This research will examine the effects that changing socioeconomic relationships and differing resources have on the health of individuals and their families in Lao society. Health, more than just a biological phenomenon, is dependent on the interaction of people and on available resources. The research will focus on women in three distinct yet comparable types of Lao working-weaving groups: those in familial networks, those in cooperative associations and those in wage-labor arrangements. These provide a perfect microcosm in which to examine how health is social, constructed and reproduced. These women perform work that has long been identified as a female task but is now enacted in ways that extend their social networks and material resources. The germane changes in economic production and ideology constructs provide a lens into their definition of and processes of well-being. How differing relationships and changing economic production networks hinder or help these women?s health and that of members of their households will be mapped out. Survival strategies that marshal knowledge and commit resources to an overall fabric of health will be identified within the context of socioeconomic, ideological, and political forces. This research, a perfect case within constructs of globalization of health, is significant for our thinking of the social reproduction of health. This study is theoretically rooted in concepts of social reproduction that consider modes of production, biological reproduction, and the ability of society to maintain itself. Its health application focuses on the habitus or lived realm of social processes, what constitutes health and how resources are utilized within a society. An ethnographic approach will be utilized, as it is well suited to explore questions of meaning, relationships, and resources. This will include interviews of women, family members, co-workers, and pertinent others, participant observation and incorporation of demographic data into the study. Analysis of data for qualitative and where appropriate, quantitative content, with subsequent presentation of findings will be accomplished.
