Organizer: Kristy E. Kelly, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Chair: Cari A. Coe, University of California, Los Angeles
As Vietnam becomes fully engaged in the world economy,
it faces the challenge of defining itself under its claim of being a "socialist market economy." This
panel will examine issues of equity, fairness and justice as interpreted in
decentralized contexts in the socialist state of Vietnam. The panel seeks to
address the question of how socialist ideas/ideals of equity, fairness, and
justice are being negotiated, resisted, and/or remade in the process of implementing
policy at the local level. The papers in this panel cover a broad spectrum of
social science disciplines, both quantitative and qualitative, focusing on how
decentralized actors contribute to the development process and help redefine
what it means to be a "socialist state" in a market economy. One paper
uses distributive justice theory to explain how forestry land has been allocated
to households for long-term use. Another paper examines how the growing market
for land used for coffee production is increasing the socio-economic marginalization
of certain groups in the Central Highlands, as local officials sacrifice
national goals of equity for short-term gains. A third paper examines the ways
that competing definitions of equity as taught in gender mainstreaming classes
for policy-makers lead to gendered differences in defining citizenship rights.
Cari A. Coe, University of California, Los Angeles
This paper uses distributive justice theory to examine which notions of justice
best explain how forest land was allocated to households for long-term use
in Vietnam. Unlike land used for rice production, hillside forest land in Vietnam
was generally never incorporated into the country's socialist agricultural
collectives that operated from the 1950s to the 1980s. Thus, household property
rights over forests have developed along a different trajectory. Studying how
local officials allocated use rights to this forest land can inform our understanding
of local official accountability to different groups with “just” claims
on property in the community. Using data collected from household surveys and
interviews with local officials conducted from 2006-2007 in 30 villages located
in the buffer zone of Tam Dao National Park, this paper uses a statistical analysis
to show that households' Lockean claims of intrinsic property rights dominated
how local officials allocated forest land locally. This finding is significant
in that it provides evidence of strong, de facto household property rights
over forest land in Vietnam, a socialist nation which still does not officially
recognize the concept of private property. Furthermore, this paper presents
evidence that local officials defend households' intrinsic property rights,
even when they conflict with national policy.
Giang T. Phan, University of Hawaii, Manoa
Over the last two decades, Vietnam has made great efforts to reduce poverty
and social differentiation in rural areas, especially where ethnic minorities
live. In some regions however, the impact of these efforts has been limited,
partly because of poor accountability by local authorities and the impact of
the market economy. This paper explores rural development and differentiation
by examining the process of land accumulation and land use transformation in
a significant coffee producing district in the Central Highlands Vietnam, where
land has become a precious asset since the thriving of the world's coffee market
recently. Using data collected from interviews, participatory observation, surveys
and district-level land transaction records, this paper examines the strategies
adopted by different people to acquire land, the economic outcomes of their
efforts, and the implications for social equity in the region. While some people
have become prosperous, others have become impoverished or have even been imprisoned.
As more forestland is continuously clipped for agricultural purposes, many native
people are persistently short of land because their allocated and self-developed
land is being transferred to immigrants in spite of the state's wish and effort
to maintain land equality. This paper argues that the situation can be partly
attributed to local authorities who have negotiated and tailored the new land
law and provincial regulations to suit their short-term needs. The pressures
of a developing market economy and poor policy implementation at the local level
appear to be fostering deforestation and marginalizing native groups and the
poor.
Kristy E. Kelly, University of Wisconsin, Madison
The Vietnamese state claims a long history of supporting and promoting gender
equality for its citizens. Yet how equality gets defined, as well as what
obligations, rights, and duties citizens are expected to perform, is an oft-contested
issue. Women’s equal rights as citizens of the nation have been touted as proof
that socialism improved the lives of women vis-à-vis men, but there has
recently been a marked return to public discourses that prioritize women’s
duty to the state as wives and mothers. This paper examines the ways that “gender,” “equity,” and “rights” are
being taught and learned as part of a recent government policy called gender
mainstreaming, which aims to systematically integrate gender equity concerns
into all levels of decision-making. Based on extensive critical ethnographic
research of gender mainstreaming strategies in Vietnam, this paper makes visible
the myriad ways that gender has been deployed within and in relation to nationalist
discourses of citizens’ rights and national identity during gender equality
trainings. The author finds that gender trainings, which ostensibly are designed
to empower women to assert their equal rights as citizens of the nation, may
in fact be teaching that women should sacrifice these rights in the name of
appropriate “Vietnamese womanhood.”
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