Blake, David J HBarney, Keith2023-09-110790-0627http://hdl.handle.net/1885/299421Laos has rapidly expanded its hydraulic infrastructure, creating profound environmental, economic and social ruptures. We combine frameworks of environmental justice with political ecology to examine the multiple expressions of water injustice evident in three hydropower project case studies involving resettlement. We find that livelihood restoration measures have not ameliorated, but reproduced underlying problems of poverty, inequity, exclusion and coercive expressions of social injustice. These are viewed as the structural outcomes of political choices. We conclude that there is little potential for a water justice paradigm in Laos without significant reforms to the national frameworks for water governance and human rights.Research by the second author (K.B.) was supported by the Australian Research Council [grant number DP 180101495: Rupture: Nature–Society Transformations in Mainland Southeast Asia).application/pdfen-AU© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis GroupHydraulic infrastructure developmentwater injusticelivelihoodsdam-induced displacementLaos202110.1080/07900627.2021.19203732022-07-31