Organizer: Dominique Caouette, Université de
Montreal
Chair: Sarah Turner, McGill University
Discussant 1: Vincent G. Boudreau, City University of New York, City College
This panel will take a multi-scalar approach to examine
resistance occurring in relation to agrarian transformations in the Southeast
Asian region. Firstly, we want to examine “everyday forms of peasant resistance” at
the micro level, expanding upon those that Scott documented in 1985, as people
challenge different extensions of the market economy into their lives. Secondly,
we wish to move the boundaries of scale from previous works to include transnational
acts of resistance and defiance against policies and activities often of
a neo-liberal nature. As such this panel incorporates papers of more organized
forms of opposition and dissent such as peasant movements in Vietnam and regional
coalitions on food sovereignty as well as those often rendered invisible at
the local, micro scale including highland minorities who selectively decide
when to become involved in trade.
Not only comprising a panel that will transcend scale, this collection of
speakers will examine a range of forms. We want to reveal more about open public
interactions and debates that are occurring between dominators and the oppressed,
as well as the hidden critiques of power that occur beneath the surface at the
local level. To do this we bring together key scholars working on agrarian and
rural resistance activities and movements at a range of scales and shapes, focusing
on the Philippines, Vietnam, and Southeast Asia in general.
Sarah Turner, McGill University
Highland Hmong individuals and households in the Northern Vietnam province
of Lao Cai use subtle, yet effective means to decide when and how they
wish to engage with the market. While they are well aware that they can
not change the general rules by which they have to engage with the global
economy in post Ðôi Mo´i Vietnam, they are anything but
passive and powerless actors. From centuries of experience they know that
they can modify their involvement in the local and regional economy and
have learned to play the fluid combination of opportunities available to
them and their priorities of the moment. Through examining the trade of
particular local goods in the province, namely highland textiles and cardamom
forest products, and by placing this information in its historical context,
I argue that the Hmong are selectively deciding the degree of their market
integration. They are resisting unwanted levels of dependency on the market
in original ways, distinct from other actors in the highlands.
Tran Thi Thu Trang, University of Ottawa
Since the mid-1980s, Vietnam has undergone a structural reform process under
the doi moi (renovation) policies, transforming a socialist and rather egalitarian
system into a more liberal market economy. The reform has resulted in remarkable
growth in the agricultural sector and in improved living standard of rural dwellers.
However, inequalities have widened significantly within the peasantry, raising
discontent and triggering numerous rural unrests. Those unrests have however
been localized and of a small scale, rarely spreading beyond district or provincial
boundaries.
This paper is an attempt to explain this lack of organized large-scale social
movements, especially since Vietnam has gone through a peasant revolution in
the second half of the twentieth century. First, it argues that while corruption
is one of the most common causes of recent rural unrests, it is often perceived
as being linked to specific individuals and localities, and can therefore hardly
be used to mobilize supporters across regions. Second, the paper finds that
the rising of the middle class with interests closely linked to the current
political system has prevented rural unrests to gain wide support in urban centers.
Third, it argues that the implementation of several key reforms has helped consolidate
the legitimacy of the Vietnamese state and reducing tensions directed to it.
Finally, the state has been quite effective in addressing rural unrests, preventing
them from gaining scope.
François Fortier, University of Ottawa
During much of the 1990s, cyberspace was touted as a new frontier of civil
society emancipation and a liberated zone of resistance with huge potential
for democratic expression and little risk of subjugation. The political horizon
of the digital landscape looks bleaker today. While there was indeed a window
of opportunity when early adopters among civil society organizations were able
to make a dent in the hegemony of dominant groups, the latter have by now largely
conquered new virtual spaces, deploying the tools of controls that reproduce
pre-digital social relations.
By 2007, at least 50 countries worldwide have national digital censorship
programs, while many more, including liberal democracies, impose strict control
regulations on specific contents and for targeted audiences. In addition
to censorship, the extent to which surveillance takes places in cyberspace is
still largely unknown, but most likely very extensive – from states intelligence
agencies emboldened by post-9/11 doctrines, policies and resources, corporations
with new interests in data-mining and property rights enforcement, and individuals
with new means of peer “sousveillance”.
This paper will examine the above trends with a focus on South-east Asia
and recent events in this region. It will ask to what extend, and under which
conditions, cyberspace may still carry dissident voices and open channels of
resistance.
Dominique Caouette, Université de Montreal
In recent years, the study of transnational activism and its links to globalization
has become a thriving research area, both in the field of international relations
and political sociology. Transnational activism refers to social movements and
other civil society organizations and individuals operating in coordination
across state borders. Despite its growing richness, the geographic coverage
of this research domain has remained largely confined to North America, Europe,
and Latin America. There are still few analyses tracing the genealogy and the
influence on public policy of such form of collective action in Southeast Asia.
The broadening of the study of transnational activism to rural Southeast Asia
forms the core of this paper. In Southeast Asia, especially since the 1997 financial
crisis, there has been a growing tendency for rural NGOs, social movements,
and activist networks to organize and work transnationally. This paper will
explore how Southeast Asian rural activists are able to connect their claims
rooted in local struggles to those of others in the region. In doing so, I will
try to answer the following questions: Is the emergence and expansion of transnational
activism in Southeast Asia comparable to other regions of the world? What are
the reasons that motivate rural local activists and how do they inscribe their
demands and claims in transnational coalitions, networks and campaigns? And,
in what ways does this participation in such form of collective action might
affect local level activism and influence for public policy changes?
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