Integration and Marginalization in the Northern Uplands of ... - CiteSeerX

Original Article Variations of Late Socialist Development: Integration and Marginalization in the Northern Uplands of Vietnam and Laos Rupert Friederichsena,* and Andreas Neefb a

Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester Kyushu University, Fukuoka

b

*E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract This article analyzes the dynamics of integration and marginalization inherent in the development process experienced by the rural upland areas of Vietnam and Lao PDR. Focusing on the post-1980s reform period, we compare the two uplands areas along the three themes ethnic difference and hierarchy, development policies and market permeation. In both countries, the low and differential status of ethnic minorities is reflected in policy formulation and implementation, contradicting the official rhetoric and goal of unity and equality among ethnic groups. Market influences are increasingly permeating the uplands of both countries although to varying degrees, connecting them with not only national, but also global commodity markets, and leading to increasing differentiation within and between ethnic groups. These development trajectories integrate and marginalize ethnic minority groups and individuals simultaneously but differentially. Cet article analyse les dynamiques d’inte´gration et de marginalisation lieés au processus de de´veloppement qui a lieu dans les re´gions rurales montagneuses du Vietnam et du Laos. En nous concentrant sur la pe´riode de re´formes poste´rieure aux anneés 80, nous effectuons une comparaison de deux re´gions montagneuses, autour de trois the`mes: diffe´rences ethniques et hie´rarchie, politiques de de´veloppement, et peńe´tration de marche´. Dans les deux pays, la situation– geńe´ralement de´favorable– des minorite´s ethniques se refle`te dans la formulation et la mise en œuvre des politiques, ce qui contredit le discours et l’objectif officiel de promotion de l’unite´ et de l’e´galite´ entre les diffe´rents groupes ethniques. De plus, l’influence du marche´ se fait de plus en plus sentir dans les re´gions montagneuses des deux pays – bien qu’a` des degre´s diffe´rents – ce qui les met en contact avec des marche´s non seulement nationaux mais aussi internationaux, et accroıˆ t de ce fait la diffe´renciation tant au sein qu’entre les diffe´rents groupes ethniques. Ces trajectoires de de´veloppement inte`grent et marginalisent les minorite´s ethniques et les individus de manie`re simultaneé mais diffe´rencieé. European Journal of Development Research (2010) 22, 564–581. doi:10.1057/ejdr.2010.23 Published online 20 May 2010 Keywords: integration; marginalization; uplands; Vietnam; Lao PDR; rural development

Introduction Among the countries of Mainland Southeast Asia, Vietnam and Lao PDR are ethnically the most diverse, with both countries officially acknowledging around 50 ethnic minority groups, most of them concentrated in the upland regions. Scholarly interest in Southeast Asian uplands spaces and their inhabitants has increased recently, owing to two sets of reasons. First, Southeast Asia’s uplands regions face specific development challenges. Vietnam’s achievement of combining economic growth with poverty reduction has been hailed as a success story by development organizations (Vietnam Consultative Group, 2003, p. xi), but the fruits of economic development have been unequally distributed, with r 2010 European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes 0957-8811 European Journal of Development Research Vol. 22, 4, 564–581 www.palgrave-journals.com/ejdr/

Variations of Late Socialist Development differences between uplands and lowlands and between ethnic majority and minorities remaining among the most pronounced dimensions of poverty (Minot and Baulch, 2005). Lao PDR’s achievements in economic development are more modest in scale, but have drawn criticism for the high costs paid by ethnic minority communities (Evrard and Goudineau, 2004; Baird and Shoemaker, 2007). Second, recent theoretical work has pressed for correcting the long-dominant ‘imperial gaze’ of the social sciences, an elitist perspective, typically paying scant attention to socially marginal groups, by placing more emphasis on the voices, perspectives, and circumstances of subordinate and marginalized individuals and groups (Rigg, 1997; Yukio and Wichienkeeo, 2002). This elevates the study of marginal uplands spaces and peoples from a topic area of professional interest only to few disciplines such as anthropology and development studies to a more broadly relevant field of inquiry based on which existing narratives of, for example, decolonization, state formation and decollectivization, can be challenged and enriched in various ways. Based on work on the history of the Southeast Asian mountain massif, James Scott (2009), for instance, suggests a new genre of area studies. Spanning several states, this region holds general lessons concerning the state’s limits to assert authority across its territory, people’s capacity to evade state control and taxation, and concerning ethnically and culturally highly heterogeneous spaces as co-evolving together with expanding empires. In line with Scott’s historical analysis, this article is sceptical of claims that the modern state has effective and extensive control over Southeast Asian uplands, and instead assumes a complex, changing and contested interplay between the state, people’s identities and market forces. The basic problem that we address in this article is the ‘quality of development’ experienced by traditionally marginal groups living in the Laotian and Vietnamese northern uplands. Our starting point is to acknowledge that recent socio-economic change has been occurring at a very fast pace and affecting local cultures and livelihoods deeply. We then argue that this process of change is best understood as an increase in the integration of the two uplands regions with their national (and the global) economic, social and cultural contexts. Crucially, integration here must be understood as an ambivalent process that may well contain forces of marginalization and have high social and ecological costs, in short ‘maldevelopment’ (Bell, 1996) as an outcome. As Rigg (1997, pp. 23–29) argues, the ambivalence of Southeast Asia’s recent development trajectory is most visible in the growth of economic dependency, rising inequality (between people, between urban and rural areas, and between regions), the undermining of local cultures and traditions, and environmental costs of development. This means that modernization, particularly as a consequence of state intervention and market forces, has not only left out some groups but has also created new forms of poverty (cf. Rigg, 2005). The quality of development in the uplands will be judged against these criteria, and by what we understand as assessments made by the people living in the areas. The next section sets out the authors’ vantage point and key concepts informing the argument. The remainder of this article will comparatively discuss the integration of rural uplands regions and people(s) organized under the three headlines of ethnic difference and hierarchy, development policy and intervention, and the expansion of markets. Our argument is that drawing these three dimensions of integration/ marginalization together allows for a nuanced analysis of development occurring in the uplands within the context of the modern states of Lao PDR and Vietnam that represents processes in their complexity and ambivalence while allowing cross-country comparison. r 2010 European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes 0957-8811 European Journal of Development Research Vol. 22, 4, 564–581

565

Friederichsen and Neef

Studying Processes of Integration and Marginalization This article draws on empirical data collected during the authors’ work in a long-term interdisciplinary research programme into sustainable land use and rural development in mountainous regions of Southeast Asia (The Uplands Program)1 and on relevant English language academic literature. The map in Figure 1 shows the fieldwork locations: Son La province, where the first author worked between 2002 and 2005, and the three provinces Bokeo, Sayabouri and Luang Namtha of Lao PDR, where the second author’s empirical research took place in March 2007 and March 2008. Both authors conducted supplementary studies in Vietnam’s Bac Kan province between 1999 and 2002. Our qualitative fieldwork used participant observation, semi-structured interviews and research conversations and various forms of visualized communication techniques (for example mapping, diagramming) with respondents of ten ethnic groups (see Table 1). Fieldwork focused on villagers’ livelihoods and the village level but also involved interviews with local government officials, and other knowledgeable village-external actors, such as traders and development experts. The qualitative nature of our empirical approach does not allow for simple generalizations across the extensive and highly diverse northern mountain regions of the two countries. What we aim for is transferability and contextualization. We hope to achieve transferability by painting a picture rich enough in detail to give readers a sense of local as well as external views on dynamics and salient issues, and by organizing the disposition through the below concepts which, the literature suggests, do cover key issues to understand the uplands regions of Southeast Asia. By contextualizing our specific observations, we establish in which ways and to which degree conditions differ across the uplands. The contextualized trajectories of rapid social,

Figure 1: Map of study areas. 566

r 2010 European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes 0957-8811 European Journal of Development Research Vol. 22, 4, 564–581

Variations of Late Socialist Development Table 1: Overview of fieldwork sites and ethnic groups Country

Province

District

Ethnic group

Vietnam

Son La Bac Kan

Yen Chau, Mai Son Ba Be, Cho Don

Black Thai, Hmong, Kh’mu, Kinh Tay, Dao, Hmong

Laos

Bokeo

Pha Oudom, Meung

Luang Namtha

Sing, Nalae

Sayabouri

Sienghone, Khop

Kh’mu, Hmong, Black Thai, Black Lahu, Tai Lameth, Yuan, Lao Akha, Hmong, Kh’mu, Tai Lue, Tai Lameth Kh’mu, Hmong, Tai Lue, Lawmai

political and economic change provide an outlook to the possibilities open to other, maybe still less dynamic, provinces. To understand development in the northern uplands of Laos and Vietnam, it is helpful to conceptualize it as involving the concurrent processes of integration and marginalization, because this allows for seeing integration as fundamentally ambiguous. Integration is ambiguous because it includes the possibility that impoverishment, deepening dependency and cultural marginalization may follow integration. At the same time, integration may as well open up new economic, cultural and social opportunities for individuals with ethnic majority or minority backgrounds. This focus is sensitive to ‘grey zones’ between the poles of the uplands/lowlands and ethnic majority/minority binaries, and brings to the fore links and sometimes blurred boundaries between the two sides. Our analysis describes the specifics of social processes as a necessary basis for a cautious normative assessment of development trends, rather than a comprehensive coverage of the vast diversity of individuals’ and groups’ experiences of change in the two countries’ northern uplands. It is based on three key themes emerging from the literature on Southeast Asia’s uplands and ethnic minority problematic. First is the literature on ethnicity and interethnic relations in Southeast Asia, mostly written by anthropologists. The overwhelming concern here is with the power exercised through the social construct of ethnic identity; that is power resting on the majority ethnic group’s imposition of their own cultural frames of reference by means of which minority populations can be declared deviant from that norm, backward, and in need of ‘being improved/developed’ (for example, Chiengthong, 2003). Second is the body of literature concerned with the politics of development and policies directed at ethnic minorities. Here the main focus is on how majority ethnic groups mobilize notions of cultural superiority to legitimize policies directed at ‘developing’ ethnic minorities, and the often adverse effects that such state action has on ethnic minority groups (for example, Duncan, 2004). However, assessing policy impact must not loose sight of the gap between the states’ rhetoric of control and the apparatus’ limits of implementing policy as well as local people’s ability to evade the state (cf. Scott, 2009). The third strand of relevant literature is concerned with economic and ecological questions arising from agrarian and demographic change occurring in the region’s uplands regions. Here it has been pointed out that it is particularly ethnic minority farmers who lose out in processes of economic differentiation and become increasingly vulnerable to impoverishment and environmental degradation (Rambo and Jamieson, 2003; Bouapao, 2005; Rigg, 2005). r 2010 European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes 0957-8811 European Journal of Development Research Vol. 22, 4, 564–581

567

Friederichsen and Neef

Ethnic Difference and Hierarchy The pre-colonial Laotian and Vietnamese uplands remained largely outside the purview of early Vietnamese and Lao states (Proschan, 2003; Ovesen, 2004), and were only effectively controlled by lowland-based centres of power, and de facto integrated into modern states from the late nineteenth century onward (Pelley, 1998; Ovesen, 2004, Scott, 2009). During the two countries’ anti-colonial struggle, different ethnic groups have played important, and sometimes contrasting, roles (see MacAlister (1967) for Vietnam; regarding Laos, see below). In the post-colonial era, the northern Vietnamese and Laotian upland areas have turned into national borderlands with a population comprising both the traditional diversity of ethnic groups plus lowland in-migrants. The unprecedented levels of post-war internal migration have not only dramatically altered the ethnic make-up of both countries’ uplands but also reflect strategic territorial priorities of the post-colonial governments. In both cases, internal migration was intended to bolster control over the whole of the national territory, to consolidate national borders, to establish collectivized production, and to address perceived imbalances in population density. Vietnam’s ‘underpopulated’ uplands were seen as the natural answer to the long-standing overpopulation of the delta and coastal plains, whereas the intention for the regions of northern Laos where population had been decimated during the armed conflicts was to repopulate them (Evrard and Goudineau, 2004). In Vietnam, Kinh migrants from the lowlands were settled along central roads in so-called New Economic Zones with collectivized production (Hardy, 2003, p. 110), contributing to the increase in the northern upland population of around 300 per cent between 1960 and 1984 (Jamieson et al, 1998, p. 10). Resettlement in northern Laos was a measure of the communist regime to reward some minority groups such as the Mon-Khmer for their loyalty in the fight against the Royalists. These post-colonial and post-war population movements meant that in both countries the association of uplands ¼ ethnic minorities versus lowlands ¼ ethnic majority became increasingly weak, and everyday encounters with ethnically ‘others’ and cross-cultural familiarity became a matter of course for most uplands inhabitants. The force of pressure for change on minority customs, cultures and patterns of social organization exerted by the expansion of the socialist states and their projects of socialist development is difficult to gauge. It is unclear to which degree economic socialist institutions such as the cooperative production system and state enterprises actually took hold in the two uplands economies. Illustrative of this is Vietnam’s Son La province where Sikor (1999) describes how Black Thai communities faced national policy intending to replace traditional peasant agriculture, but also as making some concessions to local customs and culture. In Laos, the attempt of the Pathet Lao to collectivize agricultural production into ‘peasant communes’ lasted only from 1978 to 1988 and appears to have affected only the more accessible lowlands parts of the country at the time. Devising official and allegedly scientific ethnic classifications and the ensuing creation of an ethnic hierarchy have been recognized as key ways to harness human diversity for political purposes (Keyes, 2002). Problematically, this transforms ethnicity into a matter of ‘scientific’ and administrative classification rather than self-ascribed identity. Vietnamese post-colonial ethnographers started working in the uplands while the country was still at war, and established a list of 54 ethnic groups, 53 of which were termed ‘ethnic minorities’ (dan toc thieu so). This list remains the basis of official classification of ethnic groups today (Pelley, 1998). The official characterization of minority ethnic groups chiefly 568


Variations of Late Socialist Development as backwards and deficient has provided the justification of development efforts as ‘help’ to overcome so-called backward and harmful ways of thinking and living (cf. Dang Nghiem Van et al, 1993, pp. 11–15). The various ethnic groups in Lao PDR have conventionally been categorized into three groups: Lao Loum or lowland Lao, Lao Theung or midland Lao and Lao Sung or highland Lao as an expression of the attempt of the Pathet Lao to accord all ethnic groups a certain degree of ‘Lao-ness’ (Evans, 2003, p. 214). While it was later replaced by other classifications, for example, based on ethno-linguistic similarities2 – the tripartite categorization along a topographic gradient is still commonly used by local people. The Lao government’s political rhetoric – enshrined in Article 8 of the 1992 constitution – recognizes and tolerates ethnic diversity under the ‘Lao first’ umbrella (Milloy and Payne, 1997, p. 437). The rhetoric of minorities’ right to preserve and improve their own traditions and culture is, however, in sharp contrast with Lao policies which have strongly promoted the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the Lao dominant culture. The political use of ethnic classifications thus reveals contradictions between the ideals of unity-in-diversity, a multi-ethnic nation and fraternal solidarity on the one hand, and the typically unquestioned notion of ethnic hierarchies. In this tension, the ideal of equality often loses out against ‘internal orientalism’ (Schein (2000) cited in Duncan (2004, p. 11)), the mindset asserting the superiority of the lowlands majority people and thus justifying development intervention to ‘raise the civilizational level’ of ethnic minorities – against their will if necessary (cf. Michaud, 2000). The field of agri-‘culture’ is paradigmatic in illustrating how majority cultural notions are mobilized to undermine ethnic minority practices. Across Southeast Asia, wet ricebased agriculture is a defining aspect of lowlands agriculture and an important (but not exclusive) cultural marker of ethnic majority groups. This contrasts with the swidden farming systems of some uplands ethnic minority groups. Swidden agriculturalists have been heavily criticized by governments across the region for cultivating their fields non-permanently and relocating settlements following new clearances. Thus, swidden agriculture and ‘migrant’ or ‘nomadic’ practices have widely been held responsible for the destruction of the uplands’ forest resources. The Vietnamese and the Laotian governments have both proclaimed strong policies aimed at eradicating shifting cultivation, but the force and significance of policy implementation varies considerably between the two countries. Lao government documents such as the 2003 National Poverty Eradication Programme have expressed the government’s determination to completely eradicate shifting cultivation by 2010. In Vietnam, the Fixed Cultivation, Fixed Settlement programme, promulgated in 1968, targeted upland ethnic groups and their alleged role in deforestation. This law was explicitly aimed at ‘combining sedentarization with collectivization, resolving the problems of nomadic farming and forest destruction at the same time. The resolution had three clear objectives: to achieve stable livelihoods, stable mind-frames, and ethnic unity’ (Khong Dien, 2002, p. 93). Sedentarization, therefore, is about more than simply reducing people’s mobility, it is also about making uplanders’ agricultural practices and culture follow lowlands patterns. This devalues traditional farming practices and knowledge of complex systems such as ‘composite swiddening’, a combination of rotating uplands swiddens and permanent paddy (wet rice) cultivation used by the Tai (Rambo, 1998; Tran Duc Vien, 2004). In contradiction to the official rhetoric of unity and equality among ethnic groups, government policies have rather reflected the low and differential status of Laotian and Vietnamese ethnic minorities. The impact on minority cultures of such government efforts r 2010 European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes 0957-8811 European Journal of Development Research Vol. 22, 4, 564–581

569

Friederichsen and Neef has therefore often been criticized, as ‘domestication’ of minorities (McCaskill and Kampe, 1997) or even as the continuation of colonial practices of censorship and repression of ethnic minority others (Pelley, 1998). The Laotian resettlement policy to ‘bring uplanders down into the valleys’ stands out in its negative effects. Those resettled find themselves in increasingly densely populated lowland areas, leaving them with limited access to resources and few choices other than continuing their previous slash-and-burn agricultural practices with reduced fallow periods. Furthermore, resettlement has often disrupted social and economic relations and resulted in a deepening, and even creation of ‘new’ poverty (Rigg, 2005). In Vietnam, the policy of bringing ‘lowlanders up into the hills’ and integrating the uplands economically are the key sources of pressure on minorities to assimilate, with differential effects on individual groups (see below). During fieldwork in both countries, differences in status between the ethnic groups were often explicitly mentioned in interview situations, and with regard to several dimensions such as knowledge about agricultural innovations, often with reference to ‘doing business’, but also political representation – a Vietnamese Black Thai farmer asserted that ‘there are Thai people in the National Assembly, but no Kh’mu or Hmong’. A status hierarchy based on ethnicity thus exists not only as seen from the national political centre and the ethnic majority, but also from the perspective of ethnic minority villagers.

The Policy and Practice of Uplands Development The notion of an ethnic hierarchy outlined above underpins state-led development policy and interventions in the uplands, while masking the degree to which development activities are essentially driven by lowland agendas and interests. In addition, the gap between policy and practice is often wide, and policy outcomes are contested. In Vietnam, figures concerning the results of over 30 years of resettlement programmes vary widely, and the strength of the link between resettlement and abandoning swidden cultivation is contested (cf. McElwee, 2004). In northern Laos, while official government data report a drastic decline of swidden agriculture, studies based on satellite imagery data suggest that the area under slash-and-burn production has actually increased in recent years (Linquist et al, 2006). Decollectivizing Agriculture: Differential Impact of Land Allocation Reacting to severe economic difficulties encountered by their centrally planned economies in the mid-1980s, Vietnam and Laos have both embarked on trajectories of transition towards a market economy, reinstating the farm household as a central economic unit in the agricultural sector. Vietnam’s doi moi reforms towards a ‘socialist market economy’ has been studied in detail with regard to Vietnam’s lowlands (Kerkvliet, 2005), whereas the study of the specific nature of post-doi moi rural change in the uplands relies mostly on a patchy literature of case studies (Castella and Dang Dinh Quang, 2002; Le Trong Cuc and Rambo, 2002; Tran Duc Vien et al, 2005). Vietnam’s Land Law of 1993 foresaw the allocation of land use rights to households and state or private organizations for specified periods of between 20 and 50 years, thus allowing farmers to exchange, lease, inherit and mortgage land use rights. Land allocation following the 1993 law created numerous tensions between customary land tenure 570


Variations of Late Socialist Development arrangements and the new formal rules. Sikor (1999) points out the friction between the new law assuming fixed field boundaries and the traditionally fluid nature of Black Thai land tenure on hill slopes, where boundaries shifted from year to year according to the labour availability within a household. In other cases, government offices issued contradicting land titles and the maps accompanying those land titles were highly imprecise (cf. Rambo and Tran Duc Vien, 2001; Neef et al, 2006). In a Hmong community, villagers came into conflict over the rights to paddy rice terraces that had been constructed during the collective period but were located on land traditionally belonging to one clan (Corlin, 2004). In a case in Bac Kan province, land allocation resulted in the concentration of paddy land in the hands of the pre-cooperative owners belonging to one ethnic group (Tay), whereas 20 per cent of the district’s population (mostly Hmong and Dao) were left without access to paddy land (Zingerli et al, 2002, p. 260). In Son La, we have found that formal land title does not necessarily translate into enhanced tenure security for all (Wirth et al, 2004; Neef et al, 2006). To the contrary, those Black Thai households who were powerless in their own community received formal titles to land that was at the same time legally declared unsuitable for agricultural use and only to be used for forestry, thus becoming vulnerable to losing their land while receiving formal land titles. In contrast to its socialist neighbour, the Lao government has put much less effort on clearly defining land rights of upland communities since the late 1980s. The recently started land allocation process in the northern upland areas has been strongly supported by international donors, but particularly the issuing of temporary land use certificates (TLUC) is currently one of the most controversial issues in rural development and land use planning projects. District Agricultural and Forestry Offices issue TLUC, mostly in the context of village-based land use planning (VLUP) and on upland fields, for a period of 3 years. TLUCs entail a number of conditionalities, such as permanent use of the land, prohibition of sale, and acceptable land use practices depending on the slope angle. For the case of non-compliance, several stages of fines are foreseen. In accordance with the national policy to phase out swidden cultivation, only up to three plots can be allocated under the TLUC system. TLUCs are also intended to form the basis of calculating tax duties of farmers. Implementing the TLUC system is fraught with problems. First, villagers often declare less than three plots or try to avoid the declaration of their upland fields altogether to avoid taxation, when in reality, farm households may use up to 20 upland plots. Second, most TLUCs are not based on exact field measurements, but rely on rough estimates, representing upland plots in a strictly rectangular shape and with a standard size. Third, no comprehensive system of storing the TLUCs is put in place; many documents get lost or become unreadable owing to inappropriate storage, and TLUCs have also been withdrawn by local authorities after few years. In sum, instead of increasing levels of tenure security, they tend to make upland farmers’ tenure security even more precarious. Beyond the shared gap between policy rhetoric and implementation, the two cases of post-collective land tenure reveal important differences. In northern Lao PDR, the attempt to expand the land allocation process into upland areas is more recent and can hardly be called a success. The remaining ambiguities and uncertainties surrounding land allocation raise doubts whether provincial and district governments are able and willing to provide villagers with legal certainty regarding access to and use of natural resources. In Vietnam’s northern uplands, where the process of formalizing individual land tenure has been ongoing for over two decades, the issue is now largely settled. r 2010 European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes 0957-8811 European Journal of Development Research Vol. 22, 4, 564–581

571

Friederichsen and Neef Implementing Participation? Recent Rural Development Strategies The wider strategies for rural development applied to uplands areas show a trend from centralized development planning to being increasingly grass-roots and market oriented and concerned with institutional design. At least in rhetoric, increasing the levels of citizen or stakeholder participation has been a key concern of recent, often internationally backed and funded development initiatives. Since they are embedded in one-party political systems, spaces for public participation in the two countries must generally be assumed to be limited in scope, fragile and dependent on official endorsement. In Lao PDR, the most significant milestone in the change of rural development strategies was the introduction of the New Economic Mechanism (NEM) or jintanakan mai in 1986. Following the failed collectivization efforts from the late 1970s onwards, it aimed at restructuring the predominantly subsistence-oriented rural sector to meet market demands (Bouapao, 2005; Rigg, 2005). Results of the NEM have been mixed, particularly because the provision of agricultural inputs, agricultural extension services and marketing systems are still little developed. A key element of Laos’ 1998–2002 Rural Development Programme is the designation of so-called ‘Focal Sites’ (Bouapao, 2005). The rationale of the ‘focal site’ strategy is to concentrate development efforts in certain geographical locations, where a range of government services are supposed to be provided in a more cost-effective way (Rigg, 2005). International donors reportedly provide around 80 per cent of the associated costs of such focal sites (Baird and Shoemaker, 2007), often unaware or negligent of the fact that this strategy goes along with massive dislocation and resettlements which have profound, although often unintended impacts on the affected communities. Certain ethnic minority groups are particularly prone to being merged with groups of other ethnic origin: in Bokeo province, Hmong communities are often established near Kh’mu villages, obviously to curb their political and social influence in this sensitive ThaiLao border region. Resettled Kh’mu families in Sayabouri province are usually merged into Tai Lue communities, apparently to speed up their ‘development’ towards a lowland economic and social lifestyle. Despite the growing importance of the private sector in Vietnam, state intervention in the uplands during doi moi has remained significant. A great number of development policies (both national and provincial), programmes and projects have been directed specifically towards the uplands; the Asian Development Bank lists 28 policies between 1989 and 1998 (ADB, 2002, p. 11). The popular slogan ‘electricity, roads, schools and [health] centers’ or dien, duong, trung, tam, summarizes the traditional focus of development efforts. One of the central national uplands development initiatives is known as Programme 135, initiated in 1998 and investing primarily in small infrastructure in remote and border areas in the northern and Central Highlands. Since 1998, the activities under the Fixed Settlement, Fixed Cultivation programme have been merged into Programme 135 (ADB, 2002, p. 12). Since the beginning of the 1990s, international development agencies have become important players by providing loans and directly engaging in state intervention in the uplands. In addition to infrastructure provision, aid organizations also promote and introduce a number of new institutional arrangements in order to increase governments’ downward accountability and their responsiveness to local needs. In Vietnam, the so-called Grass Roots Democracy Decree (GRDD), issued in 1998, is among the most prominent institutional innovations, which has met great interest from international donors. It details areas in which the population has to be informed and 572


Variations of Late Socialist Development consulted, where they have the right to decide on commune-level development investments, and where they should monitor the implementation of projects. However, aside from available case studies, it is unclear to date how the GRDD has been implemented in the uplands. In the remote northern province of Bac Kan, agriculture and forests play a central and contested role in farmers’ livelihoods as well as nature protection initiatives (cf. Zingerli et al, 2002). We found that officials in Cho Don commune used the threat of not granting land titles (so-called red book certificates) to pressure farmers into planting hedgerows, that is adopting an unpopular soil conservation measure (similar accounts have been reported in Yen Chau district, Son La province [Iven Schad, pers. comm.]). Thus, informal bargains between farmers and local state officials seem to continue without major changes despite the GRDD. This indicates that, although the formal space for local participation in decisions over development activities has increased, it is unclear to which degree ethnic minority stakeholders can access and occupy this space. The ensemble of international development actors thus promotes decentralization and local democratization, and lobbies especially for the poor and marginalized, often found among the smaller ethnic groups. However, the leverage this external advocacy has had over the formulation and implementation of policies remains unclear. This is due, first, to the impact of international donors being limited in spatial outreach owing to project boundaries. Second, even within these boundaries, the concentration of power in the party/state apparatus remains largely unchecked. Studies into the practice of donor-supported Village Development Planning (VDP) are similarly sobering concerning the promise of introducing an empowering, bottom-up process of planning in ethnic minority villages. We have found that while there may now be new and public planning meetings held in villages, the character of villagers’ participation is tokenistic and their influence on actual decision-making processes within the bureaucracy is very limited (Nguyen Duy Linh et al, 2006). Several commune officials also communicated clearly to us that VDP meetings had produced unrealistic wish lists and subsequent frustration among villagers when the demands were not fulfilled by higher-level state agencies. In Laos, VLUP has become the method of choice for decentralized implementation of government policies and the foundation of so-called area-based rural development planning. Various bi- and multilateral rural development projects, stressing the participatory process of land use planning, support the approach. Yet, participation in VLUP exercises differs widely between villages. In some communities only 30 per cent of the villagers participated in the village survey; in other cases, the land use planning team only worked with the village committee without informing other villagers. ‘Shortcuts’ in the VLUP process, that is leaving out certain methodical steps, were also common. Women were generally underrepresented in the VLUP process. In addition, the authoritarian culture, prevalent in the organizations implementing land use planning, clashes with the participatory ideals of VLUP. In most cases, the land use planning team would inform villagers about the policies with regard to land use zoning and propose a number of regulations that villagers are asked to agree upon. Yet, ‘village committees have some flexibility in suggesting the fines that should be imposed on those villagers that do not obey the rules’ as one officer put it in an interview. In all observed and reported VLUP cases, the process has not gone beyond the stage of ‘formulating and signing village regulations’, which means that neither a detailed land management plan had been developed nor any monitoring and evaluation activities had been conducted. r 2010 European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes 0957-8811 European Journal of Development Research Vol. 22, 4, 564–581

573

Friederichsen and Neef Most village committees in the surveyed villages regarded the VLUP process as an activity that was imposed on them by district authorities. They expected that their land use activities – and swidden cultivation in particular – would be further restricted in the process, and villagers accordingly were generally reluctant to join the local VLUP committees. All stakeholders (village committee members, project staff, government officials at various levels) agreed that villagers reject the government policy of land use zoning making the enforcement of forest regulations a major problem. Reported difficulties include that some district authorities themselves did not respect the rules and even asked villagers to cooperate with them in illicit logging activities in protection or conservation forests; that village committees had difficulties in enforcing rules against the customary rights of old-established families; and that new migrants had no other choice than clearing forest for swidden cultivation. We therefore conclude that the decentralization of government in the Lao socio-political context does not signify a real devolution of power to lower levels. Rather, it tends to be a means to achieve tighter government control over rural people generally, and ethnic minority groups in particular, without giving them decision-making power.

Market Permeation Market forces are increasingly important, ‘internally’ in shaping uplands societies, as well as linking the Laotian and Vietnamese uplands to larger ‘external’ circuits of money, commodities and technologies. While the crops and commodity chains of concern and the degree of market integration differ between the two countries, both have seen environmental and market risks rise together with income opportunities. Trajectories of Economic Reform: jintanakan mai and doi moi in the Uplands Lao PDR has a history of stunted economic development. Many government-supported cash crop promotion projects, for example, for coffee and soybean, have failed owing to the lack of market access and limited competitiveness as compared to their neighbours China, Vietnam and Thailand. Even today, with improved connectivity to the neighbours’ rapidly growing markets, these more powerful actors still mainly control the ‘rules of the game’. In comparison, markets have expanded swiftly in Vietnam’s northern uplands since the beginning of doi moi. Aside from very remote and hard to access areas, farmers have generally expanded and intensified cash crop production, resulting in a wide variety of farming and livelihoods systems (Castella and Dang Dinh Quang, 2002; Le Trong Cuc and Rambo, 2002). Most farmers have at least reduced or even fully replaced traditional subsistence crops, particularly upland rice, by cash crops such as maize (Wezel et al, 2002). Farmers in valley and foothill positions, that is mostly Kinh, Black Thai and Tay, produce a wide range of crops such as hybrid maize, sugarcane, cotton, vegetable, cinnamon for the market and are also increasingly engaged in commercial animal production (especially fish and pigs) (Friederichsen, 2009). Particularly well placed, however, to exploit emerging business opportunities in the uplands are Kinh settlers. Their villages’ location along main roads, their being part of the nationally dominant culture, as well as translocal kinship links ensure the uplands Kinhs’ advantageous position relative to flows of information and commodities between uplands and the rapidly industrializing lowlands. Compared 574


Variations of Late Socialist Development with the other ethnic groups, Kinh farmers also have access to relatively little land, which has forced them into higher-value crop (for example soybean, eggplant) and animal production earlier on. In combination, these factors enabled many Kinh to accumulate more wealth giving them a head start in emerging profitable off-farm activities such as processing, trade, and transport, construction and tourism services. Economic Links beyond National Boundaries Laos is experiencing the mixed blessings of the rapid expansion of rubber plantations, driven mainly by Chinese investors (for example, Shi, 2008). The Lao government hails rubber production as a means of poverty reduction, to support fixed settlements and permanent agricultural practices in upland areas, and therefore as a means to eliminate swidden cultivation and opium poppy production. The Chinese government, on the other hand, supports the expansion of rubber plantations to complement its domestic production and to keep prices of the raw material low to protect the booming Chinese rubber-processing industry. Farmers in all three studied provinces are attracted by the prospects of achieving similar prosperity as rubber growers in Southwest China and by various incentives, such as permanent land use certificates, temporary wave of land taxes and risk reduction through contract farming arrangements. Chinese companies also lure farmers into the rubber business through more short-term incentives, such as paying for labour investments in rubber plantations, providing children toys, sleeping bags and agricultural tools, and even compensating the loss of rice during the time when the trees are too large to be intercropped with upland rice, but still too small to produce latex. The expansion of rubber brings a number of negative effects. First, in several districts village forest area and resources are declining owing to encroaching rubber – against what had been set out in land use plans – with disastrous consequences for watershed hydrology and biodiversity. Second, a dramatic impact is expected in the livestock sector. Some farmers have already sold their cattle and buffaloes fearing tough fines if their ruminants destroy rubber plantations of other farmers. Others are planning to reduce their herds of ruminants. Third, rubber expansion along with the provision of permanent land documents is leading to a rapidly evolving land market with the prospect of land concentration in the hands of wealthier farmers and more powerful ethnic groups. Hmong villagers, for example, are buying upland plots to plant rubber as well as paddy fields from cash-strapped Kh’mu and Akha farmers. In one Kh’mu village, only 15 out of more than 100 households still own paddy fields. The adjacent village’s former village headman confiscated all farmers’ land titles to prevent another such ‘sell-out’. Fourth, Chinese rubber nurseries are causing increasing tensions between communities and local authorities over land. Local authorities are hesitant to compensate farmers, arguing that they had not properly managed the land previously. Villagers, on their part, doubt the formally temporary nature of land concessions and do not believe that the land will be returned to them after the end of the nurseries’ 4-year lease. Since the early 1990s, hybrid maize has become a key production line for Vietnam’s mountainous regions and is arguably the most consequential twentieth century farm innovation for the northwestern uplands. The change from maize land races to hybrid seeds resulted in massive increases of productivity and cultivated area, higher investments and higher returns. Between 1998 and 2002, the area under maize in Son La increased by 80 per cent (up to approximately 65 000 hectares in 2002), and total production more than doubled to 175 000 tons for the province (Tran Dinh Thao, 2005, pp. 213–216). In 2004, a r 2010 European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes 0957-8811 European Journal of Development Research Vol. 22, 4, 564–581

575

Friederichsen and Neef prosperous Hmong family in Yen Chau could earn some 10–15 million Vietnamese Dong (VND) per year (roughly 625–940 US$) from a harvest of 10–15 tons of maize seeds,3 equivalent to the value of a new motorbike. Most of the maize harvest is marketed and transported to the lowlands where it is processed into animal fodder. The demand for meat, in turn, stems mainly from the relatively affluent lowland population, whose rising incomes are directly linked to Vietnam’s recent industrialization and international integration. Maize production thus connects remote uplands villages via lowlands meat markets with the global economy. This new maize commodity chain has great but differential impact among ethnic groups and households. In Son La, in particular, we found that Hmong farmers have profited and have invested in their homesteads (improved roofs, concrete flooring), motorbikes, children’s education. In one case, they even collectively financed and constructed an all weather road giving access to three villages. These activities show that from the point of view of villagers, the advantages of integration and economic opportunity by far outweigh any fears of negative consequences such as the repression of their cultural difference, as expressed by Pelley (1998) and others. Nevertheless, this economic growth story encounters ecological limits and broader trends of economic differentiation. Maize cultivation on sloping land has become a major cause of soil loss, sedimentation of paddy fields and more frequent floods and landslides. Hill slope areas suitable for crop cultivation in more centrally located areas are already scarce, as indicated by shortened (or abandoned) fallow periods and the disappearance of ruminant pastures in central valley locations (Neef et al, 2006). Villagers’ comments clearly show awareness of differential soil fertility and its decline, and their attempts to react to the trend. A Thai farmer commented, ‘The Thai people used to cultivate cassava, but the soil got less fertile so when they grow maize now they have to use a lot of fertilizer. They have to pay more money for the fertilizer [than the Hmong]’. A Hmong village headman added, ‘the soil now is exhausted but the new varieties give still high yields. Since 2000 villagers have to use fertilizer; only some households who can afford it use fertilizer’. In any case, recent attempts of the local administration to curb maize cultivation by ‘encouraging’ farmers to grow rubber trees as an alternative to maize have encountered fierce resistance by many farmers who are afraid of losing their lucrative, short-term income opportunities in return for a high-risk and long-term investment in rubber production.4

Discussion: Differences and Similarities of Northern Uplands Development in Laos and Vietnam The notion of a hierarchy between ethnic groups, where from the ‘advanced’ status of the lowland majority follows a mandate to develop the numerous other ethnic groups, remains salient and problematic in both Laos and Vietnam. However, the Laotian minorities are victims of a particularly destructive and ill-conceived resettlement programme where minority ethnic village communities are broken up and relocated without making sufficient provisions to help establish new livelihoods. Important development policies of the reform period had both integrating as well as marginalizing effects on upland minorities. Particularly in Lao PDR, integration into the national legal framework in the form of land allocation still provides little tenure security to farmers. Recent efforts to extend the scope for local participation in development decision-making encounter considerable resistance arising from entrenched top-down political cultures, evasive ‘beneficiaries’ and other problems of implementing complex 576


Variations of Late Socialist Development Table 2: Summary of comparison between development in the Vietnamese and Laotian northern uplands Influencing parameters

Northern uplands of Vietnam

Northern uplands of Laos

Ethnicity

Notion of ethnic hierarchy underpins development policies but possibilities for negotiating the accommodation of minority customs and values exist

Notion of ethnic hierarchy and implementation of resettlement programmes threatens cultural survival of some minority groups

State-uplands relations

Decollectivization and land allocation mostly accomplished, efforts towards decentralization and democratization with questionable success

Unclear and uncertain property rights, weak state forms alliances with foreign investors to control rural development

Market permeation

Short-term economic success of certain cash crops (maize) has masked long-term ecological consequences

Growing dependence on export markets and foreign investment, high social and ecological risks for local people from reliance on a single-commodity (rubber) economy

institutional change. The space formally opened up for ethnic minority citizens’ participation is thus of little use in practice for minorities to actually shape planned development. Market forces in both countries increasingly permeate the uplands, and transform land use and farm structures, while pushing back the subsistence economy. In this process, income opportunities widen but the exposure to risks increases as well, particularly through reliance on single commodities. While maize cash cropping has brought a short period of economic boom to the northwestern mountains of Vietnam, heavily reliant farmers (such as many Hmong) are now facing the ecological consequences of this form of market-driven development. In the Laotian case, uplands minority groups often cannot opt out of rubber production and its mixed blessings, because the power of foreign investors combined with co-opted local governments proves unchallengeable for them. Table 2 sharpens this article’s key arguments to highlight differences as well as commonalities of broad development trends in the two countries’ uplands. As the discussion above has shown, however, the differentiation according to ethnic groups is crucial for understanding development trajectories and prospects of specific groups. In order to gauge the chance of particular ethnic groups to benefit from and actively shape the process of integration, each group’s status, negotiating power vis-a`-vis the state, and position in the economy has to be considered. Overall, the odds emerge as clearly stacked against ethnic minorities; in Lao PDR even more strongly than in Vietnam. However, given the economic success of some minority groups in specific circumstances – we repeatedly referred to the Hmong – one should not assume uniform outcomes in highly dynamic and diverse upland development arenas.

Conclusion Important socio-cultural, political and economic aspects of upland development in Laos and Vietnam can be summarized as ‘marginalization through integration’. The degree to r 2010 European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes 0957-8811 European Journal of Development Research Vol. 22, 4, 564–581

577

Friederichsen and Neef which this can be called ‘development’ in the sense of positively experienced change can best be gauged by assessing how specific groups are positioned vis-a`-vis integrating forces and what power they have to shape them. The recently resettled ethnic minority populations of Laos emerged as facing the least favourable terms of integration and possessing least agency; in Vietnam we found great differences between minorities’ capabilities to use integration to their advantage. The ethnic majorities, however, are the best-placed groups in both countries to exploit possibilities emerging with the uplands’ integration into mainstream society. We argued that market integration in the uplands tends to be driven by single-commodity booms that promise short-term increases in incomes but that are also accompanied by new risks. In Vietnam, the maize boom has worked in favour of Hmong producers who were previously strongly marginalized and Kinh traders, but has had much less impact on Black Thai livelihoods. This leaves the minority groups in economic positions of high risk (Hmong) or low income (Black Thai) and only the Kinh occupying off-farm sources of income. If the future of rural development and poverty reduction lies primarily in ‘depeasantization’ and raising off-farm opportunities rather than agricultural income (Rigg, 2006, p. 188), the majority Kinh can be expected to retain their socio-economically privileged position, despite being the latest arrivals in the uplands. The case of Laos raises the key question what impacts globalization –with a Chinese stamp on it – will have on marginal groups in the context of a weak state. Here, the key challenge for marginal groups will be to devise ways to counter the overwhelming combined force of external actors and the state in order to remain at least able to satisfy basic subsistence needs. For the broader picture of development studies in Southeast Asia, our findings point to the question whether ethnic minorities and their traditions of disadvantage are unique or whether their trajectories resonate with those of other – lowland, urban and rural – marginal groups. Of particular interest in this context is the historic success of uplanders to protect autonomous spaces and to evade the state’s power. Will uplanders and other marginal groups also be able to protect vital spaces from ever more pervasive markets and hence at least partly evade external control and dependence?

Acknowledgement The financial support of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft – DFG) for conducting the field research in Vietnam is gratefully acknowledged. The field research in Laos was made possible through a grant from the Centre of Agriculture in the Tropics and Subtropics, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, and the Eiselen Foundation Ulm, Germany. We are also thankful for the financial and logistic support provided by IP-Consult, Stuttgart and the German Agency of Technical Cooperation (GTZ) during the fieldwork in Laos. The quality of this article has greatly benefited from the constructive comments of two anonymous reviewers.

Notes 1. 2. 3.

578

See www.theuplandsprogram.net.ms. Commonly, the various ethnic groups are categorized into Lao-Tai, Mon-Khmer, TibetoBurman and Hmong-Mien. Personal communication Isabel Fischer 30 March 2008; data are based on a household survey conducted in 2004. r 2010 European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes 0957-8811 European Journal of Development Research Vol. 22, 4, 564–581

Variations of Late Socialist Development 4.

An indicator for the level of conflict between farmers and the state is that researchers from our team were banned from entering the concerned communes in 2009.

References Asian Development Bank – ADB. (2002) Indigenous Peoples/Ethnic Minorities and Poverty Reduction: Viet Nam. Manila, Philippines: Asian Development Bank. Baird, I.G. and Shoemaker, B. (2007) Unsettling experiences: Internal resettlement and international aid agencies in Laos. Development and Change 38(5): 865–888. Bell, P.F. (1996) Development or maldevelopment? The contradictions of Thailand’s economic growth. In: M. Parnwell (ed.) Uneven Development in Thailand. Aldershot, UK: Avebury, pp. 49–62. Bouapao, L. (2005) Rural Development in Lao PDR: Managing Projects for Integrated Sustainable Livelihoods. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development. Castella, J.C. and Dang, D.Q. (eds.) (2002) Doi Moi in the Mountains: Land Use Changes and Farmers’ Livelihood Strategies in Bac Kan Province. Hanoi, Vietnam: Agriculture Publishing House. Chiengthong, J. (2003) The politics of ethnicity, indigenous culture and knowledge in Thailand, Vietnam and Lao PDR. In: J. Dore and M. Kaosa-ard (eds.) Social Challenges for the Mekong Region. Bangkok, Thailand: White Lotus, pp. 147–172. Corlin, C. (2004) Hmong and the land question in Vietnam: National policy and local concepts of the environment. In: N. Tapp, J. Michaud, C. Culas and G.Y. Lee (eds.) Hmong/Miao in Asia. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books, pp. 295–321. Dang, N.V., Chu, T.S. and Luu, H. (1993) Ethnic Minorities in Vietnam. Hanoi, Thailand: The Gioi Publishers. Duncan, C. (2004) Legislating modernity among the marginalized. In: C. Duncan (ed.) Civilizing the Margins: Southeast Asian Government Policies for the Development of Minorities. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 1–23. Evans, G. (2003) Laos: Minorities. In: C. Mackerras (ed.) Ethnicity in Asia. London: RoutledgeCurzon, pp. 210–224. Evrard, O. and Goudineau, Y. (2004) Planned resettlement, unexpected migration and cultural trauma in Laos. Development and Change 35(5): 937–962. Friederichsen, R. (2009) Opening up Knowledge Production through Participatory Research? Agricultural Research for Vietnam’s Northern Uplands. Frankfurt a. M., Berlin, Bruxelles, Germany: Peter Lang Verlag. Hardy, A. (2003) State visions, migrant decisions: Population movements since the end of the Vietnam War. In: Hy V. Luong (ed.) Postwar Vietnam: Dynamics of a Transforming Society. Singapore: ISEAS, pp. 107–138. Jamieson, N.L., Le T.C. and Rambo, A.T. (1998) The Development Crisis in Vietnam’s Mountains. East-West Center Special Reports. Honolulu, HI: East-West Center. Kerkvliet, B.J.T. (2005) The Power of Everyday Politics: How Vietnamese Peasants Transformed National Policy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Keyes, C. (2002) Presidential address: ‘The peoples of Asia’-Science and politics in the classification of ethnic groups in Thailand, China, and Vietnam. The Journal of Asian Studies 61(4): 1163–1203. Khong D. (2002) Population and Ethnodemography in Vietnam. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books. Le, T.C. and Rambo, A.T. (eds.) (2002) Bright Peaks, Dark Valleys: A Comparative Analysis of Environmental and Social Conditions and Development Trends in Five Communities in Vietnam’s Northern Mountain Region. Hanoi, Vietnam: National Political Publishing House. Linquist, B.A., Keoboualapha, B., Sipseuth and Inthapanya, P. (2006) Rice production systems of Laos. In: J.M. Schiller, M.B. Chanphengxay, B. Linquist and S. Appa Rao (eds.) Rice in Laos. Los Banõs, CA: International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), pp. 29–45. MacAlister, J.T. (1967) Mountain minorities and the Viet Minh: A key to the Indochina war. In: P. Kuhnstadter (ed.) Southeast Asian Tribes, Minorities, and Nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 771–844. r 2010 European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes 0957-8811 European Journal of Development Research Vol. 22, 4, 564–581

579

Friederichsen and Neef McCaskill, D. and Kampe, K. (eds.) (1997) Development or Domestication? Indigenous Peoples of Southeast Asia. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books. McElwee, P. (2004) Becoming socialist or becoming Kinh? Government policies for ethnic minorities in the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam. In: C. Duncan (ed.) Civilizing the Margins: Southeast Asian Government Policies for the Development of Minorities. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 182–213. Michaud, J. (2000) The montagnards and the state in northern Vietnam from 1802 to 1975: A historical overview. Ethnohistory 47(2): 333–368. Milloy, M.J. and Payne, M. (1997) My way and the highway: Ethnic people and development in the Lao PDR. In: D. McCaskill and K. Kampe (eds.) Development or Domestication? Indigenous Peoples of Southeast Asia. Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books, pp. 398–440. Minot, N. and Baulch, B. (2005) Spatial patterns of poverty in Vietnam and their implications for policy. Food Policy 30: 461–475. Neef, A., Hager, J., Wirth, T., Schwarzmeier, R. and Heidhues, F. (2006) Land tenure and water rights in Thailand and Vietnam: Challenges for ethnic minorities in mountainous forest regions. Geographica Helvetica 61(4): 255–265. Nguyen, D.L., Friederichsen, R. and Neef, A. (2006) The challenge of coordinating rural service provision and bridging the farmer/extensionist interface in northern upland Vietnam. Proceedings of the International Symposium ‘Towards Sustainable Land Use and Rural Development in Mountainous Regions’; 7–9 March, Chiang Mai, Thailand (on CD-rom). Ovesen, J. (2004) All Lao? Minorities in the Lao people’s democratic republic. In: C. Duncan (ed.) Civilizing the Margins: Southeast Asian Government Policies for the Development of Minorities. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 214–240. Pelley, P. (1998) Barbarians’ and ‘younger brothers’: The remaking of race in postcolonial Vietnam. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 29(2): 347–391. Proschan, F. (2003) Vietnam’s Ethnic Mosaic. In: Nguyen, V.H. and L. Kendall (eds.) Vietnam: Journeys of Body, Mind, and Spirit. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 53–69. Rambo, A.T. (1998) The composite swiddening agroecosystem of the Tay ethnic minority group in the Northwestern mountains of Vietnam. In: A. Patanothai (ed.) Land Degradation and Agricultural Sustainability: Case Studies from Southeast and Asia. Khon Khaen, Thailand: The Southeast Asian Universities Agroecosystem Network (SUAN), pp. 43–64. Rambo, A.T. and Jamieson, N.L. (2003) Upland areas, ethnic minorities, and development. In: Hy V. Luong (ed.) Postwar Vietnam: Dynamics of a Transforming Society. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, pp. 139–170. Rambo, A.T. and Tran D.V. (2001) Social organization and the management of natural resources: A case study of Tat hamlet, a Da Bac Tay ethnic minority settlement in Vietnam’s northwestern mountains. Southeast Asian Studies 39(3): 299–324. Rigg, J. (1997) Southeast Asia: The Human Landscape of Modernization and Development. London, NY: Routledge. Rigg, J. (2005) Living with Transition in Laos: Market Integration in Southeast Asia. London NY: Routledge. Rigg, J. (2006) Land, farming, livelihoods, and poverty: Rethinking the links in the rural South. World Development 34(1): 180–202. Schein, L. (2000) Minority Rules: The Miao and the Feminine in China’s Cultural Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Scott, J.C. (2009) The Art of not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of upland Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press. Shi, W. 2008 Rubber Boom in Luang Namtha: A Transnational Perspective. Vientiane, Lao PDR. Unpublished report to RDMA (GTZ). Sikor, T. (1999) The political economy of decollectivization: A study of differentiation in and among Black Thai villages of northern Vietnam. PhD thesis, University of California. Tran, D.T. (2005) Maize production and selling maize in Son La. In: Tran, D.V. et al (eds.) Marketing and Agroforestry Development in Vietnam’s Uplands. Hanoi, Vietnam: Agricultural Publishing House, pp. 212–227. Tran, D.V. (2004) Changes in the composite swiddening system in Tat Hamlet in Vietnam’s Northern Mountains in response to integration into the market system. In: H. Furukawa, 580


Variations of Late Socialist Development M. Nishibuchi, Y. Kono and Y. Kaida (eds.) Ecological Destruction, Health, and Development: Advancing Asian Paradigms. Kyoto, Japan: Kyoto University Press, pp. 453–465. Tran, D.V. et al (eds.) (2005) Marketing and Agroforestry Development in Vietnam’s Uplands. Hanoi, Vietnam: Agricultural Publishing House. Vietnam Consultative Group. (2003) Vietnam Development Report 2004: Poverty. Hanoi, Vietnam: Asian Development Bank. Wezel, A., Steinmuller, N. and Friederichsen, R. (2002) Slope position effects on soil fertility and crop productivity and implications for soil conservation in upland Northwest Vietnam. Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 91: 113–126. Wirth, T., Dao, C.T. and Neef, A. (2004) Traditional land tenure among the Black Thai and its implication on the land allocation in Yen Chau district, Son La province, Northwest Vietnam. In: G. Gerold, M. Fremerey and E. Guhardja (eds.) Land Use, Nature Conservation, and the Stability of Rainforest Margins in Southeast Asia. Berlin, NY: Springer, pp. 119–134. Yukio, H. and Wichienkeeo, A. (eds.) (2002) Interethnic Relations in the Making of Mainland Southeast Asia and Southwestern China. Bangkok and Chiang Rai, Thailand: The Center of Ethnic Studies, Rajabhat Institute. Zingerli, C., Castella, J.C., Pham, H.M. and Pham, V.C. (2002) Contesting policies: Rural development versus biodiversity conservation in the Ba Be National Park Area, Vietnam. In: J.C. Castella and Dang Dinh Quang (eds.) Doi Moi in the Mountains: Land Use Changes and Farmers’ Livelihood Strategies in Bac Kan Province. Hanoi, Vietnam: Agricultural Publishing House, pp. 249–276.


581