Webinar | Field Stories: Research Ethics, Connection, and Power (Im)balance in Laos

Research fieldtrips are the basis of social science disciplines like anthropology or ethnomusicology. The days, weeks, or months spent embedded in a community or context, whether it is a village in Northern Laos or a suburb of London, bring with them insights into cultural practices and social systems, but also questions and misunderstandings. In this talk, Dr Marie-Pierre Lissoir explores questions of ethics, connection, agency, and power (im)balance through personal stories and case studies from her ten years of research trips in Laos.

Dr Marie-Pierre Lissoir is an ethnomusicologist and museum professional from Belgium. Her first fieldtrip in Laos was in 2008, when she started her research on the traditional singing of the Tai Dam ethnic group for her master’s degree in musicology. After a second master’s in anthropology, she completed her PhD in 2016 with her thesis entitled, “The Khap Tai Dam, Categorisation and Musical Models. Ethnomusicological Studies among the Tai in the Highlands of Laos”.

From 2015 to 2021, Marie-Pierre was a researcher and curator at the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre in Luang Prabang. During her time at TAEC, Marie-Pierre made numerous fieldtrips in Laos, from the green mountains of the north to the broad plains of the South, studying, questioning, and recording tangible and intangible traditions of minority communities.

Currently, Marie-Pierre works in the exhibition section of the National Museum of Qatar as an interpretive specialist. While her feet are in the sand of the Gulf desert, her heart remains in Laos as she continues her research on the cultures and traditions of the country’s minority groups.