Fullbright Scholar: On the Dirt Road Again

RECENT GRADUATE WINS FULBRIGHT SCHOLARSHIP TO CONTINUE HIS RESEARCH IN SOUTHEAST ASIAN VILLAGES

2009 Arts & Sciences graduate Miles Kenney-Lazar has won a Fulbright scholarship that will enable him to continue studying the socioeconomic impacts of the changing agricultural-production system in Laos. He began his research there last year, as a recipient of a Beyond the Book Award.

The Fulbright grant will fund Kenney-Lazar, who majored in geography and regional studies at UM, for an additional 10 months of study in Laotian villages—places that have made an indelible impression, he said. “I will always remember driving around on a rented motorbike from village to village with my research assistant and two thoughts going through my head: one, I can’t believe I am doing this right now; and two, this is exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life.”

A year ago, when Kenney-Lazar first navigated the dirt roads to the villages, he interviewed natives in their thatched huts. Though he did not know the language, he quickly made friends, was invited into villagers’ homes, and learned about their way of life. He observed that they were now making their living largely through the production of rubber plants to yield latex —as opposed to the traditional cultivation of rice, which not only was produced as an agricultural product for export, but fed village families.

Lazar has been following the transition in three farming villages, which have been highly influenced by Chinese rubber companies. He began discovering how the cultivation of rubber plants, near the Chinese border, was affecting Laotian communities, noting that land once used to raise food is now being used to produce rubber.

At UM, Kenney-Lazar was an avid participant in study abroad to enrich his education. In 2007, he was part of the Atlantic Coast Conference’s International Academic Collaboration program in Vietnam. He also spent the 2008 spring semester, under an exchange program, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It wastherethata professorconductingresearchinLaosinspired Kenney-Lazar to follow in his footsteps. “Those two programs gave me the confidence to purse further opportunities to conduct research in Laos, as well as the contacts to do so,” Kenney- Lazar said. He added that the programs give him confidence both academically and professionally as well.

Kenney-Lazar plans to pursue a master’s degree in geography or international studies when he returns from Laos. He wants to explore the effects of globalization in particular.

Last May, the Department of Geography and Regional Studies named him the outstanding undergraduate student of the year. “Miles seems like someone who is 35, not a 21-year-old student,” said Douglas Fuller, chair of the department. “He is very independent, extremely thoughtful, and had an awful lot of courage to launch himself into an unknown country at his age. He is certainly Ph.D. material.”