potential leavers and hopeful stayers . By extending the application of migration infrastructure theory to the context of development‐induced internal displacement, the article also develops a typological framework of post‐resettlement (im)mobile actors that reduces mobility bias and engages with the relational politics of mobility. The article illuminates three mechanisms through which (im)mobility infrastructures disproportionately affect the resettled villagers. First, they unevenly reduce barriers to moving and staying. Second, the resettled villagers' differential command over social, commercial and socioeconomic infrastructures, including market and state connections, can influence their capabilities to realise their mobility and staying aspirations. Third, the institutional systems of (im)mobility infrastructures unequally distribute risk and support. As it examines the infrastructural configuration of (im)mobility, the article also identifies targeted measures to support the infrastructural needs of different post‐resettlement movers and stayers.
Floramante S. J. Ponce (Wed,) studied this question.