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This article critically interrogates current policy-sector approaches to culturally sensitive development and the manner in which culture has been conceptualised within the post-2015 development agenda-setting process. By providing a brief interpretive summary of academic debates surrounding culture and development, an analysis of how ‘culturally sensitive’ practices have been pursued within the policy sector, and an examination of the insufficient consideration given to culturally sensitive development within post-2015 agenda setting, I argue that much uncertainty remains around how to translate complex academic understandings of culture and development into policy responses. Following this, I provide one case study drawn from the small, low-income country of Laos to suggest possibilities as to how culturally sensitive development may be better conceptualised and implemented within a post-2015 global development era. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the influence of a growing global tourism industry on the World Heritage City of Luang Prabang, Laos and more specifically the role played by the built environment in the transformations that have followed in the wake of its designation as a World Heritage City in 1995. Paradoxically, as increasing numbers of tourists seek to experience the extraordinary milieu of Luang Prabang, the physical and cultural landscapes that undergird this milieu are increasingly transformed by the pressures of global tourism. Using observations of tourists and residents, photographic documentation and comparison to United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) archival materials, we show that regulations intended to preserve the heritage of Luang Prabang, have valorized a particular aspect of the city's history while effectively erasing others. As a result, the built environment of the city has been transformed into a tourist landscape. Simultaneously, the intangible heritage, the everyday life and experience of local populations are undermined as the built environment is transformed into tourist-focused landscapes. This case study illustrates, and continued UNESCO concerns over development in Luang Prabang indicate, it is not enough to create a policy designed to protect the physical environment without simultaneously working to protect the embedded socio-cultural dimensions of heritage tourism destinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With globalization and the introduction of a market economy, profound changes are taking place in Lao society. The transformation is not confined to quantitative econo-mic data, which have hitherto been the prime object of research on the Lao economy; it also affects social structure and cultures. The article argues that the transformation is understood best if analysed in social and cultural terms on the basis of Pierre Bourdieu's concept of social fields. Against this backdrop it becomes clear that the Lao economic field has its own social structure, which is not identical with the structure of other fields. Even though formally a market economy, the economic field is dominated neither by capitalist culture nor by entrepreneurs. Various groups with different cultures struggle for various positions on and definitions of the field. The article examines the groups and their cultures as well as the impact of globalization on them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]