The mixed blessings of national integration: Rural development in Vietnam’s northern uplands.
- Publication Type
- Journal contribution (peer reviewed)
- Authors
- FRIEDERICHSEN, R.
- Year of publication
- 2012
- Published in
- East Asia
- Band/Volume
- 29/1
- ISBN / ISSN / eISSN
- 1096-6838
- DOI
- 10.1007/s12140-011-9155-y
- Page (from - to)
- 43-61
The ethnic minorities of Southeast Asia’s uplands, including those of Vietnam, tend to be portrayed as excluded from national society and locked into poverty, environmental degradation and positions of subjugation. Recent debates about Southeast Asian uplands-lowlands relations have questioned this discourse by highlighting the diversity of experiences, the agency of ethnic minority groups, and uplanders’ strategies of state evasion. This article finds that the integration of the uplands into the Vietnamese polity should be understood as an ongoing struggle between nation-building and state expansion characterised by grand visions on the one hand, and incomplete policy implementation and uplanders’ ambiguous stance towards integration on the other.