Markets in the mountains: Upland trade-scapes, trader livelihoods, and state development agendas in northern Vietnam
Author(s):
Bonnin, Christine
Format:
Thesis
Degree granted:
Ph.D.
Publisher:
Ann Arbor : McGill University (Canada), 2011.
Pages:
466
Language:
English
Abstract:
In this dissertation I investigate market formation and integration in the northern uplands of Vietnam (Lào Cai province) through a focus on the everyday processes by which markets are created and (re)shaped at the confluence of local initiatives, state actions, and wider market forces. Against a historically-informed backdrop of the 'local' context with regard to ethnicity, cultural practice, livelihoods, markets and trade, I situate and critique the broader Vietnam state agenda. At present, this supports regularising market development often in accordance with a lowland majority model, and promoting particular aspects of tourism that at times mesh, while at others clash, with upland subsistence needs, customary practice, and with uplanders successfully realising new opportunities. State-led market integration initiatives are often instituted without informed consideration of their effects on the specific nature and complexity of upland trade, such as for the realisation of materially and culturally viable livelihoods. Conceptually, I weave together a framework for the study that draws key elements from three main strands of scholarship: 1) actor-oriented approaches to livelihoods; 2) social embeddedness, social network and social capital approaches to market trade and exchange, and; 3) the commodity-oriented literature. Fieldwork was situated in the northern Vietnam province of Lào Cai, in five upland districts bordering China's Yunnan province. The research draws primarily on ethnographic methods: conversational interviews, semi-structured interviews, life histories, participant observation, and market surveys. Research informants included ethnic Hmong, Yao, Kinh, Nùng, Tày and Giáy small-scale market traders, state officials, market management representatives, non-governmental organisations, and foreign and domestic tourists. Primary field sites encompassed 14 upland marketplaces in Lào Cai province, with additional visits to markets in neighbouring upland provinces and across the border in Yunnan to complement the data gathered. This thesis is broadly divided into two main results sections. Firstly, I explore upland markets as a critical social interface through which to understand the role that centripetal and centrifugal forces play within the contemporary restructuring of marketplaces, commodity networks, and trade dynamics in Lào Cai's uplands. I investigate the role of the state in the current development and modernisation of marketplaces within the province, as well as how recent improvements in connective technologies are working to alter upland trade-scapes. In describing these structural changes, the specific and diverse responses of upland traders to these transformations are explored - such as accommodation, negotiation, as well as overt and implicit forms of resistance - in terms of how these groups seek to carve out a living through their own constructions of marketplace trade. In the second section, I devote three chapters to in-depth case studies of upland trade networks for key cultural commodities, historically produced and/or traded by Hmong and Yao ethnic minorities: water buffalo livestock, upland artisanal alcohols, and handmade and manufactured ethnic minority textiles. Through these investigations, I address how upland markers of social difference and social support networks work to influence trade and the way actors shape their exchange activities. Focus is placed on the particular strategies used by different groups of upland traders to engage with trade opportunities and negotiate constraints in order to enhance their livelihoods. This study makes a vital contribution through attention to the production and trade of products which are of historical cultural and material relevance to upland ethnic minorities themselves, as well as to endogenous perspectives of upland marketplace trading.