Thipphaphone (Kee) Xayavong, a PhD student in the Global Sustainable Development (GSD) Department, will be delivering a webinar on traditional healing in southern Laos.

'Wellness and Wisdom: Yru Health Practices and Beliefs' will explore how education, culture, and livelihoods impact health beliefs and behaviours in Laos through a case study in southern Laos. Kee will share preliminary study insights from the ‘Learning Space’ research project, documenting in particular the coexistence of modern medication and the traditional wisdom of well-being in the Yru community of Champasak Province. This participatory research also allows us to reflect on using art-based approaches to challenge common assumptions in mainstream scholarship.

The Learning Space research project aims to co-produce narratives intersecting cultural identity, rural livelihood, education, and health practice and belief, in response to ethnic marginalisation in rural Lao PDR.

Kee is a Co-Principal Investigator of the Learning Space project and a EUTOPIA PhD student in the GSD Department at Warwick and in the Department of Geography at the CY Cergy Paris Université.