RESETTLEMENT, DISPLACEMENT AND AGRARIAN CHANGE IN NORTHERN UPLANDS OF VIETNAM
NGA THI VIET DAO
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO
THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
GRADUATE PROGRAM IN GEOGRAPHY YORK UNIVERSITY
TORONTO, ONTARIO
July 2012
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The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission.
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While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. Canada ABSTRACT
The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the pivotal ways in which water- related development projects shape interrelated processes of agrarian change. It looks at the politics surrounding dam building in Vietnam, the relationship between the state and ethnic minority people in resources use, and the ways ethnic minorities/resettlers in the vicinity of dams have experienced and responded to changes in their everyday lives - their political and livelihoods responses.
Drawing on theories of development, ethnic identity, and state power and resource management in the uplands of Southeast Asia, this research has three aims. The first aim is to understand the state’s motivation and logic behind dam construction. The second aim is to investigate the dam planning process, and to explore how international standards on good dam practices are taken into account, as well as how upland people respond to these decisions. Finally, the third aim is to examine how the process of negotiation of the resettlement projects reconfigured livelihoods in the Northwest.
The research found that damming rivers for power generation in Vietnam spoke to relationships between center and periphery, highlands and lowlands, ethnic majority and minority peoples. Ethnic minority people have long been considered as undeveloped and have been targets for development. However, development-induced displacement has had major effects on inhabitants in the vicinity of dam sites, transforming social, cultural and agrarian landscapes of the region at different scales. Despite the government’s attempt to improve its policies, there have still been no clear guidelines on how to implement ‘good practices’ of hydropower construction. And at the same time, improvements in policy have not always brought positive changes on the ground. The research also highlights the fact that upland peasants/resettlers were not passive victims of the state development projects but, rather, actively fought for their survival and autonomy. Their responses were in a multitude of forms, ranging from coping strategies to opposition resistance against the state development apparatus. Besides struggle between the state as patron and its clients, and between the powerful and the powerless, there was also struggle among the powerless, at either individual or collective levels.
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank Peter Vandergeest and Robin Roth, my committee co-chairs, for their guidance in the development of my academic work at York, for their inspiration and encouragement, and for their thorough feedback throughout my research and the writing process. I thank Libby Lunstrum, my committee member, for her helpful advice, valuable insights and useful suggestions for organizing my work.
This dissertation would also never have been done without the help and assistance of my friends and colleagues in Vietnam and the people whom I interviewed there. I thank Tien and her family, and thank other villagers for their hospitality during my stay.
I also thank my friend Steve Coffin for helping me with language editing.
Last but not least, I would like to express my deep thanks to my family: my parents, my husband, my daughter Linh San and my son Mike for their unending support and love, and for bearing with me in this long process.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT...... ii PROLOGUE...... xi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK...... 1 Introduction ...... 1 Theoretical Framework...... 8 Development theory ...... 9 Ethnic identity, state power and resource management in the uplands of Southeast Asia...... 27 Summary...... 32 Organization of the Dissertation ...... 33 Conclusion ...... 36 CHAPTER 2: REFLEXIVITY AND METHODOLOGIES...... 37 Biography and Research Subjectivity ...... 38 Politics of doing research and subjectivity ...... 38 Biography ...... 40 In the field ...... 42 Study sites ...... 50 Research Design...... 59 Stage 1: Organizing research ...... 61 Stage 2: doing research ...... 65 Stage 3: Data analysis and writing...... 82 Final remarks...... 83 CHAPTER 3: DAM CONSTRUCTION IN VIETNAM: POLITICS AND DRIVING FORCE BEHIND IT...... 85 Introduction ...... 85 Dam Development in Vietnam ...... 88
iv What do the dams standfor?...... 88 Politics o f dam development and river basin management in Vietnam...... 91 Hydropower - savior for energy demand, symbol for development or something else?...... 108 Social responses to dam building...... 112 The Son La dam planning ...... 124 Constraints remain...... 128 Resettlement policy for the Son La dam project ...... 132 The resulting gap between planning and implementation ...... 139 Conclusion ...... 143 CHAPTER 4: STATE AND ETHNIC MINORITY RELATIONSJN THE DAMMING OF THE NORTHWEST UPLANDS...... 146 Ethnicity and Relations between the State and Ethnic Groups in Contemporary Vietnam ...... 148 The contemporary situation of ethnic minorities in the upstream o f the Da River ...... 156 Relationship between ethnic minority groups: the case of Thai and La Ha people ...... 163 Land use of ethnic minority groups in the Northwest before displacement 167 Conclusion ...... 176 CHAPTER 5: AGRARIAN CHANGE IN RESETTLED ...... 180 VILLAGES-LIVELIHOODS RESPONSES Understanding Peasant and Differentiation ...... 185
Farming and Livelihoods before the Dam ...... 188 After Resettlement ...... 195 Compensation, farming land and challenges in resettling ...... 191 Diversification o f strategies in the new villages ...... 206 Conclusion ...... 238 CHAPTER 6: DAILY POLITICS OF RESETTLEMENT: POLITICAL RESPONSES...... 241 Concepts of Resistance and Response in Geography and Agrarian Studies...... 243 Resistance and Peasant Mobilizations in Vietnam ...... 245 Son La Resettlement sites - Ground for Multiple Resopnses ...... 248 Organizing resettlement ...... 249 Resistance to the displacement and its decision making ...... 252 Political Responses to the Challenges of Resettling in the New Places - The case of Phieng Bung 1 and Pu Nhuong Resettlement Sites ...... 259 Relationships with the state, host communities, and among the resettlers themselves ...... 260 Conclusion ...... 273 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION ...... 278 LIVES CHANGE IN PICTURES...... 295 BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 298 APPENDIX A: 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam (including the Kinh majority people)316 APPENDIX B: Interview questions ...... 324 LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1: Dam project classification ...... 93
Table 3.2: Decision-making authority for state funded dam projects ...... 93
Table 3.3: Hydropower development potential in Vietnam ...... 95
Table 3.4: Public acceptance and implementation of the FPIC in the Son La project.... 130
Table 4.1: Some basic socio-economic indicators before resettlement ...... 175
Table 5.1: Area cultivated by individual households before resettlement (in percentage of households) ...... 186
Table 5.2: Sources of household income before relocation ...... 188
Table 5.3: Expenditure of households before resettlement ...... 190
Table 5.4: Sources of household income after relocation ...... 200
Table 5.5: Expenditure of households after resettlement ...... 201
Table 5.6: Some basic socio-economic indicators after resettlement ...... 202 LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1: Location of Muong Bu commune ...... 51 Figure 2.2: Map of Phieng Bung 1 resettlement village...... 53
Figure 2.3: Map of Pu Nhuong resettlement village...... 58
Figure 3.1: Electricity generation by fuel types and structure (EVN/IPP) in Vietnam.. ..86
Figure 3.2: Map of main rivers in Vietnam ...... 116
Figure 3.3: Hydropower cascade on the Da River ...... 118
Figure 3.4: Map of three provinces affected by the Son La Dam and location of the Son La Dam...... 122
Figure 4.1: The Da River Basin ...... 158
viii LIST OF PHOTOS
t Photo 2.1: Black Th&i women hairstyle and traditional attire after marriage
Photo 2.2: IM i traditional women’s head scarf ......
Photo 2.3: Cooking dinner in the host family ......
Photo 2.4: The main road to the center of Pu Nhuong ......
Photo 2.5: Transporting maize from the field in Pu Nhuong ......
Photo 2.6: Group discussion and mapping ......
Photo 3.1: A banner “Son La determines to successfully fulfill the task of resettlement for the Son La project” on a street of Son La city ......
Photo 3.2: Son La dam under the construction, August 2009 ......
Photo 5.1: Maize field in Pu Nhuong village ......
Photo 5.2: Growing vegetables on the village’s path, Pu Nhuong village
Photo 5.3: A vegetable garden in Phieng Bung 1 ......
Photo 5.4: A fish pond in Phieng Bung 1 ......
Photo 6.1: Building house in resettlement site ...... ABBREVIATIONS
ADB Asian Development Bank
CEMA Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs
CSO Civil Society Organization
EIA Environmental Impact Assessment
EVN Electricity of Vietnam
FPIC Free, Prior and Informed Consent
HUA Hanoi University of Agriculture
MARD Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development
MIP Ministry of Investment and Planning
MOF Ministry of Finance
MOIT Ministry of Industry and Trade
MONRE Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment
NGO Non-government Organization
SEA Strategic Environmental Assessment
VRN Vietnam Rivers Network
VUSTA Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations
WARECOD Center for Water Resources Conservation and Development
WB The World Bank Group
WCD World Commission on Dams
UNDRIP UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples PROLOGUE
A loud thunder woke me up. It took me a few seconds to recognize where I was. I was curled inside my sleeping bag in a house on stilts in a resettlement village in Son La, a northwest province of Vietnam. There were whispering sounds somewhere, probably under the house. I got out of the bed, and went down stairs. It was still dark. The rain poured down on the roof making a loud noise. It was the kind of roof that distinguishes resettlement villages from other ordinary villages. Under the house, fuel wood was stacked in one pile, com cobs in another pile. The fire from the kitchen was flickering.
The wife was making a fire to boil water in the morning, and her husband was rearranging his cast net. The cast net had been used for catching fish in their little pond for our dinner the day before. He also opened the water tank so that rainwater from the house roof could run into the tank. He said that it would provide them water for daily use for a while.
The wife called me in. I sat next to her by the fire, trying to help keep the fire high so we could soon have hot water for tea in the morning. “Phew, it finally rained”, she said. She continued, “I wish it would rain the whole day. We’ve been longing for rain for the last few months. My garden is dying because we don’t have enough water for it. Our small patch of rice doesn’t seem to produce anything because of the drought. There’s no water for growing anything this summer. We were used to life near the river and never had to worry about water. Things have changed now. We don’t have enough water even for bathing sometimes.” Then she started telling me about how their lives were in “Ban
Cau” which means old village in Thai. Her voice sometimes seemed very far away, blending with the noise of rain and thunder. Her husband added more details once in a while. We sat there for a couple of hours, drinking tea by the fire without eating breakfast. I understood how she had been longing for her old village, the river, the field, the forest, the animals, the place where she was bom, where she had her first date, how her children learned to swim in the river, and what age they were when they caught their first fish. Lives and landscapes (both cultural and agrarian landscapes) have been dramatically changed in this northwest region, a beautiful area along the Da River which has been well-known in Vietnam for its beauty and rich ethnic diversity.
xii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
INTRODUCTION
Rural communities, their social relations and their interactions with places, the natural environment and the production processes are a core part of the agrarian landscape. Thus, agrarian change includes both changes in the agrarian landscape and in rural people’s livelihoods. River developments have dramatically altered agrarian landscapes in ways that have powerful implications for rural livelihoods (Finley-Brook and Thomas, 2010; Sneddon and Fox, 2006; Bakker, 1999; Hirsch and Warren eds.,
1998). Resettlement, especially dam-induced resettlement, by changing the geographic distribution of rural populations has clear implications for livelihoods, since people usually cannot maintain their traditional livelihood activities. Thus, dam-induced displacement involves not only resettlement issues, but also agrarian transformation. In the last two decades, a number of scholars have sought to understand development- induced resettlement and displacement issues (Cemea, 1990, 1993, 1999, 2000; Gellert and Lynch, 2003; Feldman et al., 2003; Vandergeest et al., 2007). Nevertheless, research on resettlement often overlooks agrarian change issues, while in agrarian transformation research there have been few studies that focus on dam-induced resettlement in upland areas, and even fewer in upland Vietnam due to its political context (Hirsch et al., 1992;
VUSTA, 2006). Agrarian transformation has been widely studied over the past few decades (Hart et al., 1989; Scott, 2000; Hardy, 2000; Hardy and Turner, 2000; Sikor,
1 2004), but there are still many areas that require attention, including how peasants/resettlers respond to changes, their coping strategies, and impacts on the politics of daily life, among others. This dissertation investigates the relationship between resettlement and agrarian change.
In the late 1990s, the era of big dam construction seemed to be over, after much discussion of the social and environmental impacts that large-scale water infrastructure projects have caused all over the world. The benchmark was a report on dam impacts that included strategic recommendations for better dam projects, released by the World
Commission on Dams (WCD)1 (WCD, 2000). Given the adverse impacts that dams have brought to affected people and the environment, the first and foremost recommendation of WCD concerned public acceptance. It highlighted the fact that affected people need to be fully informed about dam projects and agree to support them. However, after a few years’ pause large dam building resumed in the late 2000s. The World Bank Group is, once again, a strong supporter of hydropower development. It emphasizes that a decade of research and dialogue has significantly enhanced the Bank’s energy sector’s awareness and understanding of environmental and social challenges associated with hydropower
(The World Bank Group, 2009:4). The World Bank and other investors are committed to sustainable hydropower, for which a knowledge base has emerged from a range of players
1 The World Commission on Dams was set up by the World Bank and the World Conservation Union (IUCN). The WCD started its work with a mandate to (i) “review the development effectiveness of large dams and assess alternatives for water resources and energy development”; and (ii) “develop internationally acceptable criteria, guidelines and standards, where appropriate, for the planning, design, appraisal, construction, operation, monitoring and decommissioning of dams” (WCD, 2000). 2 including the International Hydropower Association, the WCD, the United Nations
Environment Programme, among others (The World Bank Group, 2009). They claim to take into account some of the WCD strategic recommendations, as well as the
Commission of Human Rights’ “Free, Prior and Informed Consent” (FPIC) policy, in order to ensure “good practices” of dam construction. However, in Vietnam, most projects, including development projects in general and dam projects in particular, continue to be planned and implemented in a top-down process. Therefore, even though
Vietnam claimed to support WCD’s recommendations and ‘good practices’ of dam and there have been improvement in its resettlement policies, its implementation on the ground remains questionable.
The development of large water projects has been central to the economic vision of the Vietnamese state since its independence from the French in 1954 (Nguyen Danh
Oanh, 2009). Many dams have been built in Vietnam, especially over the last two decades (Dao, 2010). These dams are all located in upland areas, from the north to the central region and the Central Highlands, inhabited by people who are ethnic minorities or indigenous people. As with many other rivers in Vietnam, dams have been built on the mainstream and branches of the Da River. The Son La dam on the Da River is the largest dam ever built in Vietnam or in mainland Southeast Asia.
The development of the Son La dam has been highly contested. The dam was planned to provide electricity, flood control and water for irrigation (Son La People
Committee, 2006). At the same time, it was expected to contribute to the development of 3 the Northwest (Toy Bac) and the improvement of ethnic minority people’s livelihoods. As
I will show, the Son La dam has had widespread social and environmental impacts in the northwest uplands of Vietnam. A large area of fertile farming and valley land, which used to provide home and livelihoods for thousands of people belonging to different ethnic minority groups, was submerged under the water. The dam also caused massive displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in the area, most of whom belong to ethnic minority groups including Thai, La Ha, KMng, Msing, and Giay. Since the project planning was a top-down process, there are also questions about how the views of affected people were included during project planning and preparation and how people have responded to the changes.
My doctoral research uses the Son La dam as a case study, with three major objectives. The first aim is to understand the state’s motivation and logic behind dam construction including the role of dam construction in the state’s attempt to territorialize, control, develop and civilize the uplands. I consider the importance of exploring the remaking of ethnic identities in the contemporary context (post-independence) and the consequences of the state’s development ideology on the northern upland ethnic minority groups. I examine the following questions:
• What are the state’s motivations/logic behind dam construction?
• How was ethnicity constructed in the contemporary (post-independence) context,
and what is the relationship between the state and the northern upland ethnic
4 groups in the state’s development ideology in general and in regard to dams in
particular?
The second aim is to investigate the dam planning process, and to explore how international standards on good dam practices are taken into account, as well as how upland people respond to these decisions. I scrutinize planning processes and the formulation and implementation of resettlement policies. I aim to understand how these policies have been transformed through implementation, and to explore how resettlement programs are considered in river basin management/development plans. Some of the questions I address include:
• How are resettlement programs addressed in river basin management/development
plans?
• How has the resettlement policy evolved under external and internal pressure?
And how does it get transformed during its implementation at different levels
(province, district, commune, and village)?
• What has been the difference/improvement in dam planning after the WCD’s
recommendations were published in 2000?
• How has the Free, Prior and Informed Consent process been implemented in
Vietnam?
• How have upland people understood and negotiated the displacement process?
5 Finally, the third aim is to examine how the process of negotiation of the resettlement project reconfigured livelihoods in the Northwest. I explore the ways in which hydropower development projects intersect with processes of agrarian change and how this interaction is expressed in and through the landscape. I examine the range of experiences and land use decisions of different ethnic groups resulting from resettlement, and carefully explore the relationships between displacement and agrarian change in the northern uplands of Vietnam. I pay attention to the details of the process, by which resettlement is changed during the course of implementation. I seek to explore not just village-level outcomes, but also how individuals, households, and families negotiate and respond to resettlement, as well as differences among these negotiations at different levels. I therefore explore these issues at cross-scale levels: for individuals, families and communities, but also at the regional and national levels.
This examination is designed to provide insight into the diverse ways that people establish alternative strategies in the context of deprivation, which in turn may help design more effective solutions to resettlement. For this third aim, I explore the following questions:
• How have upland people experienced, and responded to their changing
livelihoods?
• How are differentiation processes taking place in resettled communities?
6 • How do differences and commonalities such as ethnicity, gender, distance from
original settlement, access to land, water etc. influence the emerging livelihoods?
• What are the characteristics of the households that are and are not pursuing certain
kinds of agricultural livelihoods, why have they made these choices, and what are
the various outcomes of those decisions?
In summary, my research connects the issue of ethnic politics, which addresses relationships between the state and ethnic minorities, with issues of dam development, resettlement and agrarian change. These connections facilitate an understanding of how differences within and among resettled communities and individuals are produced, how the resettlement process shapes upland people, and how upland people, in turn, contribute to reshaping the resettlement process and the agrarian landscape in the uplands of
Vietnam. I examine the unevenness in development between the lowland and the upland and within upland areas. Finally, I attempt to understand what lies ahead and what needs to receive more attention from researchers. I argue that dams, even with policy improvements, continue to negatively affect local people, especially ethnic minority groups, and people, despite these effects find ways of resisting whenever possible.
Having worked on dam and river issues for many years, I realized that there were many questions I would never be able to find answers to without conducting careful research. The more I have been engaged with this topic, the more eagerly I have tried to look for explanations for the many issues and problems surrounding it. For me, the work with different environmental groups, as I will explain in Chapter 3, has taken me back and forth to Son La and the Vietnamese Northwest numerous times since 2004.1 found that the Son La dam, on one hand, presents unique circumstances, and, on the other hand, is a typical top-down project. Study results, therefore, can be extrapolated to other situations. Consequently, my focus on the Northwest of Vietnam for my research is deliberate, drawing both on my experience and on the opportunities this area offers for understanding resettlement in Vietnam.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The research questions of this dissertation are inspired by work in two related bodies of literature: (1) Development theory, and (2) Ethnic Identity, State Power and
Resource Management in the uplands of Southeast Asia. I will discuss these fields of research briefly below, and point out the concepts and theories that are most relevant to this dissertation. I begin with a discussion of development theory as the major body of literature/theory that I engage. I examine how political ecology as a body of research emerged from that, and how I have benefited from the insights of political ecology theory in understanding the relationships among ecological systems, the environment, people, and power. Then I focus on four aspects of development: resettlement, livelihoods, resistance, and agrarian changes, including peasant studies. This section is followed by a discussion of ethnic identity, state power and resources management in Southeast Asia.
Finally, I conclude by outlining various aspects of these fields that have been significant
8 for this dissertation. In this chapter, I will only briefly review theses concepts and theories. I will discuss more of the related concepts and literature in chapters that follow.
Development theory
When talking about “development”, people can mean different things depending on particular contexts. One useful aspect of the genealogy of development is traced by
Cowen and Shenton (Cowen and Shenton, 1995). They trace ideas about societal change and development through the 19th century. Cowen and Shenton contend that development understood as intentional intervention - what they call ‘trusteeship’ - was present at the very birth of industrial capitalism to confront the depredations and social disorder wrought by ‘progress’. Thus, they insist that the idea of the intentional practice of development was not an invention of the post-1945 international order. They suggest that the modem idea of development can be traced to where it was first invented: amidst the throes of early industrial capitalism in Europe. In this view, development emerged to ameliorate the chaos apparently caused by progress, to create order out of the social disorder of rapid urbanization, poverty and unemployment.
Ferguson (1990) points out that in literature on “Development”, the word
“development” is used to refer to at least two quite separate things. One the one hand,
“development” is used to mean the process of transition or transformation toward a modem, capitalist, industrial economy - “modernization”, “capitalist development”. On the other hand it is defined in terms of “quality of life” and “standard of living”, and refers to the reduction or amelioration of poverty and material want. He affirms that
“Development” is no longer a movement in history, but an activity, a social program, a war on poverty on a global scale. He also emphasizes that liberal and ‘development’ bureaucrats regularly conflate the two meanings, implicitly equating ‘modernization’ with the elimination or alleviation of poverty, while the critics insist that the two are different and that capitalist development is often the cause, not the cure of poverty, and it is usually not interested in the interests of the rural poor (Ferguson, 1990:15). Ferguson’s as well as
Cowen and Shenton’s analyses are, therefore, useful in understanding the debates about development-induced involuntary resettlement because they offer ways to understand state and other related agencies’ planned development and interventions in a contemporary context.
For scholars like Escobar (1995) and many others (Sachs, 1999; Esteva, 1999;
Ferguson, 1990), “Development” has been the idea of the twentieth century, because it is primarily a set of discourses and practices to develop the “third world”. As Escobar
(1995) reveals, ‘development’ is rooted in the brutal and chaotic transformations shaped in the industrial centers of Europe in the 19th century, but it has served, particularly since
WWII as a ‘star’ signalling the supposed intention of all governments of non-industrial countries to improve the material conditions of their populations and transform their societies into ‘modem’ industrial states. Escobar argues that understanding the process that produces development as a historically singular process requires a sensitivity to regions, political economy and politics. Development, therefore, can both produce the
10 poor and fail to realize ways in which global discourse and local power, and local discourse and global power intersect and reproduce particular regional formations
(Escobar, 1995). Other scholars (Li 1999, Moore, 1999) see development practices associated with contestation, negotiations, compromises and even cooperation. These scholars see development as a site within and through which multiple contestations over power and identity take place. In this process multiple scale perspectives and practices intersect. This is also the site where development-displaced people fight in claiming their territories and resources that are used for development (Vandergeest et al 2007). And this particular idea of development informs this dissertation.
One important approach in doing research on development is through the lens of political ecology, which arose as a critique to a certain brand of development. Political ecology allows researchers to work across scale and recognizes multiple actors as having material impact on landscape and livelihoods. Political ecology is the most recent expression of geographers’ interest in the ideological, material, and symbolic relationships between human society and the natural environment. Like all fields of human geography, political ecology incorporates important contributions from related disciplines, most often anthropology, environmental history, and new ecology, while retaining a distinctly geographical perspective (Neumann, 2005:15). It attempts to link environment and politics by combining Marxian political economy with cultural studies and new ecology (Blaikie and Brookfield, 1987; Peet and Watts, 1996, 2004; Bryant and
Bailey, 1997; Robbins, 2004; Neumann, 2005). All the above-mentioned theories inform political ecology. Thus, political ecology helps us understand how people interact with active ecologies.
Political ecology demonstrates the “environment” to be a fundamentally social and political issue (Blaikie, 1985). Blaikie (1985) argues that environmental problems are at the same time political, economic and ecological. He clearly shows how effective soil conservation involves quite fundamental social change, sometimes influencing people who live outside the affected area altogether. It is because the state becomes involved in soil conservation that soil erosion has become a political-economic issue in the first place.
Blaikie (1985) reconceptualizes land management as an inherently political rather than a neutral and purely environmental issue. Similar arguments can be applied to the case of river development and its induced displacement in upland areas. Broadly speaking, political ecology argues that nature and environmental issues are inherently politicized and cannot be understood in isolation from the political and economic contexts within which they are produced (Escobar, 1996; Bryant and Bailey, 1997; Castree, 2001).
Instead of taking a “human-environment” impact perspective, political ecology moves towards more fundamental questions about who produces nature and with what social and ecological outcomes.
The challenge for political ecology is to combine a traditional emphasis on structural economic forces with an analysis of local factors that shape environmental relations. Local differentiation among resource users, mediated by class, gender, ethnicity, and other social relations, normally condition the micropolitics of struggles 12 over control of and access to resources. Changes in land use, land quality and quantity, species, water flow, etc. are all active participants of the ecology. Thus, a multi-scalar approach is the hallmark of empirical political ecological work.
Political ecology researchers argue that unequal relations between actors are a key factor in understanding patterns of human-environment interaction and the associated environmental problems that, in the aggregate, constitute environmental crises in developing countries. The issue of power is therefore a prominent topic in political ecology research. Some political processes make power visible; they produce conscious reactions that can be described in terms such as resistance, accommodation, or consent. In other cases, power is more diffuse, as are people’s reactions to power relationships (Li,
2007). People resettled by upland hydropower dams have experienced this growing awareness of power relations in their struggle for survival. This awareness helps explain resettlers ’ diverse responses and resistance to displacement.
Even though most of the work in political ecology has focused on the global South
(Robbins, 2004; Zimmerer and Bassett, 2003; Bryant and Bailey, 1997), the approach has only recently been applied in Vietnam and most often with a focus on reconfigurations of urban and industrial environments (Peet and Watts, 2004). Drawing on a political ecology approach can help better examine the politics of dam development and its related issues, such as responses by affected people, in a developing country like Vietnam.
13 Especially, Swyngedouw’s work on the hybrid character of waterscape in Spain has been very useful in my research (Swyngedouw, 1999). Swyngedouw (1999) exemplifies the political ecology approach, with analyses of the role of water politics, water culture and water engineering in shaping Spainish society. In addition, Blaikie and
Brookfield’s (1987) analyses of different types of marginalises offers an effective way of examining lives of resettlers after resettlement. It is critical that an analysis of dam discourse incorporate an understanding of the multiple actors and driving forces as well as underlying power relations within this politicized environment. In the process of damming a river to create a reservoir, all actants are closely interrelated. The non/human have been shaping the process of dam construction and displacement at different levels.
The social and environmental conflicts surrounding dam construction involve the interaction of a variety of actors from the state, the energy industry, to NGOs networks, communities, families, and individuals. Decisions on dam building and resettlement programs are made at the national level, while the direct impacts are incurred by local people. Reservoirs flood forests, farming lands, towns and villages, and infrastructure such as roads, houses, schools etc. When a dam is operated for electricity generation and water supply to cities (typically long distances away), the change in hydrological flow
(higher water levels in the dry season and lower levels in the rainy season) destroys fish and other aquatic species’ spawning grounds, and floods riverbank gardens, among other impacts. Changes in the ecological characteristics of a river also bring about other types of impacts that need to receive more attention from researchers and policy makers. Political ecology, therefore, provides a good framework for the examination of large dams in Vietnam in particular and in Asia and elsewhere in general.
In the frame of this dissertation, through the lens of political ecology, I focus on four aspects of development - displacement and resettlement caused by development projects, livelihoods, agrarian changes, and resistance to development.
Displacement and Resettlement
There exists a large body of both academic and applied literature on involuntary displacement and resettlement. Involuntary resettlers are those uprooted by development- induced projects and programs, such as dams, ports, highways or airports. Resettlers normally remain inside national borders. Development-induced displacement can be defined as “the forcing of communities and individuals out of their homes, and often also their homelands, for the purposes of economic development” (Vandergeest et al.,
2007:16). Displacement can also be defined more broadly to include the loss of access to the means of livelihood, economic activities, and cultural practices without necessarily involving geographical movement (Gellert and Lynch, 2003; Feldman et al., 2003;
Vandergeest et al., 2007). The term “in-situ displacement” (used in particular in Feldman et al., 2003) refers to the form of displacement experienced by people who stay in place but lose benefits or other entitlements. Some scholars assert that displacement includes a situation in which people become marginalized from participation in decisions affecting resource access and management (Feldman et al., 2003). My research will treat displacement as intrinsic to the development of mega projects. I consider both displacement and dam development to be socio-natural phenomena, and explore how powerful forces of capital accumulation, state interests, and modernizing ideology act to support mega-project proliferation (Gellert and Lynch, 2003; Baviskar, 2005). It is crucial to pay attention to the broader historical, social and natural relations of displacement and address the question of how displacement is produced (Roy, 2001; Gellert and Lynch,
2003; Baviskar, 2005).
Involuntary displacements raise major ethical questions because they reflect an inequitable distribution of development benefits and losses. The most widespread effect of involuntary displacement is the impoverishment of considerable numbers of people. In many cases, their livelihoods have not been restored (McDonald-Wilmsen and Webber,
2010; Cemea, 2000). Removing people from their lands, communities, kin, and traditions can radically disorient them and make them more vulnerable to official control (Scott,
1998:235, 251). Scott argues that elimination of local knowledge and control are
‘preconditions’ for imposing administrative order, taxation, worker discipline, and promoting profit (1998:335-336). These problems related to involuntary resettlement contribute to increasing demands for requiring FPIC in development projects.
FPIC has been important in ensuring the sustainability of development projects that cause displacement. The Commission on Human Rights in 2004 emphasized that
“Free, prior and informed consent recognizes indigenous peoples’ inherent and prior rights to their lands and resources and respects their legitimate authority to require that 16 third parties enter into an equal and respectful relationship with them, based on the principle of informed consent”2. The United Nations has been very supportive of this process. The underlying principles behind this FPIC process can be summarized as follows: (i) information disclosure and consultation on any proposed initiative and its likely impacts; (ii) meaningful participation of indigenous peoples; and, (iii) consultation with representative institutions. The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
(UNDRIP) was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2007 and articulates indigenous peoples’ rights in terms of FPIC, which sets out what it describes as the minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples of the world and codifies a series of existing norms regarding indigenous peoples (Carifio and
Colchester, 2010). The WCD’s recommendations also emphasize the principle that decisions about dam projects impacts should be guided by their free, prior and informed consent. Stated differently, affected communities should have power to consent to projects and negotiate the conditions under which they can proceed (WCD, 2000). This is to help reduce negative impacts caused by dam projects and ensure their long-term benefits. Examining the application of FPIC process in dam-induced resettlement projects, therefore, helps show if a dam project follows a good practice according to
WCD guidelines or not, especially when it requires the massive displacement of ethnic minority people.
2 Commission on Human Rights, Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, Working Group on Indigenous Populations, Twenty-second session, 13-19 July 2004, p.5. 17 Research on dam-induced displacement and resettlement is diverse. Resettlement is usually treated as a particular circumstance, with emphasis on compensation, the process of displacement and impoverishment, and the reconstitution of livelihoods. The literature on resettlement does in some cases situate its analysis in a comprehensive understanding of agrarian change (Baird and Shoemaker, 2007; Vandergeest, 2003b;
Baviskar, 2005; Hirsch, 1992; Cemea, 1993, 1999). Changes in the extent and qualities of farming land and other agriculture resources (water, soil fertility, etc.) are among the most critical issues with involuntary displacement. For instance, Cemea (2000), a former
World Bank sociologist involved in creating World Bank guidelines and policies on displacement, shows that the expropriation of land removes the main foundation upon which people’s livelihoods are constructed. Once people are divorced from the land that they have been working on for generations, their livelihoods are fundamentally reconfigured. In general, most of the lost lands are the more fertile land, and people usually have to move to places where soil is poorer and the land is less productive. Land compensation usually fails to restore its land basis, and farmers’ average land holdings generally fall after resettlement (Scudder 2005; Barviskar 2005; Cemea, 2000,1990;
Cook, 1993).
Upland farmers with little formal education have very few options after displacement and often become impoverished landless labourers. In cases where farmers are resettled in ecological zones where none of their previous farming practices are relevant, their previous knowledge is no longer useful, and they lose seeds, tools, and
18 other resources, they must of necessity develop new livelihood strategies. Once they are no longer able to produce a sufficient part of their daily consumption needs, they must sell their labour in order to have money to buy food, clothing and even shelter - things they used to be able to provide for themselves. There is generally an explicit link between involuntary displacement and impoverishment (Dao, 2011, 2010; Finley-Brook and
Thomas, 2010; McDonald-Wilmsen and Webber, 2010; Rew et al., 2000; C Cook, 1993;
Mburugy, 1993). Mega development projects bring about “...material changes in the biogeophysical environment, which in turn influence social organization, values, understandings, and actions...” (Gellert and Lynch, 2003:17). Mega river development projects such as large dams are no exception. My research examines whether or not the same negative outcomes occur in Vietnam as well, and explores how resettlement can cause and intertwine with agrarian change in the northern uplands of Vietnam.
Following Li (2007), I draw on Ferguson in arguing that the development apparatus has consistent, strategic effects-the depoliticization of poverty and the expansion of state bureaucratic power- and that the nature and extent of such effects can vary across place and time. Developers, donor agencies, government agents, colonial missionaries and others may have good intentions to make things better. However, they frequently fail to achieve these good intentions. Furthermore, new development programs keep repeating the limitations of programs they replace. Thus, there is generally a gap between what is attempted and what is accomplished (Li, 2007). In addition, planned development is premised upon the improvability of the ‘target group’ but also posits a boundary that clearly separates those who need to be developed from those who will do the development (Li, 2007:15). In my research, I examine the development policies of the state, and attempt to understand whether the state sees villagers as liberal subjects, as clients in a patron-client relationship, or as obstacles that are in the way of true state development.
Livelihoods
The concept of “livelihood” is increasingly central to the debate about rural development, poverty eradication and resource/environment management. Thus, we need to understand what “livelihood” actually means. A livelihood in its simplest sense is a means of making a living. Drawing on Chamber and Conway (1992), Carney (1998) asserts “A livelihood system comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and social resources) and activities required for a means of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets both now and in the future, white not undermining the natural resource base” (1998:2). Leach et al (1997), however, see environmental entitlements analysis as a useful tool in explaining how consequences of environment change in general, and access to and control over natural resources in particular, are also socially differentiated. The analysis shows how access to and control over resources is mediated by a set of interacting and overlapping institutions, both formal and informal, which are embedded in the political and social life of the area. It also shows that ecologies vary for different parts of the landscape, depending on the institutional arrangements affecting particular social actors. Zoomers (1999) goes further to distinguish four categories of strategies in her study of rural livelihoods in the Andes: accumulation, consolidation, compensatory and security. According to Zoomers, it is important to recognize structural components among these strategies. She emphasizes that geographical settings influence the set of opportunities and outcomes. Zoomers (1999) raises important points that families have different starting points, and that processes of upward and downward social mobility are not absolutely linear. This means that rich people may become poor and a number of poor people may become rich. She shows that there are many factors that shape people’s responses and make the differentiation process happen. This insight is particularly useful for my research in examining livelihoods changes and coping strategies of displaced people in the context of agrarian transition.
Agrarian change
“Agrarian change” means changes in agriculture, as well as in people’s livelihoods and the agrarian landscape. Most research on agrarian change focuses on access to land, labour relations, and migration. Studies on agrarian change in developing countries primarily aim at better understanding of problems, dynamics and prospects for the economic and social development for rural populations (Bernstein and Byres, 2001).
These studies have traced the influence of states in their territories, and provide crucial perspectives on environment, the state, and marginality (Hart et al., 1989; Peluso, 1992;
21 Bernstein, H. and Byres, T. 2001; Li, 2007). Within agrarian political economy, the concurrence of “those changes in the countryside of a poor country necessary to the overall development of capitalism” is defined as an “agrarian transition” (Byres,
1996:27).
Many works on agrarian change in the uplands of Vietnam emphasize agricultural colonization or migration of rural people - either migration of lowland rural people to the upland areas or migration of upland people from the north to the Central Highlands
(Dery, 2000; De Koninck, 2000; Hardy, 2000; Hardy and Turner, 2000). They argue that migration of rural people is a key dynamic in the formation of the frontier. Other related research focuses on land allocation (Sikor, 2004; Scott, 2000), forest devolution in the
Central Highlands (Nguyen, 2006; Tran and Sikor 2006), forest management in northern uplands (Sowerwine, 2004), or development of die marketplace and commoditization
(Michaud and Turner, 2000; Sikor and Pham, 2005). Commodity markets can be seen as key forces transforming the uplands not just in Vietnam, but throughout Southeast Asia
(Sikor and Pham, 2005; Hirsch, 1993, Li, 1999, 2002). These researchers provide a good picture of the contemporary uplands of Vietnam, and insight into how state policy shapes the process of transformation of the uplands and how, in turn, this transforming process reshapes state policy related to ethnic minorities. However, there are very few studies examining resistance, multitude responses and coping strategies of upland people (Turner et al., 2009), and none that link the issue of agrarian transformation and differentiation of ethnic minorities’ responses in dam-affected areas. An understanding of the factors associated with differentiation of responses is necessary to understanding differences in outcomes in dam-related development and their impacts on agrarian change. Bernstein’s analysis (1977) of differentiation o f the peasantry emphasizes that the distinction concerns differentiation both in the sociological sense, which means indicators of inequality in which “social class” is comprised in terms of privilege and deprivation, and in the materialist sense, which identifies class in terms of the social relations of production. I also draw on Hart et al. (1989) who argue that the differentiation process must be seen as a historical-geographical process that is profoundly influenced by economic, political, and cultural forces peculiar to a society and thus may evolve in ways that differ from those in other societies.
Exploring the role of the state in influencing the process of agrarian change and differentiation and how these processes can in turn affect the character of the state can bring a better understanding of the intertwined relationship between state and local landscape and people. Given that the structures and policies of the state differ across countries as well as across geographical areas, the differentiation process will tend to follow different paths in different countries.
When examining differences within a community, gender should be included as an important factor because the interests and opportunities of women and men are not always shared (Li, 1993). The World Commission on Dams (2000) found that women were disproportionately affected by dam projects. As women are often responsible for ensuring the sustainable livelihoods of their families, impacts on these livelihoods 23 through destruction of fisheries, flooding of agricultural land and forests, and displacement often result in women bearing a disproportionate share of the costs. It is often women who are left with the burden of caring for their families, and with finding alternative land and water sources and alternative livelihoods when these are taken away through the development of dam projects.
In brief, agrarian change studies help provide a nuanced understanding of resettlement communities, illustrating how the differentiation process works and what the links are between state development and changes at different levels. Given the multiple factors that affect differentiation - including factors specific to each country — an analysis of rural differentiation must be flexible, and not tied to a rigid paradigm (Hart et al.,
1989). In addition, studying everyday politics in peasant societies, ranging from support for the status quo to resistance, helps understand the politics and motivations behind their behaviours (Kerkvliet, 2009). Ploeg asserted that “central for the peasant condition is the struggle for autonomy that takes place in a context characterized by dependency relations, marginalization and deprivation” (2008: 23 emphasis in original). Their struggle for survival is an everyday experience, and being conscious of that daily struggle is important as it helps us understand who we are working with and in what context.
In studying peasant societies, three key issues must be taken into account: peasant trajectories, mobilization, and representations. In contrast to traditional economic theory, which hypothesizes the disappearance of peasants, McMichael (2008) raises an interesting question about what being a ‘campensino’ means today. According to 24 McMichael (2008), campesinos will always exist. They are not politically passive, but constantly adapt to changes in their locales, at regional, national and global levels.
Peasants creatively reconfigure their livelihood trajectories in any situation that they are forced to encounter. A campesino today, as McMichael argues, is far different from a campesino in the past. He asserts that, even though there are differences in consciousness and tensions between and among peasants and peasant politics and activists, peasant mobilization reaches “beyond the daily round of survival on the land to linking that struggle to a reframing of what is possible on the land in contradistinction to what is being done to the land and its inhabitants by the neoliberal regime.” (McMichael,
2008:207).
The international social movement of peasants such as La Via Campesina provides evidence for this view. People work together in reaction to development policies that have forced hundreds of millions of farmers to give up their traditional agricultural practices and to migrate, and that prioritize international trade instead of food for people.
All over the world, peasant movements and activists have appeared to deal with different issues, including advocating for food security (McMichael, 2008), protecting their land from the state and other powerful actors (Hall, 2008), and assuring their right to access water resources (like anti-dam movements in Asia, Africa and South America -
International Rivers’ website, 2010), among others. Although these are organized movements, unlike the case in Vietnam, these examples are useful to examining the
25 situation of Vietnam. It helps understand peasants/resettlers responses and resistance, as well as identify and analyze what conditions contribute to such politicization.
Resistance
Resistance is popularly understood as being in opposition to state or private capital and coming in both violent and non-violent forms. Meanings of resistance are not only context-contingent but also are shaped and reshaped by different perspectives
(Caouette and Turner, 2009, Amoore 2005, Pile and Keith 1997). Geographers have long been engaged in producing radical knowledge, including the study of geographies of domination, exploitation, possibility of struggle, and resistance. Many works have sought to uncover different aspects of resistance, its forms and meanings (Caouette and Turner,
2009; Pile and Keith, 1997; Scott, 1985). Scott (1985) and Amoore (2005) claim there is a tendency to emphasize certain forms of resistance that are more explicit while overlooking some others that are less explicit-in particular, when resistance seems to blend in with some other types of actions, such as production strategies.
There have been two main flows of thinking that have influenced research on resistance, typified by Gramsci (1971, 2000), and by Scott (1985). Gramsci (1971, 2000) emphasizes visible resistance involving collective actions. He sees resistance as 'counter hegemony', involving a collective in opposition to the state and to dominant groups that support the ruling elites while subjugating others. Scott (1985) challenges Gramsci’s notion of resistance by arguing that occurrences of resistance “require little or no
26 coordination or planning; they make use of implicit understandings and informal networks; they often represent a form of individual self-help; they typically avoid any direct, symbolic confrontation with authority” (Scott, 1985:xvi). Drawing on these concepts of resistance, my research will examine what has happened in resettlement sites of the Son La hydropower project.
Understanding the above four aspects of development also helps me to have better view on the tangled issues of ethnicity, state power and resource management in the uplands of Southeast Asia.
Ethnic identity, state power and resource management in the uplands of Southeast
Asia
This body of research addresses the relationship between ethnic minority groups, state power and the management of natural resources. I first discuss the concept of
“ethnicity” and the relationship of ethnic groups to the state, and then describe various strands in past research work on ethnicity and natural resources management in Southeast
Asia.
The concept o f “ethnicity” in relationship to the state
There are various ways to understand the term “ethnicity”. One prevalent view considers ethnicity as a product of shared descent exhibited in group cultural practices
(Keyes, 1997). This view on ethnicity considers it as a primordial characteristic. Writers generally take it for granted that the term “ethnicity” refers to “a set of named groupings 27 singled out by the researcher as ethnic units (defined subjectively and/or objectively), and these units are then shown to have an effect on, or correlation with one or more dependent variable(s)” (Cohen, 1978:384). Cohen himself (1978) defines ethnicity “as a set of sociocultural features that differentiate ethnic groups from one another” (Cohen,
1978:385).
However, the theoretical assumption that cultures or social structure are connected with clearly-bounded distinct groups has faced a strong challenge over the last 20 years
(Keyes, 1997). There has been another view that considers ethnicity as both constructed and fluid. Meanings of the term “ethnic minority” or “indigenous”, according to this view, have evolved and changed over time. These changes depend on regions and political contexts. For example, in mainland Southeast Asia, ethnic labelling and associated identity issues are frequently complicated by identities being multiple, flexible and variable (Baird, 2008). Scholars who support the view on ethnicity as constructed assert that ethnic attachments arise in specific contexts and for specific reasons (Johnston et al 2000). Research shows that under European colonialism, the classification of people was partly for the purpose of colonizing the “Other,” and that Europeans’ understanding of race and ethnicity were fixed (Goldie, 1995). However, in Indochina (Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam) when the formal European colonial rule ended in the 1950s and 1960s, a new kind of colonialism/domination -- internal colonialism - has arisen, which can happen at various scales and within particular nation states. Some ethnic groups were long dominated by other ethnic groups or cultures through different periods of history, and, accordingly, their identities have been fundamentally shaped by various forms of colonialism (Baird, 2008). Thus, linking the concept of ethnicity/indigeneity with colonialism/domination is useful for positioning people in the context of their relationships with the Others, especially state powers and controls. In fact, examining these relationships has become a key part of postcolonial studies (Baird, 2011). However, it is important to not always link classification systems to particular places, because the concept can be very different in different parts of the world, especially in countries such as China, Laos or Vietnam. In these countries, different ethnic groups are classified by the state as brothers and sisters under the same roof and having equal rights after independence from external/European colonialism. In fact, many ethnic groups have been relocated, under domination of the state, to places with geographical disadvantages. This view of cultures as not necessarily linked to a particular place offers a useful way in which to understand the debate about dam-induced displacement in uplands Southeast
Asia.
Keyes (2002) emphasizes that modem states with nationalist discourses have created a good environment for ethnicity to flourish. In my research, following Keyes
(2002), I consider ethnicity as a relational characteristic often used by the state to divide and control the uplanders and their territories and resources.3 An ethnic minority group will refer to a minority whose cultural heritage is recognized as different from the
3 As pointed out by Keyes (2002), the term “state” may not only be used to refer to the independent nation state, but can also be used to refer to a classical state or colonial state, depending on particular context. 29 majority’s in a way that sets it apart from the dominant national culture (Keyes, 1997,
2002 ).
However, it is also worth noting that the ethnic distinction and identity of upland people are the very factors that make them different from the lowland people (Scott, J.
2009). Upland people cannot be understood in isolation, but relationally vis-a-vis lowland people and the center (modem) state (Scott, J. 2009). As Scott points out, the dialectic or co-evolution of upland and lowland people is critical for making sense of historical change in Southeast Asia (Scott, J. 2009). The development of the state in the lowland and its attempt to expand control to the upland which was relatively stateless was an important factor in understanding the upland-lowland dynamics. Geographical isolation from the centers of state power has given upland ethnic minority people space to resist and avoid being incorporated into the classical state, the colonial state, or more recently, the independent nation-state.
Ethnicity and resources management in Southeast Asia
Writing about the relationship between ethnic identity, state, and resources management in Southeast Asia can be traced back to the mid 20th century, after World
War II. In the 1950s, this research was mainly focused on forest management. During the
1950s and 1960s, there were two main trends in writing related to forest management
(Peluso et al., 1995). One was the work of anthropologists and human geographers like
Conklin (1961) and Kunstadter (1978), who conducted studies on local use and
30 management of forest. The second trend was the work of development practitioners and academics who saw forest and other resources as fuel for economic growth. In this literature, some parts of the region were considered “pristine” or “primitive”, and upland indigenous people were considered backward and using destructive farming practices
(swidden cultivation) (Peluso et al., 1995). This view of ethnic minorities, in fact, is often still used in Southeast Asian states to justify development projects, to resettle upland people, and to restrict their activities. Vietnam and its plans on dam construction and sedentarization programs are clear examples4.
In the contemporary context, a number of researchers focus on state’s intervention and its effects on upland livelihoods, social relations and ecosystems (Peluso, 1992,
Vandergeest, 2003, Sturgeon, 2005). Many struggles over uplands resource access in
Vietnam involve ethnic issues as well. Therefore, the micro-processes of negotiations and contestations surrounding attempts by the state to territorialize or establish control over the uplands and its valuable resources inevitably involve issues of ethnicity (Sikor,
2004, Sikor and Pham, 2005, Sowerwine, 2004, Sturgeon, 2005). The intersection of these presences (ethnic minorities, resources, and highly contested claims on resources) can be called the racialization of resource tenure conflicts (Vandergeest, 2003a). In mainland Southeast Asia, the racialization of ethnicity is linked to long-existing notions of “upland” versus “lowland” peoples and their natural resource practices, which
4 Sedentarization is a process of restricting ethnic minority groups who practice shifting cultivation,to permanent locations (including their cultivation fields and residential sites), often because the shifting cultivation is considered destructive to the environment. This programme is also known as fixed residential and fixed cultivation. 31 produced stereotyped versions of the environmental impacts of these groups
(Vandergeest, 2003a). Racialization is, in fact, often built on ethnic differences and by stereotyping indigenous people.
Drawing on these concepts, my research examines how ethnicity is racialized in the context of Vietnam, and explores how the Vietnamese state and other investors act toward ethnic minorities in a manner that presumes certain characteristics (primitiveness, backwardness, etc.). Chapter 4 will take up this issue in more detail. It also explores how the state’s attempt to territorialize the uplands has reconfigured agrarian landscapes of the uplands, and in turn how these reconfigurations have influenced state’s policies.
Summary
This research connects the issue of ethnic politics, which addresses relationships between the state and ethnic minorities, with the issue of development, including resettlement, livelihoods and agrarian change. The goal is to understand differences within and among resettled communities and individuals, to see how the resettlement process has shaped upland people, and to determine how upland people, in turn, have contributed to reshaping the resettlement process and the agrarian landscape in the uplands of Vietnam. I argue that even though different individuals and groups have different strategies in coping with the changes, they are all active in this process and work hard to minimize the impacts as well as influence state’s policies and their implementation.
32 Prior research in a number of related fields suggests variables that may influence resettlement outcomes. Based on this work, I conducted a multiscalar study of different subjects and agents in different locations and at different scales. My research explores how resettlers were informed and participated in a mega dam project, the diverse ways that resettlers respond to these changes, and their coping strategies. It also investigates the various factors that may explain those differences. Among the factors considered are ethnicity, gender, the resources available to affected people, snd the planning and implementation policies of the state. Using the Son La dam as a case study, 1 examine the outcomes of resettlement and displacement and also the interactive processes and diverse responses that led to those outcomes.
ORGANIZATION OF THE DISSERTATION
This dissertation consists of seven chapters. This chapter has introduced the research questions, presented a theoretical framework for the dissertation and literature review, and described the organization of the thesis.
I Chapter 2 on “Methodologies and Reflexivity” outlines the research methods that
I employed to gather and analyze the data. It also provides background on the study sites,
Phieng Bung 1 and Pu Nhuong, and describes how I came to know these sites and why I selected these sites for the case study. The chapter also discusses the politics of doing research and knowledge production, and shows how these understandings and concerns
33 have influenced my approach to the research. It also details my positionality and subjectivity and the challenges I have encountered in doing this research.
Chapter 3, “Dam Construction in Vietnam: Politics and Driving Forces Behind it”, provides background information on the country’s development, its growing demand for energy, and its reliance on hydropower development. The chapter examines the politics of dam development in Vietnam, the justifications presented for dam construction, and the role of dams in the contemporary development process. This chapter scrutinizes costs of hydropower construction. It shows how dams have been strongly promoted despite the high costs imposed on local people and on the environment. It also examines how the
Vietnamese government has been constantly revisiting its laws and policies related to resource governance, in order to meet international standards and growing pressures from within Vietnam. A general introduction to the Son La dam describes the context in which this study takes place, and also describes the application of national land and water policies in practice - including constraints and weaknesses.
Chapters 4, 5, and 6 present and interpret the results of my field research. Chapter
4, “State and Ethnic Minority Relations in the Damming of the Northwest Uplands”, highlights the relationship between the state and ethnic groups in Vietnam after its independence from the French in 1954. In particular, the chapter examines the state- ethnicity relationship in the Northwest. It emphasizes the relationship between TMi and
La Ha people, in order to get a better understanding of differences between these two groups in their reactions to the state-building and development process. The chapter also 34 reviews land use patterns of northwesteners through different periods of history after independence from the French in 1954, as well as their livelihoods before resettlement.
This information is the basis for characterizing changes that upland people experienced once they were included in the nation-state building and development process. Chapter 4 ends with a section exploring the damming on the Da River. This section describes how the Son La dam has generally impacted ethnic minority groups residing along the Da
River, as well as how uneven power relations exist among different stakeholders.
Chapter 5 “Agrarian Change in resettled villages - livelihood responses”, analyzes agrarian change outcomes, market integration, and dynamics of the differentiation process among resettled communities. It draws on the past research on agrarian change and livelihoods to examine how the resettlement process allowed some families to do better while others did relatively worse.
Chapter 6, “Daily Politics of Resettlement: Political responses”, looks at various political responses of peasants/resettlers at different scales (individuals, families and collectives), from the small site where I conducted my fieldwork to the larger area of the
Son La project as a whole.
In the final section, Chapter 7 summarizes the research and points to some of the possibilities for future investigations. I will also make recommendations for Vietnam’s development policy and for future hydropower planning.
35 CONCLUSION
Dam-induced displacement and agrarian change are two tightly intertwined issues.
Work on dam-induced displacement should include attention to the transformation of upland agrarian landscapes. Costs of development incurred by the environment and by local people are significant. Understanding how nation-state building and development have produced and reproduced landscapes in the uplands provides insight into unequal power relations among different ethnic groups. My goal is to understand how modem state building and its development planning in Vietnam have reconfigured upland people and their habitat, and in turn, how the affected people are able to react, negotiate, and respond to dramatic changes in their lives. By examining the Son La dam at multiple levels and in different places and scales, I explore the diverse ways in which the state controls its people and the ways ethnic minority people in the northwest upland produce and reproduce their culture and livelihoods in the context of being deprived of the resources that they had depended on for many generations, including the river, land, and forest.
36 CHAPTER 2: REFLEXIVITY AND METHODOLOGIES
In any research, the issue of how to find appropriate means of collecting and analyzing the necessary empirical information to throw light on the research questions and the findings is a very important one. Research methodology, as described by White
(1989), involves the selection of general approaches and conceptual frameworks which point to relevant issues, as well as the selection of specific procedures for data collection and analysis (White, in Hart et al 1989: 16). In this chapter I introduce my methodology, how I chose my research sites, and research design.
From the designing stage I have been fully aware that research is a continuing process, full of changes and challenges. It is not just a tidy process that follows a well- scheduled plan. It is also not just a process of going to the field and collecting data in order to produce knowledge. Thus, this chapter does not only discuss my methods, how I collected data in the field, but also struggles within the process: from designing and organizing the research and working in the field to analyzing data and writing. I will start with my biography and research positioning, in which I will first explore the politics of doing research and knowledge production, and how this influenced the way I did my research. I include relevant details about myself that led me to work in this area, explain why I selected this topic, and describe the difficulties I encountered and how I overcame certain challenges. I understand the importance of field research reflexivity and how that influenced the way I conducted my research as well as the methods I chose. This section is followed by a discussion on site selection; and finally there will be an elaboration and analysis of my research design.
BIOGRAPHY AND RESEARCH SUBJECTIVITY
Politics of doing research and subjectivity
I understand that knowledge is a product of interaction between the researcher and research subjects, including both people and non-human entities like ecologies. It matters who the producers are and it matters under what conditions they produce the knowledge.
The knowledge produced depends on the subjectivity of the researcher, which means it is shaped by a whole range of social, political and economic factors (Haraway 1991,
Harding 1991). As Harding highlights, science and knowledge are always deeply permeated by the social relations through which they come into existence, but it is contemporary social relations that create and recreate science and knowledge today
(Harding 1991). Political and social framings are, therefore, woven into both the formulation of scientific explanations of environmental problems and the solutions proposed to address them. Approaches to research are mostly determined by strategic purposes of inquiry, which are in fact closely related to specific political context (White in Hart et al 1989:16). Thus, different political actions and scientific methodologies have led to environmental explanations and solutions that are thoroughly embedded in social and political practices. (Forsyth, 2003:1). The environment and how we obtain, produce and disseminate knowledge about it are highly politicized (Neumann, 2005). Research is also a contested process, with unequal power relations among the various people who get involved in the research - some people may have stronger influence on or benefit more from the research than others. In reality, not only is the knowledge produced shaped through social relations, but so is the act of data collection. And, indeed, this insight applies to how the unequal relations of power influenced my field work. As a researcher, even before I headed to the field I had a strong feeling that I was the one who benefitted more in this process, because it would help produce my PhD dissertation, but I also always believed that my work does have broader benefits.
For quite some time, I struggled to identify who I was going to work with, at which levels, and how those people would react to as well as benefit from my research. I did not want my research to be an exploitative one. It was my hope that people who participated in my research, especially people at the local level, would benefit in having a chance to voice their concerns and expectations. I imagined that affected people might expect that this research could bring some changes in policy or rehabilitation programs that could somehow help them with their new life. In addition, I understood that my research touched some issues that could be considered “sensitive” in Vietnam, and that it might affect my own safety as well as the safety of people I worked with. The unequal power in my research, therefore, can take different forms in terms of which people were allowed to talk and what they could say. Even I may not be able to say certain things that can be “too sensitive”. As a consequence, I have struggled with the issue of how to make sense of my arguments to people whom I encountered in the field, as well as how to make the interview questions acceptable when I was in the field, and how to avoid any potential harm to people who participate in my research.
At the same time, research methodologies should be seen as a means of mutual understanding and learning. I see my research as a result of collaboration, understandings, and knowledge sharing. Taking into consideration these concerns, I found it important to ensure flexibility and openness in doing research rather than a have a rigid adherence to a standard framework of empirical investigation (White 1989). I frame my research around the assumption that the participation of different actors in my research may vary depending on their levels of interest in the topic, knowledge, experiences, situatedness, among others. I also presume that the knowledge produced should be shared, as this helps involved people understand their role and contribution in the research.
In the next section, I describe how my working experience has influenced the ways 1 have engaged in my research topic and produced my knowledge.
Biography
The fact that I have long experience working with both a governmental organization and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) on issues related to dam development in Vietnam was an advantage for my research. I started my career by working with a state organization, the National Institute for Agricultural Planning and 40 Projection (NIAPP). NIAPP is an organization that does research on agriculture and rural development, and implements planning and zoning projects in rural Vietnam. Eight years of working with NIAPP provided the connections needed to travel to a number of different resettlement sites in Vietnam and meet with dam-affected people either before or after their resettlement. It also enabled me to connect to some government officials working on resettlement policies, and to access various master planning documents for resettlement in different projects, including the Son La dam, at both the early and revised stages.
Furthermore, in the subsequent 12 years, working with different environmental groups on river protection issues has helped me to build up more diverse experience, and brought me a more comprehensive view of dam and development projects as well as the costs and benefits to society as a whole. In 2005, together with some colleagues, I started the Vietnam Rivers Network (VRN), an open forum on rivers in Vietnam, and then, in
2006, the Center for Water Resources Conservation and Development (WARECOD), the first Vietnamese NGO working on dam and river issues. These were very important driving forces for me to engage further in researching these issues. During my fieldwork,
I was able to join some of VRN’s workshops on the World Commission on Dams
(WCD), and on resettlement. These were good chances to meet with people doing research on resettlement in other dam projects in the central and central highland areas of
Vietnam. I also had a chance to present my work at VRN’s annual meeting at the end of
41 2009. Active involvement in these networks and organizations has brought a number of insights into my research.
In the field
A Vietnamese saying suggests “in a gourd [be] round, in a tube [be] long” (& bau thi trdn, a 6ng thi dai), which basically means we need to adjust ourselves to fit into a particular situation. In fact, every time we encounter a new subject, we reposition ourselves. Since I am Vietnamese, I do have advantages and disadvantages when conducting research in my own country. The advantages include the network of people and the language I know, geographical locations that I am familiar with, information that
I can have access to, among others. However, the disadvantages are not negligible. I can be more vulnerable and exposed to higher risk than a foreigner when doing research on so-called “sensitive” topics. For foreign researchers, if the government does not want them to do research on certain topics, they simply are not given permission to access the site or access related information. And if a researcher does anything that does not please the government, that researcher may just have to leave the country or never get a visa to come back. Since the Son La dam is a highly controversial issue, foreigners simply are not granted permission to do fieldwork related to the dam. However, for domestic researchers, if they are lucky they may still be allowed to go into the field, but the way researchers write about certain topics can be under surveillance and directed, depending on which institution the researcher is affiliated with. And if anything goes wrong, the researcher can be arrested, quarantined, or “simply” have to meet with police officers every day for enquires over weeks or even months.
Social power is not always visible and tangible, but the distinction between the upland and the lowland, or as James Scott (2009) says, the difference between zomia and the center/the valley, can make it appear more clearly. In general, lowland Vietnamese see the uplands in a particular way - even though things have changed recently and the disparity between the lowland and upland has been narrowing. To the lowland, the upland is still somewhere marginal, remote and backward. Consequently, some people might suspect that I, as a lowlander, hold these perspectives and would allow that to bias my research. I have unlearned much of this perspective during my work with upland people.
To me, working within Vietnam’s upland and lowland distinctions has helped me understand both places better through my concern over lowland-upland power imbalances. I have been particularly interested in the Northwest, first because of its beauty, then because of concerns about the impacts of different dam projects on the region. I have traveled there numerous times since the late 1990s. The Northwest became familiar to me in many ways. However, to the Northwesteners in particular, everyone from outside the region can be seen as outsider. Thus, I face issues similar to what a foreigner might face doing research in the uplands because 1 am also an outsider to a certain degree. However, as the boundaries between insider and outsider can be constantly shifting, there is a question of who exactly is an insider and who an outsider.
Given my past experience and ongoing relationships with people in the uplands, I see myself sitting on the boundary between insider and outsider, and I believe that my boundary position allowed me to see things others might miss. In the end, it is not a matter who is doing research where, but more important how a researcher positions him/herself while working in the field.
So how do I position myself? From the beginning of my research I have always considered myself to be an independent researcher. I have had to overcome the fact that I have been working for an NGO for a long time, and I have strived to avoid the temptation to act as an activist sometimes. I have aimed to make my research as mutually beneficial as possible, and tried to make clear to the people I encountered that I would like to learn from them, and at the same time they could also leam/benefit from what I know or what my research could bring. However, even though I was eager to cooperate and share information and experiences, many of the people who I needed to interview did not share the same view. Each group of actors expressed different reactions while listening to my research proposal. Some of them were suspicious, some were excited but some others felt confused. Government officers did not want information about their “incomplete” work to be dispersed, while villagers were hoping I could help them in some ways to get the benefits they had been waiting for after resettlement.
Above all, working to fit into the local environment was not easy work. I was bom and grew up in Hanoi. If I just did my field work in Hanoi, it would not take much time for me to engage in research because I would be home again, and with a motorbike I would be able to go around pretty much by myself most of the time. However, my main 44 focus was not Hanoi. I had to spend much of my time in Son La, or more specifically in the villages where I conducted my research. Even though I had visited these villages a number of times, every time was short - about a week to ten days - which was not enough for me to become part of the village. For the villagers, I was a “big difference”, especially taking into account the fact that most of the villagers had never left their villages before the resettlement. Even though my skin color is not different from theirs, my hair style, clothes, and the things I used were different from theirs. For example,
Black TMi women, after marriage, have to put their hair into a big bun on top of their head (see photo 2.1). A married woman always wears a dress and is never allowed to arrange her hair differently, except after her husband dies.
Photo 2.1:Black TMi women hairstyle and traditional attire after marriage (by Nga Dao) My hair is short, and that made me not fit in when I was with the other women in the villages. I worked hard to minimize the differences. I lived with the villagers, I ate what they ate, learned to cook what they cooked. I even wore their traditional scarf to hide my short hair sometimes when necessary. Luckily for me, since they moved to the new villages it had become more convenient for the resettlers to go to Muong La town and Son La city so they were becomming used to people having different backgrounds and lifestyles. For example, the dress for men and teenagers has now become the same as that of the majority Kinh. Resettlers, in general, do not wear their traditional dress, except for very special cases. In some resettled villages close to large towns it has become impossible to tell the difference between lowland and upland people (except for married women) by looking at their dress and hair style. These changes helped to make me look less out of place in the villages.
In addition, the Northwest upland is well known for its drinking habits. People drink a lot: they drink during breakfast, lunch and dinner. And, more interestingly, women drink as much as men do. Offering alcohol is also a way of expressing hospitality.
I am not sure if alcohol acts to ease anxiety between residents and newcomers or not, but to local people, the more the guest drinks, the better. It is considered as a “good” sign, which means the guest is “open” or “honest” to the host family. Thai people, for example, when drinking talk about many things that they would never discuss when not drinking.
For example, I learned an interesting TMi saying about La Ha people after a long drinking session in a village: “Thai people eat unclean ginger, but La ha people eat Photo 2.2: TMi traditional women’s head scarf. Author on right (Taken by Nguyen Thi Thuan)
Photo 2.3:Cooking dinner with the host family (Taken by Nguyen Vi Linh) 47 unclean food all year round” (Nguai Thai an gimg khong rira, ngudi La Ha an ban ca nam). I was unable to memorize how to say it in Thai, so I asked them again the next day; they all laughed but did not repeat the saying. Sometimes I would have the funny thought that if I were capable of drinking more, I might have been able to engage in more interesting conversations with the villagers.
There is a clear gendered division of labour, and consequently the strategies that female and male researchers have in order to gain acceptance are different. In Vietnam, especially in rural and upland areas, women are still considered somehow inferior to men.
There are certain kinds of jobs that seem to attach to men, and doing research is one of these. Thus, a woman in the field doing research could encounter problems that male researchers would not face. Male researchers usually receive higher respect when they are in the field than female researchers do, especially for the first visit. It takes more time for female researchers to be respected. When I went with researchers from the Institute of
Ethnology to meet with local authorities, project officers, or the villagers, people always addressed the male researchers during the whole conversations, even when they were answering my questions. Even when I went with my research assistant, people would address him and say hello to him first before turning to me.
In the villages, however, I had a distinct advantage in connecting with the women, and had a greater chance to learn about their lives. Once the women knew that I have two children they seemed to get excited and started asking me many questions about my kids, like: How old are they? Which grade are they in? So on and so forth. Women could spend 48 a very long time talking about their children, and they were also very interested in how I raised and taught my children. They wanted to know if it was diffetent from the way they taught their children. From conversations about children, we could go on to talk about other things-like the lives in the old villages, how things changed after resettlement, and i what were their concerns.
Since I focused on agrarian change, I spent a lot of time talking with men and women about how their farming practices have changed since they moved to the resettlement sites. They were curious about my background, as they had never had any outsider came to stay as long as I did in the village. They were very interested to hear that my parents were professors in the Hanoi University of Agriculture. My experience working with NGOs, my knowledge about farming, livestock husbandry and agricultural extension came in handy. This knowledge and experience helped hie a lot when I talked I to the villagers, as it seemed to them that I understood their work, their concerns, and shared the difficulties they were facing when learning new famting techniques in the resettlement sites.
In the following sections I will describe in detail my site selection and research design, how I collected my data, from what methodologies I used to how I organized them, whether they followed the schedule that I had planned, and what difficulties I encountered. I also illustrate what kinds of negotiations my research had to engage in.
Before I even started my research, I knew that there would be many difficulties, but I was unable to imagine all the challenges that I had to confront. Expected or unexpected, things 49 happened differently in specific contexts and I had to find ways to deal with them either by direct confrontation or detours. Description of the study sites in the following section gives more detail about where and with whom I have conducted my research at the village level.
STUDIED SITES
Since my primary objective was to investigate the on-the-ground realities of resettlement projects connected with the Son La dam, I needed to find villages which had already undergone resettlement. Thus, I focused on the villages which had moved during the first stage, in 2005. This meant that their two years of subsidy were over and that in the last few years they had had to find ways to survive economically in the new locations. I also wanted to pay attention to differences between ethnic minority groups; this led me to choose villages with mixed ethnicities.
Phieng Bungl and Pu Nhuong are among the first resettlement villages of the Son
La dam that I visited in late 2005. They are located in Muong Bu commune5. Both Phieng
Bungl and Pu Nhuong sites are rural planned new villages (di dan tap trung nong thon).
After the pilot resettlement sites in 2003, these villages were among the first villages moved out as the water reached 140m above sea level in 2005. They are within-district resettlers; they moved to Muong Bu from Muong Trai commune, a different commune of the same Muong La district. They had all moved there by the end of 2005. Muong Bu has
5 To ensure confidentiality, names of villages used in this paper are not real names. 50 received hundreds of resettled households since 2005. Total population of the commune is 2,242 households (10,004 people)6 including ethnic Thai Den, La Ha, H ’Mong, Kinh, and Hoa. The majority of the population in the commune are Thai Den (about 85%).
Figure 2.1: Location of Muong Bu commune
[Note: Map of Son La province and location of Muong Bu commune (Adapted from Vietnam Administrative map) Source: Bin do H&nh chinh Vi$t Nam. Nha xuat ban Ban do, 2006]
Unlike the original Muong Trai commune, Muong Bu is not near the river, but there are a number of smaller streams in the commune which people use as a source of drinking water and occasionally for farming. Some parts of the commune are rather dry,
6 Commune’s official report by the end of 2009. 51 for both living and farming. People in this commune mostly live by farming rice (rainfed and wet rice, 90 hectares), commercial maize (1,382.5 hectares), cassava (231.4 hectares, mostly intercropped with com), and livestock husbandry. An average family of four people consumes about 700-800kg of rice per year. If they don’t own wet rice fields, one family of four people will need about 1.5 hectares of maize to buy rice sufficient only to feed them all year round (by the end of 2009, the price of rice was: VND 10,000-
12,000/kg, maize: VND3,000-3,200/kg)7.
Phieng Bungl: is located in a flat area. The name itself means flat land in the
TMi language. This is a very favourable condition for the site itself. The site used to be an orchard of the host communities, Phuot and Nang Phai villages (see the map
2.2.below). There were mostly mango trees and some longan. Many trees were cut down to make way for the new housing. But there are also many trees left in the gardens and in part of the village border. On my first trip here in 2005 the first impression I had was of the seriousness of the dispute over orchard gardens between the host and resettled villagers. For a while I was curious how they would solve this problem and reconcile as neighbors.
Figure 2.2: Map of Phieng Bung 1 resettlement village
7 By 2009 the exchange rate was 1US$=VND16,000 52 i * [ v • / r * T° <*MT*t 0»-X mJI/*<►/ « f *// e°« •«.».*(« <*~*» faU t.U. fk.ow . - ^escf/erh«nf M [Source: Mapped with group of village’s representatives in August 2009 and edited in April 2011] 53 Since the village is in a flat area and near the center of the commune, the infrastructure of the village is quite good. The resettlers had almost everything needed for a good resettlement site when they moved in, including roads, schools, a common house, and water pipes to every house (even though water is not always available). This is also one of the reasons that Phieng Bung 1 is considred by the provincial government as a model resettlement site in Son La. Almost everytime there was a need to show outsiders about their resettlement work, the provincial government would take people to Phieng Bung 1. Twice when I was in the village there were delagations of different Embasies came to visit the site. The province authority used Phieng Bung 1 to show how good the resettlement plan was implemented.There are two resettlement villages on this flat area: Phieng Bung 1 and Phieng Bung 2. Phieng Bung 1 moved here in 2005, while Phieng Bung 2 did not come until in 2007. For my research, I focus on Phieng Bung 1 village. Since this group moved earlier, their 24-month-subsidy from the government was over by the end of 2007. In the three years since then they have had to work hard for their survival. This length of time is enough to see what changes they have been able to make after resettlement. Phieng Bung 1 consists of 68 households of TMi Ben or Black Thai people, who all moved from Num village.8 Before moving, their village was located on the Nam Mu River, a major branch of the Da River. Their lives and livelihoods depended on the river in many ways, from riverbank gardens, water use and fishing to transportation, among 8 Survey data in 2009 54 others. Children learned how to swim even before they knew how to walk. They did not have paddy rice fields but used large farms and crop rotation for subsistence and cash crops. When they first moved into the resettlement village there were only 63 households; 5 additional households were added after the resettlement of married couples. In the old village of Num there was an elementary school, which made the average level of education in Phieng Bungl higher than that of other resettled villages in Muong Bu commune, because many villages before resettlement had only grades 1 and 2 in their village schools. After finishing elementary school, many of the village children continued on to middle school, as they were old enough to commute to school by themselves. Phieng Bung 1 has the same headman, village party secretary and heads of most other political organizations (Farmer’s Association, Fatherland Front, Veterans’ Association, Elderly Association, Youth Union, and Women’s Union) as they did in the old village. The whole old village moved together. There was no intermingling of housing with the host village9 or with other resettlers. Pu Nhuong resettlement site is on a very steep hilly area (see photos 2.4 and 2.5). This is quite typical for a resettlement site due to land shortage after resettlement. While Phieng Bung 1 is a model and a special resettlement case due to its favourable conditions, the situation of Pu Nhuong can be generalized for many other resettlement sites in Son La and other upland regions of Vietnam. The area was known for occasional landslides, 9 In Vietnam, the hierarchy of administrative units is as followed (from top to bottom): Province, district, and commune. There are many villages in each commune. In certain situations there are hamlets within villages. 55 but officials from the resettlement project and the two headmen decided to locate the villages there without doing any slope stabilization.10 Resettlers here are originally from two different villages (Pa Ban and Hin Hon villages) (see the map in Figure 2.3). In the old villages, many of them had paddy rice fields. Their farming was mostly growing paddy rice combined with rotating fields for subsidiary and cash crops. Since the villages were located by the Nam Mu River, they also depended on the river in many ways, just as people in Phieng Bung 1 did. They all moved here in 2005, at the same time as the resettlers in Phieng Bung 1. However, even though the site was designed to be one resettlement village because of its size, the two villages did not want to be merged together, so right after resettlement the resettlers automatically separated themselves into two different hamlets, using their old names: Pa Ban and Hin Hon. Each has its own headman and political organizational system. These new village political systems were more or less the same as they were in the old villages.11 Since Pu Nhuong was originally designed as one resettlement site, there is only one common house and one pre-school class for the whole site, which means that villagers of the two hamlets have to share the common house as well as other infrastructure, including the cemetery, roads, and water supply system. The host communities who shared residential and farming land, water and forest with Pu Nhuong are Sang, Ngoang, and Dong Luong villages (see Figure 2.3). 10 Interview with the President of Muong Bu commune’s People’s Committee, August 2009 11 Merging would have been difficult in part because a merged village would have selected only one headman, one village party secretary, and one leading person for each of the village political organizations. 56 In Pu Nhuong, there is a mixture of La Ha and Thai Den people. During my first visit to the site in 2005 I was very impressed by the fact that, unlike the case with Phieng Bung 1 village, the Thai host community came over to help the resettlers build their houses. They contributed food to support the resettlers. Host village men helped with the house building and host village women with cooking. They actually got along at the beginning. Figure 2.3: Pu Nhuong resettlement village 57 ► 4^ I * * ~ f l ‘ . V>" - ■'tfJ. *1 [Source: Mapped with the village’s representative group in November 2009 and edited in April 2011] 58 Photo 2.4: The main road to the center of Photo 2.5:Transporting maize from the Pu Nhuong (by Nga Dao) field in Pu Nhuong (by Nga Dao) Pu Nhuong resettlement site has a total of 63 households: Pa Ban hamlet (36 households, of which 4 households were newly formed) and Hin Hon hamlet (27 households, of which 4 households were newly formed).12 The families are either TMi, La Ha, or mixed marriage between TMi and La Ha. The average level of education in both Pa Ban and Hin Hon is very low because their old villages had schools for grades 1 and 2 only. After grade 1 or 2, the children tended to stay home, as it was not practical for them to commute to finish elementary school. RESEARCH DESIGN In my research proposal I focused on two major questions: 1) What is the role of dam construction in the state’s attempt to territorialize and “civilize” the uplands? 2) How has the negotiation of the resettlement project reconfigured livelihoods in the uplands of 12 Survey data in 2009 59 the Da River? However, during the fieldwork it became clear that I should also investigate the dam planning process and explore how international standards about constructing new dams have been taken into account in Vietnam, as well as how affected people have responded to changes in government’s decision making related to dam construction. Thus, my methodological choices reflect those multiple goals. Hart et al (1989) specify mechanisms and processes of agrarian change and their linkages with larger political and economic forces, and suggest how detailed local level studies can contribute to a better conceptual understanding of the causes and consequences of agrarian change. They propose conducting research at multiple scales with different actors. This approach has been very usefiil for my own research, as attention to scale plays an important role in ethnographic study. Understanding the issues of resettlement and agrarian change along the Da River requires me to draw not only on multi-scalar qualitative data and village level ethnographic data, but also on historical perspective and documentary evidence. In order to understand differences between Th&i and La Ha groups, for example, I traced their historical relationship, their living patterns, and how their living shaped and was shaped by natural, social and political conditions in the area. Thus, in my research I use primary cross section data collected from the field, combined with analysis of government policies, archives, project documents, reports from local authorities as well as resettlement and compensation committees at different levels. In terms of the timeline for the fieldwork, my research consists of three periods: in 2008 I made a pre-dissertation fieldwork trip for two months to get to know people, 60 identify research sites, and conduct a very basic survey of the sites. The main part of the fieldwork was about 10 months from June 2009 through early 2010. Most of my surveys and interviews were done in this period of time. In 2011,1 made an additional trip for a month to get updated information and finalize the village map. My research, therefore, involves different phases: organizing research; doing research including ethnography, archive research, and primary data collection; and finally, data analysis. I will discuss each stage in detail below: Stage 1: Organizing research As I mentioned earlier, research and knowledge production is a highly political process. In Vietnam, doing research has been controlled in many ways. The rule for doing any type of social research in Vietnam is that a researcher must obtain permission to get access to research sites. A researcher is not allowed to go to a village without a formal stamped document from a higher administrative level. The procedure is as follows: A researcher must first affiliate with an academic institution or a registered organization. The organization/institution has to issue a letter to introduce the researcher to the administration of the province he/she wants to do research in. The researcher shows the letter to the province’s People’s Committee (PPC), and meets with relevant officials. Once the request is accepted, the administrative branch of the PPC issues a document to send to the district People’s Committee (DPC). The researcher brings the document to the DPC, which will issue another document to the commune’s People’s Committee (CPC). After seeing the document sent by the district, the CPC will assign one of its officials to take the researcher to villages where the researcher wants to do research, or the researcher can go by him/herself if he/she is familiar with the area. If a researcher goes to a village without all these complicated procedures, a he/she can be arrested by the police. Given all these difficulties, I could not just go to the villages by myself even though I have been there many times and many people in the CPC knew me. I could go for a visit, but would not be able to stay to conduct surveys or interviews. My original plan was to join some faculty and students of the Hanoi University of Agriculture in their project in Son La. But that plan did not work out, as that project was canceled. I then contacted people in the Institute of Ethnology and received a letter from them to the provincial government. So, for my first trip I went with several researchers from the Institute of Ethnology. Later, I used letters from the Center for Water Resources Conservation and Development (WARECOD), an environmental group working with river issues in Vietnam, that I helped found prior to entering the PhD program. Toward the end of 2009 WARECOD’s team conducted a study of rubber plantations in the northwest, so I was able to join the team for part of my research. WARECOD’s staff were very helpful during my research. They also helped me arrange trip schedules to other districts of Son La province, and contacted people I needed to meet when I was unable to contact them myself. My initial intention was to have three of WARECOD’s staff join the research team with me and not have local people on the research team, as I imagined that it would 62 be hard to get local people involved. However, after my first trip to the villages, I changed my plan. It turned out that a few people at local levels were very interested in learning about what I was doing and wanted to support it. There was no obstacle for them to join the research team. Thus, I narrowed down the research team to two WARECOD staff, and added one person from the commune administration and one from Phieng Bung 1 village. These four people on the research team (two NGO staff and two local people) were my research assistants who helped me with the questionnaires. The two local persons on the team were also my interpreters (for Tai language) When necessary. In my proposal I included questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with the community and with officials, as well as focus groups. I did not list mapping as one of the methods, as I thought I would use official maps for my dissertation. We used all the proposed methods and decided to add participatory mapping for sketching {the villages' locations and ecological layers, making it easier for readers to picture how the villages look. I will explain each of these methods in the following sections. After finalizing my research methods, I held several training sessions for the research team. The purpose of the sessions was to have research team members think critically about research and share previous experiences, including problems and possibilities. I did not want to have a training session where I just gave the research team the plan and told them how the research should proceed; rather I organized the sessions with an attempt to have everyone think about the ways in which research is conventionally carried out and how we might be able to go beyond these boundaries and involve research participants more actively. It was difficult to explain research methods to the people from the commune and village, as they had never been involved in research before. However, they knew the easiest way to approach other villagers and how to explain questions to villagers in order to get the most information. I first designed my questionnaires so I could use the SPSS statistical analysis program for data analysis later on. However, once I did the pre-test survey with a few families, I realized that the original questionnaires were not well designed to initiate conversations with villagers, so I changed them accordingly to avoid being rigid. The answer codes for SPSS narrowed down the answers and sometimes could turn the interviewees off. In general the villagers were excited to be talking about issues that they were interested in rather than simply following items listed in questionnaires, because they hoped their concerns could be channeled to relevant agencies. So, I decided to move from quantitative to qualitative research in regard to questionnaires. However, some of the data such as land area, income and expenditure level, and education can be quantified. The data collection process, in the end, did go beyond the conventional data collection, with active participation from interviewees. The questionnaires aimed to collect information about how villagers perceive resettlement; information about the difficulties people were facing and how they were dealing with these problems; differences in livelihoods before and after moving; differences among households in terms of social, economic, ecological ethnicity and gender; and information about their livelihood trajectories. 64 Stage 2: doing research Ethnography: My ethnographic experience played an important role in my research. It gave me insight into resettlement’s effects on the agrarian landscape in the area as well as on food security in the villages. It also helped me understand connections between old and new villages, and among villagers. I have traveled a number of times, for different lengths of stay, in the northwest in general and Son La in particular over the last five years. I had alscj visited Phieng Bungl i and Pu Nhuong before this project began, so they are not new places to me. For my previous trips, I stayed with several different families. This time, I decided to stay at just one house, that of the Phieng Bung 1 village’s Women Union’s representative13, Tien. The reason I stayed at her house was that she was mostly at home by herself. Her husband was an elementary school teacher, who taught at a school far from their house, so he was only home every other weekend. She was mostly at home with her three sons, who were in high school at the time. The boys as teenagers were also barely home during the day. Her oldest child, a daughter, had married a person from a different commune and moved to his house three years previous. So I could spend lot of time talking to Tien and she could take me around to the houses of her neighbors. When necessary I went to Pu 13 In Vietnam, in almost every village, there are five key mass organizations: Women’s Union, Farmer Association, Youth’s Union, Eldery Association and Veteran Association. Fatherland Front is a separate and ranked as more important organization than the other five organizations. 65 Nhuong (my other research site) during the day time, and came back to Tien’s house in the evening. Every day I got up early, around 5-5:30AM, to help Tien start a fire in the kitchen to boil water. We did not really cook anything for breakfast but it was one of the habits of a Thai family—starting a fire early in the morning. Even though her family was one of the higher income families in the village, they did not eat breakfast. The whole family would have lunch together after the children got home from school. Since I could neither skip my own breakfast nor eat by myself, I bought boxes of noodles and biscuits to share with the family. I always had a very odd feeling - a kind of embarrassed feeling - every time Tien told me that “thanks to your stay, we can eat three meals a day”. She told me that in the old village, almost every family would steam sticky rice early in the morning, the family would eat together and then the grownups would go to work in the fields uphill, far from their houses, while the kids either went to school, stayed home to look after their siblings, or went along to help their parents in the fields. They did not eat again until the afternoon when everyone was home around 5PM. But since they had moved to the new village they did not have as much land to work on, the fields were not too far away and some families could even go there by motorbike, so they did not need to spend the whole day in the field. Thus, everyone woke up early and went straight to work in the fields; when the sun was high, they came home to have early lunch around 11AM. However, in the house where I stayed, since the three sons went to school and the children did not come home until noon, they usually had lunch later, around 12:30PM. Tien suffered from rheumatism in the last few years, so she did not work in the fields. She could not even work in her garden that year because it required carrying water from the pond to the garden. The family ended up buying vegetables almost every day. Tien just stayed home and did all the housework. The boys were the ones who worked in the fields, after school. Her husband showed the children what to do over the weekend. For a few crops, when the children were very busy with school, they even leased their land to some of their neighbors, as they were able manage their expenses with her husband’s salary. Thus, I was able to spend a lot of time with Tien. She taught me how to speak their language - TMi Den (Black TMi). Unfortunately, I could manage only basic conversation, not enough for interviews. Tien also showed me around the village, took me to visit different homes and even introduced me to some families in the neighboring villages. Archival research: It is important that the ethnographic experience be complemented by archival sources and survey methods in order to ensure contextualizing and systematizing the ethnographic data. The relevant archival research focused on state policy towards ethnic minorities and on information about ethnicity in northern upland Vietnam. The main difficulty for my archival research was the access to formal information. During my time in Hanoi, the National Archive Number 1 was closed for upgrading, so I was able to have access to the National Archive Number 3 only. I did find useful information about the Northwest Autonomous zone in the National Archive Number 3, information which reflects the relationship between the newly formed state and ethnic groups in the northern uplands. Language was another problem. Most of the documents about the northwest area before 1954, either in the Archive or in the library of Sociology, aire in French. I do not speak French, and I was unable to bring someone who knows French with me as I could only obtain a reading card for myself. Therefore, it was difficult for me to decide which documents in French to copy and have translated into Vietnamese or English. Fortunately, I finally found someone in the Institute of Ethnology who worked on that period of history, so I was able to get some of the materials I needed. In addition, upon my arrival to Hanoi and then Son La, I contacted people I knew from NLAPP, and VRN and from my previous trips, including some local officials working on resettlement. I met with them as much as possible to seek their advice and information. With their help, I was able to quickly identify other necessary documents for further background research and literature reviews. I also investigated who I should approach for project documents, including the Environmental Impact Assessment (ELA), the Resettlement and Rehabilitation program, and resettlement progress reports at provincial and district levels, among others. My main objective in doing background archival research and literature reviews was to collect more detailed information on the socio-economic situations of the northwest in general and Son La in particular. The history of the relationships between different ethnic groups such as TMi and La Ha was also one of my interests. Unfortunately, not much information on this question is available in written documents at either the provincial or district level; local officials usually avoided comment on this sensitive issue. A researcher is more likely to get a sense of this issue through conversations with villagers, through old sayings or folklore in the villages. Interviews and surveys: The interviews and surveys were conducted with different actors at various levels, from the village to the central government. Even though I created questionnaires for each group of interviewees as well as for open-ended interviews, I mostly used the questionnaires as guides to initiate further conversation, as sometimes people tended to talk about their problems/concems/interests and did not like to be constrained by the formal questions. However, the members of my research team tended to stick to the questionnaires more than I did. I finally conducted 54 in-depth interviews with I government officials at different levels, 12 resettlement project officers, and 34 informants at the village level. My research assistants and I conducted questionnaires surveys in the two villages for a total of 123 households. Village surveys: In both Phieng Bung 1 and Pu Nhuong, about 94% of the households in each site were interviewed. The remaining 6% were unavailable, as they were either away in their old lands for farming or engaged in some work outside the villages. In order to understand historical changes and continuities, the interviews focused on land use and 69 livelihood issues in both their old villages before resettlement and in the resettlement sites ! themselves. Since the research was permitted by the province’s government, there was no third party supervision during interviews. The villagers understood that I was an independent researcher and did not work for any particular organization. They were quite I open about their opinions regarding the difficulties they have been encountering since they moved into the new villages. The account in the following chapters draws from these interviews, unless cited otherwise. Among the 64 surveyed households of Phieng Bungl village, 61 households replied to the survey about their lives before moving. The remaining three households were newly organized or newly married; before resettlement these young people lived with their parents. Their income and expenditures before resettlement were included in their parents’ income and expenditures. Among the 34 surveyed households of Pa Ban hamlet, 30 households replied to the survey about lives before moving (4 of the households are newly married), while among the 25 surveyed households of Hin Hon hamlet, 24 households responded to the questions about their lives before moving (1 household is newly married). In some sections of this dissertation I use the larger Pu Nhuong resettlement site as an analysis unit. For this analysis the data of the two hamlets (pa Ban and Hin Hon) constituting Pu Nhuong is combined, so a total of 54 households in these two hamlets 70 responded to the questions about their lives before moving. However, in other sections I analyze the two hamlets separately in order to highlight differences. 14 Villaeer interviews: Staying in the village had its advantages. It helped me facilitate ongoing, mutual interaction with villagers. Since they were all curious about what I was doing and probably hoping that I could somehow help them to channel their concerns to higher levels of government, they were friendly and open for questions. Many times people just stopped by very early in the morning to say hello or talk to me before they went to the field, or I went over to their houses for a chat after their nap time in the afternoon. It was easy to interact with the women; I could help them with some of their work, like drying cassava or cleaning com cobs, while talking about different things. They usually told me about their lives in the old land, about children, about other villagers and the difficulties they faced when they relocated. An understanding of the power relations through which women’s and men’s participation and experiences are structured is a very important aspect of my research. Leach (1991) highlights the differences in power relations resources. “Women’s and men’s interests and opportunities are sometimes shared, sometimes complementary, and sometimes conflicting. Relations of power and authority, negotiation and bargaining, and the wider social relations in which ‘decisions’ about land and trees are embedded therefore become crucial aspects of resource management.” Leach (1991:19;! cited in Li, 1993) 14 The survey was conducted in 2009. By the year 2011, the number of households in each village increased because more young couples were married. 71 Women and men are in distinctive situations, and these differences influence their points of view and the ways they behave (Harding 1991). In the resettled villages, the perspectives and experiences of women are different from those of men; the views of both reflect their special concerns and interests. It is important to interview women and men sometimes together, and sometimes separately. I believe that a research process attuned to gender considerations can help us understand who speaks and who does not speak in certain situations; whose words are valued and whose are undervalued. For at least half of the interviewed families both husband and wife joined the interviews, as many of the husbands did not want to answer the questions by themselves. Since we focused on the heads of the households, interviewees were at least 18 years old, and married, which meant the interviewee could be either the husband, the wife or both of them. Most young couples had at least two children. Older couples usually had more, three or four children. Language was an important factor that influenced the accuracy of the information I gathered, as I was unable to use my limited Thai language for the research interviews. In the northern uplands as well as in many other rural areas of Vietnam, boys are given priority in terms of going to school. Girls usually have to help their parents take care of their siblings and work in the field. In addition, there is a common thought that girls do not need higher education, that learning how to write and read should be enough. Girls will be getting married anyway, and education does not help to get a better husband. As a result, many girls only finish first or second grade, then drop out of school. But after a 72 while, the girls forget how to write and read as well as how to communicate in I Vietnamese if they do not have opportunity to practice the language. Thus, in my research there might be biased or inaccurate information due to language problems when interviewing girls and women. Even though I speak Vietnamese and most men in the j villages speak Vietnamese, not every woman does. In conversations with couples, i sometimes the husband had to stop and translate for his wife. They discussed the question before giving me their answers. But if I interviewed only the wife who did not speak Vietnamese very well, I needed help from an interpreter — either ojie of Tien’s sons, or a representative from the commune’s Women’s Union. Depending on the interpreter, they could be frustrated as I occasionally could see they were arguing about the answers, especially when we discussed the strengths and weaknesses of government policies, as well as the differences in income between the old and new village locations. For men, I did not need an interpreter as most of them speak Vietnamese. If they i were home they did not have to do the housework so they could sit and talk for hours. Men liked to talk about various things, from what was going on in tjhe village to problems at the commune and even district. They talked about how they fought for their compensation, about problems with their land, their crops, etc. Older men sometimes talked about war time in the 1960s and 1970s, or the cooperative period when the farms were organized into co-ops in 1970s and early 1980s. Each person had interesting stories in their memories. Not everything in the old villages was happy, but it seemed that the stories they remembered from the old villages tended to be the happy stories. Their 73 present life is harder in some ways, and that makes these stories sound bitter. No matter whether the stories were happy or sad, they probably would follow the villagers for the rest of their lives. Kev informant interviews at village level: I conducted in-depth interviews with the headman, the village’s party secretary, representatives from the Women’s Union, Youth union, Veterans, Fatherland Front, and elderly of each village. These were considered to be the village leaders. The interviews were to collect ethnographic data related to the resettlement process, including gender j perspectives, ethnicities, culture etc., and what key people in the villages understand about resettlement and the related policies. In Phieng Bung 1, these leaders were all Thdi, but in Pa Ban and Hin Hon there was a mix of TMi and La Ha people in the village leader group. For these people, I mostly did the interviews myself. The interpreter sometimes came with me, but I only needed his help occasionally as most of these people spoke Vietnamese fluently. I usually came to their houses when they were home after working in the field. Even though each person was responsible for only certain duties in the village, they knew about other things going on in the villages and even at higher levels (commune or district) that could be useful for me when I needed to cross-check information. Group discussion and the mapping: 74 1 With help from the headman and the village’s party secretary, I was able to have group discussions with the Farmer’s Association, Youth Union and a mixed group of the villagers. Tien helped me with the women’s group discussions. She gathered a majority of the women in the village to her house and we had very active discussions about their lives before and after resettlement. Tien even helped me contact the village’s women’s representatives of Pa Ban and Hin Hon to organize women’s group meetings in those two hamlets. These group meetings discussed how the impacts of resettlement differed between the different groups. Photo 2.6: Group discussion and mapping (by Nga Dao) In individual conversations I did not find any difference between how the Thai and La Ha people answered questions. However, in group meetings, La Ha people were usually quieter, even though they were members of the villages’ management boards. 75 There were times when I noticed that La Ha people did not speak at all during the whole meeting. I conducted participatory ranking exercises with groups of villagers in both villages. In these meetings the villagers ranked themselves and other villagers into three main groups: high, medium and low income. They said they also ranked themselves into three groups in the old villages so they could help support the poorer families when necessary. In addition, these group meetings helped me map the villages. The villagers sketched the village location and its ecological inventories. Their opinions were sometime inconsistent, so I asked different groups to cross-check the maps to make sure all the details were correct. The last stage of the mapping was conducted in April 2011, as there had been a number of changes in the villages in late 2010 and early 2011, especially in Pu Nhuong resettlement site. Government official interviews: Alongside community level interviews and focus groups, I also carried out interviews with representatives of the local authorities, government organizations and resettlement officers at both central and local levels. The purpose of these interviews was to get more information on government policies related to the Son La dam, opinions on resettlement issues from policy makers, and implementers’ points of view. They also 76 aimed at getting information about people’s understanding of resettlement; about the planning process, and about implementation at provincial, district, end commune levels. There were many questions that I wanted to ask and information I wanted to know. For example, what rationales were given for the projects? How were the resettlement policies for the project formulated? How were the mandates divided up among the ministries? What were the most challenging issues in implementing this project at province/district/commune levels? If they were allowed to do it all over again, what would they do? Unfortunately, some of the interviews that I had wanted to do were not possible, and sometimes the ones that were done did not provide the detailed information needed, as the interviewees were either not familiar with the issue or reluctant to give full answers. Interviews with people in the following organizations were carried out: • Department of Planning and Policy (under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) • Department of Cooperatives (under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) • National Institute of Agricultural Planning and Projection (NLAPP) • Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) • Environmental Protection Agency (under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment) • Department of Planning and Policy (under the Ministry of Investment and Trade) • Son La management project • Resettlement and Compensation Committee of the Son La project at provincial levels (Son La and Lai Chau provinces) • Son La province’s People’s Committee • People’s Committees of Muong La, Quynh Nhai, Thuan Chau and Phong Tho districts 77 • People’s Committees ofMuongBu commune • Resettlement officials of Muong La district The politics surrounding resettlement issues in Son La has been changing over time, and this has adversely affected anyone who is keen to learn about this topic in depth. During my previous trips in 2005, 2006 as well as during pre-dissertation fieldwork in 2008, the tension surrounding resettlement issues was not so serious. I basically could meet people working on resettlement issues at different levels without problems. However, during my fieldwork in 2009,1 encountered more difficulties while trying to approach and interview local government officers, especially the ones who work on resettlement and compensation issues. The fact that I used to work for the National Institute of Agricultural Planning and Projection (NLAPP) - the organization which created the master plan for the Son La resettlement project - helped me approach national level resettlement officers in Hanoi without much difficulty. Meeting with local government officials and project officers in Son La province was very challenging. I found it more difficult to approach government officials than to approach villagers, because the villagers wanted to use this contact to help channel their concerns to various levels. They tried every way possible for that puipose. Government officials, on the other hand, did not want anything to affect their job. They realized that there were many problems and weaknesses in the resettlement process, but tried to cover 78 them up. As a consequence, the interview process with local government officials and project officers did not go as well as I had hoped. The end of 2009 was a sensitive time, as that was supposed to be the deadline for all the resettlers to move out of the submerged area, but in fact many of the resettlement sites had not yet been completed. So, local government, especially at the province level, was very suspicious of any outsiders who came to do anything related to resettlement issues, as they did not want any information about the resettlement situation to become known to the public. In fact, while I could still meet with the few people I already knew from when I started working on the Northwest in 2005, meeting with new people was a totally different story. My appointment requests were refused for up to two months. I finally had to contact one person, who I knew from my first trip to Son La in 2004 and who then became an active member of VRN, for help. He sympathized with my work and agreed to contact his friends in Son La province’s People’s Committee. He told them that I was just a researcher doing my PhD, not a journalist. Apparently, they were more afraid of journalists than researchers. So I finally got permission to formally meet with some senior officers at the provincial level. One of the officers whom I had known for quite some time told me that just a few weeks before I was there some officials in the Son La province government did an interview for VTV1-- a national television channel-- about the resettlement progress. This interview was later criticized by the province’s chairman for leaking information to the press. Nobody wanted to meet with outsiders regarding the issue. That fact negatively affected my meetings with some of the provincial officials. Even though people knew that I was a PhD student doing research, the word “interview” (phong vdri) was avoided during any meeting at the province level. They preferred the word “conversation” (trao doi/tro chuy$n). This also meant that, at the provincial level, the way to ask for information played a critical role in actually getting the information. In addition, selecting a time and venue for interviews was a challenging task in order to achieve desired outcomes. Even the people that I had known for a few years never really talked while in their office. The information they provided followed the direction of the central and local governments. They did not express themselves or say anything that could potentially affect their jobs. An appointment in a caf6, pub or restaurant could bring a much different result compared to an appointment in the office. People could talk about things sometimes in a way totally different from what they were willing to say in at work. For example, when I interviewed a resettlement officer in Son La province in his office about the progress of the resettlement process in his province, I asked if there had been any resistance from the resettlers: he flatly said “no” and tried to explain how resettlers followed the plan without much problem. His answer came almost instantly after my question. However, once we met after that for lunch with some other common friends, he told a different story: about how the resettlement had been delayed, resettlement sites were not ready before people moved in, how difficult it was to convince villagers to move, so on and so forth. Even though I usually had to meet with people more than one time, I could not get all the information I wanted. And many times I had to skip a number of questions that people did not want to answer. District officials were also suspicious about my research, especially resettlement officers -- the ones who were responsible for resettlement and compensation work. Interviewing them was a failure, as I was unable to get much information from them except what was already in the formal report. Commune officials still needed a stamped document from the district before accepting me as a researcher in their bailiwick, even though I had gone to the commune many times. As long as they saw the stamped document from the district that allowed me to come to the commune (sometimes even without reading it carefully), they agreed to answer my questions, but were very careful not to say anything outside the box. The local officials in this area did not seem to differentiate among NGOs or researchers. To them, I was someone from Hanoi who may disseminate the problems they were facing. However, there was one thing I could do well in these meetings. For almost every meeting with government officials, no matter at what level, I tried to mention some of the problems that the resettlers had been facing. One way or the other, I did as much as I could to channel resettlers’ concerns/problems to relevant competent agencies, because these bureaucrats, especially from the central to district level, did not often visit the field and might not have been fully aware of what was going on there. Usually they were reluctant to receive the information or just simply kicked the ball to others; they claimed that was somebody else’s responsibility, not theirs. For example, when I commented about damage to the road and water pipes in Pu Nhuong resettlement site, the project officer at district level said that it was the responsibility of the commune and the villagers 81 themselves to protect their infrastructure. When I talked to people of the commune’s People’s Committee, they said that the project did not have any agreement to hand over the road to the center of the village and other infrastructure to the commune and the village after its construction. According to the commune, the road was ruined shortly after its completion because it was located in a landslide area (Photo 3.1); it was the project’s responsibility to repair it. The CPC ended up sending a request to the district for new road and water pipe. However, in my last visit in 2011, nothing was repaired yet. Use o f memories and stories: Even though I went to Son La a few times before people resettled in 2005, and I understand land use situation and lifestyle of Thdi and La Ha people in Son La in general before resettlement, I did not have a chance to visit Phieng Bung 1 and Pu Nhuong before their resettlement. Thus, for the case of Phieng Bung 1 and Pu Nhuong villages, I have to rely on people’s recalling about their past experience as a source of information. This has its limitation due to the effect of nostalgia. I understand that memrories are so selective and they are stories and depend on preople’s present situation. I do my best in balancing what I knew about their life before and what I heard during my interviews in 2009 to illustrate their pre-resettlement life. Stage 3: Data analysis and writing Although 1 began some data analysis during the above-tdescribed stages, the majority of the analysis was completed upon my return to Toronto. Data analysis had several different stages: transcription of interview tapes, integrating interview data with 82 fieldwork notes and maps, and analysis of the data. I did all the transcriptions of the interviews myself. I reviewed all the tapes before transcribing them. Then I categorized the tapes and dated them to make it easier to use them later. I finalized them using my fieldwork notes and the maps drawn by the villagers. The specific procedures of data collection I selected affect the method I use to analyze data and vice versa; after all, I make my own choices about how to interpret the information and data. I found it easy to use Excel to analyze household socio-economic data from relatively small villages like the ones I studied. I ended up not using NVivo after a few times trying it, as sometimes it did not work properly and I did not want to spend too much time fixing computer problems. I ended up transcribing and coding the data manually. Final remarks As I illustrated above, my research was not an easy process. It involved many adjustments, and negotiations. Instead of going straight forward, I encountered many obstacles and frustrations during that long process. Planned schedules changed and new issues arose. However, in the end, my research was a combination of action, participation and mutual understanding among various actors. I have continued to keep in contact with the people I worked with in Vietnam, even after I returned to Toronto, keeping them updated about my writing progress as much as possible. The politics surrounding research, the complexity and difficulties, do not end with the fieldwork. They have appeared constantly during the writing process of this 83 dissertation and other papers for publication. As much as I want to be both an activist and an academic, I find myself struggling to make sense of my arguments; searching for answers to the questions I pose for myself: For whom will my writing be useful? And for what purpose? I want to do my best to write in a way that makes my research not only beneficial for my own purposes - my doctoral dissertation and career- but also somehow useful for the dam-induced resettlers, or for people affected by development projects in general, for policy makers, and also for environmental groups like VRN and WARECOD who are fighting for the benefit of affected ethnic minority groups as well as for the well being of the rivers and environment in Vietnam. Sharing some of my preliminary findings at VRN’s annual meeting in November 2009 was just a small contribution of my research, and it is still far from enough. I need to make my research more useful and approachable to a wider audience, in ways that help improve development policies and their implementation in Vietnam. These concerns serve as guidelines for me in the analysis of the following chapters. In addition, I also plan to write separate reports for general circulation after I finish my dissertation. 84 CHAPTER 3: DAM CONSTRUCTION IN VIETNAM: POLITICS AND DRIVING FORCE BEHIND IT15 INTRODUCTION Energy has been playing a crucial role in Vietnam’s economic development. The role of energy was highlighted in the state’s development policy as emphasized by Mr. Hoang Trung Hai, Deputy Prime Minister, in his speech on the occasion of 50 years anniversary of the establishment of the government’s Electricity Agency16: “In any circumstance, the energy sector should always be developed before other sectors .. .especially now in the era of industrialization and modernization, the energy sector’s role and mission should be the top priority” (EVN, 2009:2) Energy demand in all sectors has recently increased significantly, in parallel with economic growth including industry, service, agriculture and domestic use. The annual rate of increase of commercial electricity production for the period 1995-2009 was 15%. In order to meet this energy need, the government has approved master plans for each of the country’s large river basins having high hydropower potential17, leading to an explosion of dam building all over the country. According to an official report on the energy sector, Vietnam has great potential for hydropower development (Lam, 2005). 15 Part of this chapter was previously published in the Water Alternatives Journal in June 2010 and the Journal for Vietnamese Studies in Summer 2011. 16 On July 21,1955, Minister of the Industry and Trade signed Decision 169-BCT/ND/KB to establish Electricity Agency, the first government’s organization responsible for managing electricity under the newly independent Vietnam. 17 “Potential” here refers to what planners project to be the total hydropower capacity of Vietnam. 85 From 2000 to the present, hundreds of large, medium and small dams for hydropower production and irrigation have been planned and constructed. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, hydropower produced about half of the country’s electricity. Extensive hydropower development has become a high priority for the Vietnamese Government, which considers hydropower to be one of the lowest cost sources of new power. In 2009, total power production reached 83 billion kWh, of which 33.24% came from hydropower (EVN report, 2009). Even though that percentage has been going down over the last few years, hydropower is still being rapidly developed and will continue to constitute a high percentage of the energy sector. Figure 3.1 shows that electricity generation from hydropower is highest by 2009. Figure 3.1: Electricity generation by fuel types and structure (EVN/1PP) in Vietnam (*) 7000 6000 5000 Hydropower 4000 ^ — Thermal power (coal) 3000 —— Turbine gas Diesel 2000 — IPP 1000 1954 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 [Source: Electricity of Vietnam report, 2009 (*Note: Before 1975, the data only covered the North of Vietnam; IPP=Independent Power Producer)] 86 Hydropower dam construction in Vietnam brings a number of benefits: providing I water for irrigation and domestic use; providing electricity to light cities and support industrialization; and helping to prevent floods downstream. Beneficiaries of dams are diverse, but they don’t usually know much about the dam itself. People who do not live in the vicinity of the dam site normally pay more attention to what they expect to receive from dam building than they do to the localized impacts. Very little attention has been paid to the costs or negative impacts of the dams until recently (Dao, 2010). In fact, dams in Vietnam can have extensive consequences for the environment and for social and cultural landscapes. There are also major consequences for land tenure for upland people, since the state and developers have claimed rights on the land people have owned for many generations (VUSTA, 2006, Dao, 2011, Tran 2011). Development of dams in Vietnam has dispossessed hundreds of thousands people in the uplands, with loss of their lands and livelihoods. The same people who lost their land and livelihoods to make way for dams were the ones who were projected to get the most benefit from construction of the dams by the state and private sector. Instead, many have either become landless paid workers or struggle to make their living on tiny plots of land they received from compensation after resettlement. As a result, dam-induced displacement and power generation are contemporary issues with relevance to all upland areas in Vietnam. This chapter shows how dams have been strongly promoted despite the costs incurred by local people and the environment. It also examines how Vietnam has 87 I continually revisited its laws and policies related to resource governance, in order to meet international standards and pressure from its internal society. However, improvement in policy may not bring many improvements in the practice associated with dam planning and implementation in Vietnam, as I show later in this chapter. In this chapter I will examine the justifications for and politics of dam construction in Vietnam. Dams are justified as an important tool for development, as a symbol of modernization, and as the unavoidable consequences of the Vietnam “Doi moi” policy and its integration into the world economy. Dams can also be seen as an effective tool of the state in accumulation for socialist development in Vietnam. The following section examines the politics of dam construction in Vietnam: the specific ways in which dam building has been promoted for national economic growth; changes in development policies in terms of land and water resources; the costs incurred by local people and the environment; and how systematic cost underestimation has been one of the main facilitators of Vietnam's recent hydropower boom. Finally, an introduction to the Son La dam project provides the context within which this study takes place. This section describes the actual application of land and water policies in practice - including constraints and weaknesses. DAM DEVELOPMENT IN VIETNAM What do the dams stand for? 88 Development and modernization In Vietnam, dams have become a symbol of development, and perceived as a prerequisite for industrialization, modernization and globalization (Gellert and Lynch, 2003). For many people, especially government officials and developers, the negative impacts of big dams such as Hoa Binh are negligible compared to the benefits the dams have brought, and still bring, to the national economy (Nguyen^ D.,0., 2009). In the 1980s and early 1990s, for example, postage stamps featuring images of the Hoa Binh dam trumpeted a potent symbol of modernity (Dao, 2011). Dams are considered by the State and investors as a key factor of modernization, and fuel for the country’s economic growth (Trang, 1995; Son La, 2006; Dao 2009). They are also justified as a way to improve the livelihoods of ethnic minorities in the uplands of Vietnam and narrow the gaps among various ethnic groups and between the upland and the lowland (Trang, 1995, Son La 2006). This idea of dam development embodies Vietnam’s modernization process. It expresses how modernity is deeply and inevitably a geographical project in which the intertwined transformations of nature and society (Smith, 1991) are an expression of changing power positions among different actors in water related issues. Social space produced in this process contains a great diversity of objects, both natural and social, things and relations. Hydro-social developments in Vietnam, thus, are not socially or 89 politically neutral, but express and reconstitute physical, social, cultural, economic or political power relations (Smith, 1991, see also Kaika, 2006, Swyngedouw 2007). Accumulation for socialist construction during “Doi Moi” Dams in Vietnam are not just symbols of modernization and industrialization. They are also a result of the process of accumulation by dispossession for the so called “socialist” construction during the country’s economic reform, “Doi Moi”. Developmental states (those with state-led macroeconomic planning) find themselves increasingly pulled into the open market with new institutional arrangements such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). For a country like Vietnam, having traveled on a long and difficult road of development from a central planning to a market economy, the role of international institutions like the World Bank (WB) and IMF has been very important in its reform process. The WB and IMF’s structural adjustment programs in Vietnam were requisite conditions for Vietnam’s further loans from the WB and other multilateral institutions to invest in infrastructure, health and education projects. These development policies can produce widespread indirect and direct displacement. An example is the construction of dams on rivers throughout Vietnam despite their potentially destructive impacts. Some scholars even argue that the rapidly transforming landscape of Vietnam represents the birth of a hybrid model of development 90 that combines the worst of central planning and state control with the worst of capitalist exploitation (O’Rourke, 2004). In this view, economic transition in a so-called “socialist” country like Vietnam can, on one hand, be good for the country’s economic growth but, on the other hand, may be worse for the environment and for communities. The economic transition promotes dispossession processes and further marginalizes certain groups in society. Examining the Son La dam as a dominated space, and exploring how the state justified the dam and how it has been dealing with the problems faced by local people and the environment, can reveal very interesting lessons. The following sections will focus on the process of dam building and river basin management in Vietnam. Politics of dam development and river basin management in Vietnam The topic of dam-related displacement has long been considered sensitive in Vietnam. Although the first study on impacts of dam development in Vietnam was conducted in the early 1990s (Hirsch et al., 1992), only a few researchers studied this subject until the Vietnam Rivers Network (VRN) (founded in 2005) began to publicize the issue. VRN has played very critical role in bringing dam related issues to public attention. Since its establishment, scholars and activists who are members of VRN have shown how the state and investors trumpet dams as a key factor of modernization and fuel for national economic growth, while downplaying their negative costs. These powerful actors justify dam building as a way to improve the livelihoods of ethnic minorities in the uplands of Vietnam (Son La, 2006; Dao, 2011). Thus, the politics of dams in Vietnam is the kind of politics envisioned by central elites for whom a vaguely conceived “nation” matters more than the actual, local people whom these projects disproportionately affect. This is everyday politics - the politics that concerns the control, allocation, production, and use of resources and the values and ideas underlying those activities (Kerkvliet, i i 2010). The following sections describe how decisions on dam bjuilding are made and recent development trends and policies, as well as die costs and problems dam building has caused. Dam ptannine and approval procedures In order to support its energy development plan, the government’s Decision No 66/2006/QH11 on electricity investment divides energy projects into four different types: national level projects, and projects in the groups A, B, and C (Table 3.1). This classification helps define who has authority in decision making over which type of project (Table 3.2). For non-state-funded projects, investors also have to request a project appraisal and project approval from relevant authorities including Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), and provincial government. Investors make decisions about investments and are responsible for the project. According to the policy, investors are only allowed to start their projects after having projects appraised. Thus, in policy, decisions on dams are supposed to be made 92 depending on their scales and impacts. In reality, many other factors affect decisions and impacts are not always properly considered, as I will show later. Table 3.1: Dam project classification Group Classification National level Total investment budget > VND20,000 billion, of which 30% or project more is government budget (A project must Appropriate either >=200 ha of watershed protection forest; or hold at least one of >=500 ha of coastal protection forest; or >= 200 ha of special forest these conditions to land; or >=1,000 ha of production forest (National Reserve and be justified as Conservation areas are not allowed to be appropriated). national level) Displacement of >= 20,000 people in the upland areas; or >=50,000 people in other areas. Project is located in area which is of special importance to national security Group A Total investment budget >VND 1,500 billion Group B VND75 billion Group C Total investment budget<=VND75 billion [Source: adapted from Nguyen, 2009] Table 3.2: Decision-making authority for state funded dam projects Project group Project appraisal Investment decision-maker National level National Assembly makes Prime Minister approves national projects decision on investment, Prime level project^ based on National Minister sets up a National Assembly’s decision as well as Appraisal Committee. National other important projects. 1 Assembly is responsible for organizing project appraisal before project approval. 93 Group A Ministerial level Ministry and province authority Group B Provincial level Ministry and province authority Group C Provincial level Ministry and province authority [Source: adapted rom Nguyen, 2009] Enerev trends and forecasted hydropower development Since Vietnam’s independence in 1954, the development of multi-purpose reservoirs for electricity generation, irrigation and flood control has received much attention from the Vietnamese state and the governing Communist Party (Nguyen, D.O., 2009). Hydropower potential in Vietnam is located mostly along the 10 largest river systems: Da, Lo-Gam-Chay, Ma-Chu, Ca, Vu Gia- Thu Bon, Tra Khuc-Huong, Se San, Ba, Serepok, and Dong Nai (see Table 3.3).19 Of these ten, the Da, Lo-Gam-Chay, Se San and Dong Nai river systems have the highest hydropower potential, accounting for 75% of the total (Lam, 2005). By 2009 a total of 1,967 reservoirs with water holding capacity above 0.2 million m3 had been built all over the country (Dao, 2009), on which 23 large and medium electricity generating plants are operating, with a total installed capacity of 6,200MW. The annual average generating capacity of these plants is about 26 billion kWh (Nguyen, D.O., 2009).20 18 Province authorities make decisions on project investments in Groups A,B,or C based on budgetary availability. Provinces usually support these investment decisions. 19 These are the 10 largest rivers in terms of hydropower potential. The Red and Mekong rivers are not included because they have no hydropower potential within Vietnam’s territory. 20 “Potential” here refers to what planners project is the total hydropower capacity of Vietnam. 94 Table 3.3: Hydropower development potential in Vietnam River basin Potential Potential Potential annual number of installed electricity hydropower capacity (MW) production plants (billion kWh) 1 Da 7 6,800 27.2 2 Lo-Gam-Chay 9 1,500 6.0 3 Ma-Chu 7 760 2.7 4 Ca 3 470 1.8 5 Vu Gia-Thu Bon 8 1,250 i 4.5 6 Tra Khuc-Huong 2 480 2.1 7 Se San 8 2,000 9.1 8 Ba 6 650 2.7 9 Serepok 5 730 3.3 10 Dong Nai 15 2,900 11.5 Total from plants with a generating capacity 70 17,540 70.9 >30 MW/plant Total small hydropower plants with a generating 7,000 29.1 capacity <30 MW Total 24,540 100.00 [Source: adapted from Nguyen, 2009] According to an IMF report, from 2001 through 2006, Vietnam experienced an average annual economic growth rate of about 7.3% (IMF, 2009). Over the same period, 95 demand for electricity from the industrial sector or for domestic consumers increased even more rapidly. Currently, only about 20% of the cost of a hydropower project (those costs for equipment purchases) is calculated at international market prices; the remaining 80% is calculated based on “Vietnamese prices”, which do not take costs of externalities seriously into account.21 This accounting practice renders the stated costs of hydropower investment far below actual and accrued costs.22 Thus, a systematic underestimation of costs is one of the main facilitators of Vietnam’s recent hydropower boom. By 2005, the Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN), one of the largest state-owned utility companies, produced 80.6% of all the electricity generated within Vietnam, of which about 40% came from hydropower (Lam, 2005). Vietnam’s new Electricity Law, passed in 2005, envisioned major changes for the sector, including extensive equitization of EVN power generation assets and a greater role for domestic and foreign investors to meet new demand. Nonetheless, EVN remains dominant in the energy sector and, in late 2009, still produced 67% of Vietnam’s total electricity, of which 48% comes from hydropower (Pham, 2009). The reason for EVN’s continued market domination was summed up by Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, Do Huu Hao: “With electricity prices as low as 5.5 US cents/kWh, no private investor dares invest in the sector.” (EVN, 2010) 21 Information provided by an officer from PIDC Nolin an interview on July 10,2009. 22 Interviews with officers from the PIDC (Power Investigation and Design Company) No. 1 during the fieldwork in 2009. 96 According to Vietnam’s Power Development Plan (PDP) VI for the period 2006- 2015 and looking towards 2025, targeted energy growth operates on a baseline scenario of 17% annual increase and forecasts a high scenario of 20% increase per year.23 For every one percent increase in GDP, power output must increase by at least two percent. According to this plan, hydropower will be developed rapidly in the next 5-10 years and will continue to constitute a high percentage of the energy sector. Thus, in order to achieve these energy growth targets, Vietnam will need to maximize its hydropower development. Indeed, the country is expected to reach 90% of its total hydropower potential by 2025. During the period 2016-2025, development of residual hydropower capacity will focus on pumped-storage projects, in both the north and the south. When I domestic hydropower potential approaches its limit (with only about 1,000MW left untapped), EVN plans to move on to Laos and Cambodia to develop hydropower resources in these countries (Nguyen, 2009). In sum, hydropower has been developing with an unstoppable speed in the last two decades and the government plans to continue this rapid development. Policy in development - demand for improvement Another important facilitating condition for hydropower development is the state’s claims on land. The Vietnamese state confirmed its ownership of all land within its boundaries immediately after its establishment in 1945. This included both lowlands, 23 The plan was approved by the Prime Minister on 18 July 2007 (Decision No 110/2007/QB-TTg). 97 where the majority of the Vietnamese (Kinh people) have resided for thousands of years, and upland areas, where many different ethnic groups have also lived for generations. Along with the development of the Vietnamese modem state, a series of laws related to I resource governance (such as the Land Law, the Law on Environmental Protection and the Water Law) have been promulgated. These laws and policies have been revised and amended constantly in order to support the government’s goal of more effective resource management. In the early 1990s once the country opened its economy and began pursuing its open development policies, pressure began to mount from international and environmental groups promoting better accountability, transparency and participation in the development process. The government in general has begun to pay more attention to I these issues. Since then, the government has also increasingly recognized issues critical to dam development, such as land tenure, resettlement, local participation, environmental protection, and water management. This was realized in promulgation of new laws (Land Law, the Law on Environmental Protection, Law on Water Resources) and related policies as I will elaborate further in the following sections. Many different factors have led to these positive changes, including external pressure from donors, and internal demands from affected people, local authorities, academics, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the media (Dao, 2010). The growth of environmental groups and increased access to development policies provided by international organizations 98 have provided a broader audience with the opportunity to compare Vietnam’s policies with those of other countries which, in turn, has stimulated domestic pressure for reform. There has been a clear shift over time in the policy and planning process for dam- associated displacement of local populations. In the past, Vietnam did not have a resettlement programme for situations where the state enclosed land for its own interests. Now, however, the government is in a process of adjusting its resettlement policies to be in compliance with international standards, and to respond to internal pressure resulting from problems with resettlement outcomes in the past. So, how have resettlement policies evolved over time? And how have resettlement programmes been implemented in Vietnam? In the next section I will outline how policies have changed. Land and resettlement policies In order to understand better how the resettlement policy ip Vietnam has evolved over the last few decades, it is important to examine the legal aspects of land and resettlement, with a landmark in the year 1992, six years after the country opened its economy and implemented its reform policy. Before 1992, land was not considered to be an asset belonging to a household. When required, the government could take the land with very little compensation, or compensation was paid only to the government enterprises or collective organizations that had used the land. The compensation was mainly based on individual agreements, since no clear compensation classifications were defined. The resettlement process was carried 99 out by cooperatives and communes’ People’s Committees. These units simply persuaded people to move out, without planning for rehabilitation. A resettlement site was typically a residential area without much farming land or favorable conditions for livelihood I restoration (Trang, 1995). Because of this, clearing forest was the main way for re-settlers l I to obtain new farmland (Trang, 1995; Pham, 2000).24 Land tenure reform in 1992 was a benchmark in land management and allocation in Vietnam. The reform was embedded into general economic reforms (Doi Moi), enabling the country’s transition toward a market economy. It emphasized land reallocation to farm households and allowed households to decide what to do with the allocated land. The key law was the Land Law (1993). The Land Law 1993 specifies the l rights and obligations of people who have been assigned or leajsed land (land users), l based on which they have the right to change, transfer, lease or mortgage land use rights. Furthermore, they are entitled to compensation for any land loss. The Land Law was instrumental in improving resettlement policies and planning processes for development projects, as we will show in the following sections (Dao, 2010). During the period 1993-1997, for resettlement projects such as the Yali Falls dam, investors were required to negotiate with the provinces’ governments on issues of land and other compensation, because the investors were responsible for implementing the resettlement component. Starting in 1994,25 along with the IMF (International Monetary 24 Also from the author’s interview with a local official in Hoa Binh in 2006. 25 The US embargo on Vietnam was lifted in 1994. 100 Fund), ADB (Asian Development Bank) and JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency), the World Bank became one of Vietnam’s major donors. Its influence on the country’s policies has increased ever since. In 1997, with support from the World Bank, the Vietnamese government implemented a national policy of resettlement, in order to establish standards for compensation and resettlement for those affected, and to reach an agreement between the World Bank and the Vietnamese government on policies that could be applied to all national development projects (Dao, 2010). Since 1998, resettlement policies have undergone further changes. Decree 22/1998/ND-CP identifies the subjects to be compensated. According to this Decree, legal land users will receive compensation for land and its associated assets, and investors are required to complete the construction of resettlement sites before people move in. A revised Land Law in 2003 provides more detailed land recovery instructions.26 Responsibilities for resettlement implementation were given to local governments instead of to project investors. The argument was that local governments understand their people, as well as the social and physical conditions in their areas, better than investors do. In 2004, Decree 22/CP was replaced by Decree No. 197/2004/ND-CP on guidance for compensation, assistance and resettlement when appropriating the land of affected households. Decree 197 contains more detailed instructions for resettlement implementation. It separates the cost for compensation as well as the cost for a resettlement site’s construction from other types of project costs, and also loosens the 26 The Land Law 2003 also indicates that timeline for land use certificate for annual fanning land is 20 years and land for perennial trees and forest land is 50 years. 101 conditions for compensation. As long as the affected people live on undisputed land (i.e., there is no fight over the land), they will receive compensation, no matter whether they have legal title to the land or not. The decree also gives more detailed instructions on supporting displaced people in redirecting their livelihood activities (Dao, 2010). It is worth to note that in 1998, after the WCD was established, Vietnam indicated its support of the WCD’s work. Specifically, the Vice Prime Minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Cong Tan, sent a letter to Chairman of the WCD in May 1999 to commit to support the WCD’s activities (Dao, 2010). Vietnam hosted the WCD’s Regional Consultations in East and Southeast Asia in February 2000. In a further step to realise its commitment to the WCD’s work, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development was assigned to translate WCD’s final report into Vietnamese and released one thousand copies of the report to related agencies, NGOs and local water stakeholders countrywide (Dao, 2010). WCD’s first recommendation: gaining public acceptance in hydropower projects was prioritised and discussed in a national workshop on WCD in October 2002. According to experts, this improvement resulted from the influence of the World Bank’s safeguard policy (Pham and Lam, 2000). In fact, the dissemination of the bank’s safeguard policy gave people a chance to compare the government’s policies with policies I in other localities, leading to domestic pressure to improve government strategy (Tran, 2007).27 In particular, the newly issued Decree No. 69/2009/QB-TTg clarifies the compensation and support given to people whose land is taken by development projects. 27 Also from personal interviews with resettlement officers, 5 September 2009. 102 It raises support levels based on the profit from the new land uses. According to this new policy, there should be a diversity of housing types in resettlement sites, and more land should be allocated to re-settlers. Furthermore, the resettlement programme must be designed to fit the different needs, capacities and customs of the affected people. An important aspect of this decree is the requirement that investors and local governments put in place supporting programmes to enable affected people to transfer to new income generating activities. However, despite the above mentioned improvements in resettlement policies, there is no clear instruction on how to apply ‘good practices” on dam construction as recommended by WCD. In addition, there is rarely any reference to the criteria for the free, prior and informed consent (Morris-Jung and Roth, 2010). This makes prior informed consent process almost impossible in many projects that require resettlement in Vietnam. Policy in Environmental Protection As well as the 1993 Land Law, the Law on Environmental Protection was another important policy change. This law was approved by the National Assembly on 27 December 1993 and promulgated by the President on 10 January 1994. The Law aims at protection of the environment, including “preventing and controlling adverse environmental influences caused by human beings and making reasonable and economical use of natural resources.” Based on this Law, all projects, plans, or 103 programmes must undergo an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) together with feasibility studies. Environmental Impact Assessment is defmed as “the process of analyzing, evaluating, and forecasting the environmental impacts of projects, of socio-economic development plans, of production or business premises, of economic, scientific, technical, cultural, social, security, defence and other facilities, and proposing appropriate measures for environmental protection.” (Article 1, page 2, Vietnam’s Law on Environmental Protection) Decree 175/CP ratified on 1 November 1994, is important for its Guidelines on Executing the Environmental Protection Law. According to this Decree, all potential negative impacts of any project or programme must be ameliorated by the adoption of mitigation plans. The revised Law on Environmental Protection in 2005 is an improvement in government policy in facilitating participation of local people in resettlement projects associated with hydropower construction. The Law requires a Strategic Environmental I Assessment (SEA) when the investor designs a hydropower project. According to the law, an SEA includes not only assessment of environmental impacts but also consideration of negative socio-economic and cultural impacts that may occur as a result of the project’s implementation. In relation to participation and consent, the Law allows local people to participate in the design and planning processes, enabling them to raise their voices on essential issues such as water supply, livelihood security and socio-economic sustainability, as well as cultural preservation. The Law also stipulates that a hydropower 104 project may not be implemented unless its SEA (including the resettlement plan) has been approved by the relevant authorities. (Tran, 2011) River Basin Management and Water Governance Since the early 1960s, State attention towards water resource governance has increased steadily, and policies and delegated authority for river basin and water management have changed continuously. Not until May 1998 was the first Water Resources Law approved by the National Assembly of Vietnam; it became effective only as of January 1999. The Water Law highlights a strategy for dam development, including plans (1) to upgrade and rehabilitate existing dams to increase Efficient use of stored water and improve dam safety; (2) to build large dams for multipiurpose uses, based on integrated water resources development; and (3) to minimize dam construction’s adverse impacts on communities and ecological systems Although a total of nine ministries are involved in water management, this chapter focuses on the three most important to river development: the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), and Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT). When the Ministry of Irrigation merged with MARD in 1994, the latter assumed responsibility for the management of water resources. In 2000 MARD established the National Water Council and three River Basin Organizations (RBOs) for three large river 105 basins in Vietnam.28 From 2001 to 2008, MARD formed eight River Basin Planning and Management Units to act as consulting bodies for the government and provincial authorities. MONRE’s founding in 2002, however, led to a dispute over river basin management between the two ministries: MARD had its own plans for managing all river basins while MONRE formed Committees on River Basin Environment and Protection <%Q » » « for three river basins. In short, two organizations under two separate ministries co existed and overlapped in a number of functions related to river basin management. The transfer of river basin management from MARD to MpNRE in August 2008 put an end to a long dispute between the two ministries. Decree 120/2008/NB-CP issued in December 2008 stimulated the formation of a new group for river basin management - the River Basin Organization - but these new River Basin Organizations are expected to work differently from earlier RBOs set up by MARD. The djecree also states that hydropower investors must commit to ensuring minimum flows for downstream areas. Minimum flow ensures that the downstream areas will not dry out, ensuring that water demand from downstream people and aquatic species is met. Perhaps more importantly, Article 7 of the Decree stipulates that all organizations, individuals, and communities I (“mpi to chtrc, ca nhan, cgng dong xa hgi ”) can have a voice in water and river basin management (Dao, 2011). 28 The Red River basin in the north, the B6ng Nai River basin in the southeast and the Mekong River basin in the south. 29 B&ng Nai, Cau and Nhue-B&y rivers 106 Bureaucratic wrangling and overlap in responsibilities nonetheless persist because MONRE is responsible for water and river basin management in general while MOIT is responsible for dam planning through its subsidiary, EVN. Even though investors are required to request appraisals for the projects from MONRE, this work was normally the last step after the projects were already approved by MOIT.30 In practice, existing river basin committees and units under MARD and MONRE have played little if any role in dam planning, leading to many more problems related to dam construction.31 As Vice Minister Nguyen Th&i Lai of MONRE emphasized in a recent interview, “In reality, our current appraisal procedures face many obstacles because investors only send their project documents to MONRE for appraisal after they were already approved by MOIT. During the period 2000-200S, with support from international consulting companies such as SWECO, STATKRAFT and NORPLAN, domestic consulting companies under EVN conducted a “Study on hydropower planning” for all large river systems in Vietnam. Even though many investors had their EIA [Environmental Impact Assessment], they never seriously followed the approved EIA.” (Van Nam, 201032) It seems that “environmental impact assessment” has become a bureaucratic formality but not an actual measure to remediate real or forecast environmental impacts. For example, in the case of the Dong Nai 5 hydropower project, the investor simply copied the EIA of a different project on the 30 Interviews with government officials from Department of Project Appraisal (MONRE) on July 25,2009. 31 Interviews with government officials from MARD on July 20,2009. 32 Van Nam. 2010. Chin chinh vi§c phdt trien thuy di?n http://www.thesaigontimes.vn/Home/thoisu/sukien/33703/ Access 29 April 2010. 107 Ma River without even changing a number of location names. (Xuan Hoang, 201033) According to Tuoitrenews, seventy percent of EIA reports have been carried out on paper only, not involving field work, while the remaining 30 percent are plagiarized.34 “Such I ! unreliable reports will lead to faulty forecasts that may cause environmental disasters”, indicated Dr. Nguyen Khac Kinh, deputy head of the Vietnam Environmental Impact Assessment Association, who has been a project appraiser for mofe than ten years, in a formal interview with Tuoitrenews on Nov 5, 2011. He continues “Some experts told me that after reading the environmental impact assessment reports for the two Dong Nai 6 and Dong Nai 6A hydropower projects in Dong Nai Province, they found them similar to some other reports that they had known.” (Tuoitrenews).35 Hydropower - savior for energy demand, symbol for development or something else? In addition to direct impacts on local people, dams have caused other problems, including deforestation and destroyed habitat, at both the dam site and its downstream area (Dao, 2010, 2011). Costs imposed by dam development are far from negligible. The Law on Environmental Protection is supposed to mitigate these costs. So, examining the extent to which dam builders obey the law can reveal how mitigation was planned and implemented. 33 Hoang, X. 2010. Rumg qu6c gia ddng gid bao nhieu? http://www.tuanvietnam.net/2010-05-04-rung-quoc- gia-gia-bao-nhieu? Access on 5 May 2010. 34 “30% Environmental reports plagiarized: official”. Tuoitrenews, access Sat, November 5,2011 35 http://www.tuoitrenews.vn/cmlink/tuoitrenews/society/30-environmental-reports-plagiarized-official- 1.50385. Access on November 5,2011 108 By virtue of their location along valley bottoms, submerged land is usually the most fertile for agriculture. Consequently, people displaced from these fertile areas have i had to move to places where lands are poorer and less agriculturally productive. Meanwhile, compensation prices for land and lost assets have beeij set by state and local authorities at far less than market prices. For example, in the cases of Phong Tho (Lai j Chau province), Muong Lay (Dien Bien province) and Muong La (Son La province), market prices for lost land were six to ten times higher than the compensation price.36 In addition to underestimating dam construction costs, inadequate compensation is another critical factor that makes hydropower projects appear less costly. Up to now, many hundreds of thousands of people, the majority of them in upland areas, have been I displaced. For example, the Hoa Binh Dam flooded 20,800 ha pf land and displaced i 58,000 people (Trang, 1995); the Yali Fall dam displaced more than six thousand ethnic minority people (CRES, 2001). More recently, the Son La Dam has caused the displacement of almost a hundred thousand people in the Northwest uplands. Among i displaced peoples, land shortage is the most commonly cited issue; a finding common to i almost every dam that has caused resettlement in Vietnam (Dao, 2010). I Building such a large number of hydropower projects and their related components--such as roads, transmission lines, and resettlement sites—has degraded upland landscapes and reduced primary forest cover. According to Xuan Hoang, in Quang I Nam province alone 41,000 ha of forest were lost due to hydropower within one year 36 Interviews with resettlers in these areas during fieldwork. 109 (from 2007 to 2008); in Lam Dong province, the 25 hydropower jplants currently under construction or already completed have reduced forest area by more than 15,000 hectares (Xuan Hoang, 2010). Along the Dong Nai River, an estimated 32,080 to 51,328 hectares of forests were destroyed in order to gain 3,208MW of electric generation capacity from 26 hydropower plants (an average of 10-16 ha of forest for each MW of electricity) (VnNews, 2010)37. According to the Environmental Protection Law, hydropower investors must replant any forest areas lost due to the dam construction to ensure green coverage. However, in practice, this ideal goal seems unattainable. There are two principal reasons for compromising overall forest maintenance: first, with hydropower booming everywhere, scarce land is often devoted to agriculture rather than forest (MOIT, 2010); second, investors avoid costs for externalities by skimping on reforestation. I In addition, as mentioned earlier, National Reserve and Conservation areas are not allowed to be appropriated for hydropower projects. However, in reality, things can be different. For example, the Song Bung 4 dam, funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), flooded 140 ha of the core zone of the Song Thanh National Reserve (ADB Consultation meeting in Quang Nam, 2006). The proposed Dong Nai 6&6A hydropower projects on the Dong Nai River, if approved by the Prime Minister, will flood 197.6 ha of forest, of which 86.43 ha belong to the C£t Tien National Park. This shows that in many 37 ‘True Cost of 1MW of Electricity?” VnNews, May 31,2010, http://www.vnnnews.net/true-cost-of-lmw- electricity (accessed June 1,2010). 110 cases, investors do not follow the rules, and project implementation can even go in the opposite direction from environmental law and policies. According to a recent MOIT audit submitted to the Prime Minister, some dam projects’ investors did not seriously follow regulations on environmental protection, project quality, and even dam security (MOIT, 2010). Even though no systematic study of I these problems has yet been conducted, many forestry experts believe that such large loss of forest cover has reduced watershed holding capacity. Increased water flows combined with large volumes of water unexpectedly released from dams contributed significantly to the devastating floods in central Vietnam in 2009 (Vietgiaitri, 2009).38 Other impacts of dams include damage to river ecosystems, reductions in fish production downstream, disputes over water resources, and other adverse downstream effects such as sedimentation loss. For example, the H6a Binh Dam reportedly blocks 75% of the sediment normally flowing downstream.39 Sediment blockage shortens any given dam’s lifespan, risks catastrophic failure, and deprives deltaic plains of fertile soil inputs. Reduction in fish production also means that local people are deprived of an important source of protein. 38 http://www.vietgiaitri.com/xa-hoi/2009/10/hang-tram-nguoi-tranh-nhau-cuoD-go-tu-mieng-ha-bay(access October 5,2009) 39 Interviews with a person who used to be on the management board of the Hoa Binh hydropower plant, November 2009. I ll Social responses to dam building Even though nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and social movements in Vietnam have not been as strong as elsewhere around the world (International Rivers’ website, 2010; McMichael, 2008), they are recently emerging as a strong voice. There is a dialectic between the state and NGOs in relation to dam building issues. While the state has been building an image of dams as a symbol of development and fuel for national economic growth, NGOs, media and academics have started Questioning problems surrounding the promotion of dam building. Even though dam-induced resettlement is still considered a sensitive issue, especially when it relates to state-owned projects, over the last few years scientists, environmental organizations, and media outlets have begun to express strong concerns about the rush to build hydropower dams. Academics and NGOs have worked together to conduct studies on the impacts of dams all over the country. The Vietnam Rivers Network (VRN) was established to strengthen work on river protection and has conducted studies on dam impacts countrywide (Vo, 2006; Hoang and Vo, 2006; Hoang, 2006; Chu et al., 2007; Duong, 2009). Since a network in Vietnam is not allowed to stand by itself, WARECOD was established to host VRN. WARECOD has been successful in coordinating VRN’s work and helped raise concerns about dam related issues at nationwide level. The studies by VRN’s members show the inefficiency of dams and, worse, how they cause destructive impacts on the environment and on local people. The studies also highlight uneven development between the uplands and lowlands, 112 showing how the people who suffer in all dam projects are mostly ethnic minority people—or people marginalised in peripheral areas. The studies raise a number of questions, such as the fdllowing: Who are the beneficiaries? Who are the losers? What are the impacts of these dams? (VUSTA, 2006; Dao, 2006; Doan and Nguyen, 2006; Duong, 2009) These studies also have suggested lowering the sizes of some dams to lessen impacts on villagers living in the areas to be submerged. Scientists and activists have shared study results extensively in the VRN’s annual meetings, workshops at the provincial level and in Hanoi, and have used the results for lobbying and advocacy purposes. VRN works closely with other regional and international networks and organizations which engage in dam-related issues. They have provided the public and affected people comprehensive information about the impacts of different dams on the environment and on local people. They have also organized ! campaigns against dam planning in different locations such as Lap Cai, Dong Nai. This has contributed to the government and related agencies’ adjustment of policies on dam building, resettlement, compensation and rehabilitation. And at the same time, it has raised awareness among public and affected people about the need to pursue more equality in development programs. WARECOD has also been successful in attracting environmental journalists to join VRN and actively involve in rive protection work. As a result, media outlets, such as television channels and newspapers, have been active in 113 covering this controversial topic.40 If before 2005, there was barely news on dam-induced resettlement and questioning negative impacts of dam projects in Vietnam, from 2008 afterward, this topic was widely discussed in media. As a result, the Central Government has begun to signal a growing realization that it may be necessary to reduce reliance on hydropower. The Power Development Plan VI targets to reduce hydropower ratio in i electricity production in 2025. However, as mentioned earlier in thi|s chapter, this figure is still very high. Whether this growing awareness in the Central Government trickles down to provincial authorities remains to be seen. Many medium and small-scale hydropower plant projects are still being licensed in Lai Chau, Lao Cai, Quang Nam, Dak Lak, Dong Nai, and elsewhere. In late 2009, the Prime Minister required MOIT to prepare an overall assessment of the country’s hydropower situation. Released in 2010, MOIT’s assessment suggested cancelling 38 small and medium hydropower projects due to their potential negative impacts, and recommended reconsideration of 35 others before commencing construction (MOIT, 2010). However, this number is insignificant compared to the number of dams already in planning stages (Dao, 2010). In fact, the government is still strongly promoting development of hydropower dams by approving a series of large dams including the Lai Chau dam and a series of dams on the Vu Gia Thu Bon, Sesan, Srepok and Dong Nai Rivers (see Figure 3.3). Information about the impacts of dams, especially for state-owned projects, is not easily available to the public. The Water Law under 40 VTV2 (a national TV chanel) often covers news on environment which include water and food security, river issues, hydropower and resettlement, etc. Tuoitrenews, Thanhnien, Tienphong are ones among the newspapers which cover many stories related to hydropower and its associated problems including resettlement, deforestation, etc. 114 revision still highlights the importance of hydropower and encourages hydropower development where it is possible at a nationwide scale. In brief, even though there has been an improvement in land and resource governance policies, decision-making on dam building has still inadequately taken costs into account. In addition, since both NGO and media are still strickly controlled by the government, there are certain issues not properly covered. And role of NGOs and media, even though has increased over the last few years, is still limited. This has led to a boom i in dam building all over the country over the last two decades. In the following section I examine decision-making processes and policies for the biggest dam ever built in Vietnam and Southeast Asia - the Son La dam. Figure 3.2. Map of main rivers in Vietnam 115 THE MAIN RIVERS IN VIETNAM i THAILAND [Source: Vietnam Map Agency] SON LA DAM CONSTRUCTION ON THE DA RIVER Almost all ethnic minority groups who live in the Northwest along the Da River have been directly or indirectly affected by dam construction. This dam development process raises a number of questions: Who has the right to decide how to develop the resources, and how should benefits be shared among the stakeholders? Since the dams have reconfigured upland landscapes, there is also the question of how people’s lives along the Da River have been affected. Three big dams on the Da River’s mainstream include the Hoa Binh Dam, the Son La Dam and the Lai Chau Dam. The Hoa Binh Dam (1920MW), with a normal water level of 115m above sea level, constructed during the 1970s and 1980s, is the largest existing hydro dam in Vietnam. The Son La dam, with a projected capacity of 2400MW (normal water level of 215m) had its diversion sluice closed in May 2010 and the first turbine went online in December 2010. The last proposed large dam upstream is the Lai Chau Dam (1200MW) (normal water level 295m), for which the construction started early January 2011 despite questions raised regarding dam security issues as these dams are located within the earthquake prone area of the Northwest. On the Da River’s largest branch, the Nam Mu River, there are other dams under construction, such as the Huoi Quang Dam (530MW), and the Ban Chat Dam (220MW) (See figure 3.3). In addition, dozens of other medium and small dams have been built or are planned along the Da River’s branches. 117 Figure 3.3: Hydropower cascade on the Da River UK rw [Source: Nguyen, B. (2009)] In this section I explore the politics surrounding the Son La dam, and scrutinize whether improvements in policy have actually been reflected in practice. Chapter 5 and 6 will examine this question in more detail for my study sites. On 29 June 2001 the construction of the Son La hydropower project on the Da River (about 250km upstream from the Hoa Binh dam) was formally approved by the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Decision No44/2001-QH10). It became the most controversial project in modem Vietnam and required the largest resettlement of people in the country’s history. The dam itself is built in It Ong town, Muong La district, Son La province, 350 km northwest of Hanoi. Designed power generating capacity for the plant is 2,400MW; 118 electricity generated per annum is expected to reach 9,429 billion kWh. According to the government, the Son La hydropower project aims at the following key objectives: (1) Provide electricity for socio-economic development, industrialization and modernization of the nation-state; (2) Contribute to flood control in the rainy season and irrigation in the dry season in the Red River delta; and (3) Contribute to promoting socio-economic development in the Northwest Uplands and narrowing the development gap between the upland and lowland (Son La Province’s People Committee, 2006). Since the dam is located in the Northwest region, which is ranked as one of the poorest areas in Vietnam and inhabited mostly by marginalized ethnic minority people, together with the first objective, the third objective of the project has been particularly highlighted in the northwest provinces where affected people reside. Banners and slogans about these two important objectives of the project and the determination tb successfully fulfill resettlement work could be found in many places of the three affected provinces: Son La, ij Lai Chau and Dien Bien. 119 %* Photo 3.1:A banner “Son La determines to successfully fulfill the task of resettlement for the Son La project” on a street of Son La city (by Nga Dao) The dam, with a high water level of 215m above sea level, has caused the displacement of about a hundred thousand people in three provinces: Son La, Lai Chau and Dien Bien. Of these, 83.1% belong to the Thai ethnic group (both Thai Trang [White Thai] and Thai DenfBlack Thai]); the remainder include La Ha (5.9%), Kinh, Mdng, and Gidy. The reservoir, with a holding capacity of 9.26 billion m3, floods 23,333 hectares, of which almost 10,000 hectares was agricultural land including rice paddies, gardens and fishponds. More than 3000 hectares were classified as forest (PIDC No. 1, 1999). Among 120 the displaced households, more than 80% engaged in farming, entirely depending on arable land (VUSTA, 2006). As with many of the existing dams in Vietnam, the affected people consist mostly of ethnic minority groups. One of the major concerns of both local goverments and environmental groups continues to be a shortage of land for resettling the tens of thousands of displaced people (VUSTA, 2006). As initially planned, the first turbine would start to generate electricity in 2012 and the whole plant would be completed and put into full operation in 2015. Despite the enormous number of people that needed to be resettled and rehabilitated, Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) was successful in persuading the government that beginning electricity generation one year earlier would bring in an extra US$500 million in revenue. Thus, starting up two years earlier than planned would produce an extra one billion US dollars for the state. From the investors and government officials’ point of view, economic development is extremely important and nothing should undermine it. Thus, the whole process including resettlement has been two years faster than planned. Figure 3.4: Map of three provinces affected by the Son La Dam and location of the Son La Dam 121 CHINA [Source: VUSTA, 2006] In Vietnam, some special days such as Ho Chi Minh’s birthday, Independence Day, or Vietnam’s Communist Party’s birthday are usually used as benchmarks for big ! events such as inauguration of national projects. Thus, for the case bf the Son La dam, in accordance with the accelerated plan, the Da River needed to be entirely blocked for water filling by 19 May 2010, on the occasion of Ho Chi Minh’s 120th birthday.41 The 41 Interviews with resettlement officers in Son La, 24 August 2009. For the Son La dam, in the first year of construction the river was nanowed down to build diversion works. In the beginning of dry season of the second year, they implemented river closure work to divert the water to the diversion sluice. In the dry season, the water flows through the diversion sluice, and in the rainy season the water flows through the unfinished spillway dam. When construction of the dam itself and other items such as power house, 122 first turbine started generating electricity in December 2010. In April 2011 the second turbine was also connected to the national grid. On this occasion, ih the news channel of ! the national television VTV1 on April 21st, the Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung stated that “This is marvelous achievement of our modernization and industrialization process. We should all be proud of ourselves”. He continued by praising Son La province for completing resettlement of more than 12,500 households within its constituency and enabling the project to meet the set schedule. By the end of 2011 four of six planned turbines were generating power. switchyard, transmission line, etc. are completed, they will close the diversion sluice to fill the reservoir for power generation. Photo 3.2: Son La dam under the construction, August 2009 (by Nga Dao) The Son La dam planning Since the planning process for the Son La dam was conducted taking into account changes in government policies related to land, resources and resettlement, it is important to examine how this project reflects the improvements in project planning. In fact, for the Son La dam, there have been many changes in both policy and implementation. Project's cost estimation and fundins 124 Instead of the Soviet Union’s economic calculation method, that used to be applied for previous dams such as Hoa Binh, the Net Present Value (NPV) was used. This was a new method learned from international agencies. The positive figure in the balance sheet is one way to argue that the project should definitely proceed. The cost for resettlement and rehabilitation was included in the total budget for the Son La dam. It was estimated that resettlement cost was about 29% of the total project cost (Son La People’s Committee, 2006). The inclusion of displacement cost into the project balance sheet is a positive change in the way dams are planned in Vietnam. However, concerned about the massive impacts of the project, most multilateral and bilateral institutions, including the World Bank, refused to step in, even though the WB supported the pre-feasibility study of the project. China was the only country that expressed support for the project. Thus, it was a 100% state-funded and managed project. Chinese companies won the international public bidding, so about 90% of the project equipment (steel works and generating equipment) was provided by Chinese companies, while only 10% (including powerhouse downstream gates, penstocks and intake gates) was made in Vietnam. Ironically, the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which strongly supports the WCD’s recommendations, while refusing to fund the dam itself due to its negative impacts, is still planning to support the transmission line for power generated by the dam. ADB also supported capacity building for the government and local officers who were involved in the resettlement process. 125 The opposition to dam size durine the project's planning i It is worth noting that during the planning phase of the Son La Dam, National Assembly members voiced two strong but differing opinions about the size of the dam. One group supported a dam with a high water level of 265 m above sea level (expected i capacity of 3600MW), arguing that a bigger dam would bring more benefit to the national economy; another group argued for mitigation of any negative impacts, and supported a dam with a high water level of 215 m above sea level. In late 1990s and early 2000s, a number of overseas Vietnamese and members of a Thdi study group also sent letters to the Prime Minister calling for termination of the project and expressing their concerns about the potential impacts of the project on the TMi ethnic people and on historic and cultural sites to be flooded and other social and environmental problems. Especially, a number of scientists and academics from the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA) worked together to push for the 215 m option. After a great deal of VUSTA lobbying, the government finally agreed to switch the dam high water level from 265 m to 215 m. This is evidence that the government is more responsive to concerns about the project’s safety and impacts compared to previous projects such as the Hoa Binh Dam or the Yali Fall Dam. And above all, opposition voices were taken into consideration. Resettlement planning 126 The resettlement was more organized and planned compared to that for other large dams, such as Hoa Binh or the Yali Fall (Dao, 2011). Master planning for resettlement and rehabilitation was conducted before dam construction began. Extensive surveys and investigations of resettlement sites were conducted by professional institutions during the 1990s (NIAPP, 2005). Resettlement implementation responsibilities were decentralized from the province down to district, commune and even village levels (Son La People’s Committee, 2006). The resettlers were informed about compensation policy and procedures before moving. By the time of my research in 2009, most of them moved to designated resettlement sites. Villagers were encouraged to visit their sites before moving in.42 The resettlement programme paid attention to the need for land suitable for both housing and farming (NIAPP, 2005). Pilot resettlement was a part of the planning process, in order to identify problems before conducting massive resettlement. After pilot resettlement in Tan Lap and Si Sa Phin communes, where displaced people moved into already-built concrete houses, the province authorities accepted the people’s request to change the housing policy. This was the first time in the history of resettlement projects that authorities accepted suggestions for changes from affected people. A new policy of dismantling the old house and transporting it to be rebuilt in the new location has helped people! keep their customary forms of housing. Support for house moving, according to most of the resettlers interviewed, has been very useful and even necessary. This was recognized as a major 42 Interviews with resettlers Son La, September, October 2009 127 improvement in resettlement policy for the Son La dam, and resettlers were happy with it.43 Constraints remain Despite a number of changes in policy and planning, many aspects of the approach on the ground have not changed. Project justification According to the government, the Son La dam is a key asset for the country’s energy security and plays a vital role in modernization, industrialization and ensuring economic growth in the northwest (Son La People’s Committee, 2006). The Decision of the Communist Party Congress number 10 affirms that construction of the Son La dam is a great historic opportunity for the northwest region (Son La, Lai Chau and Dien Bien provinces) in general, and Son La province in particular to transition the economic structure toward modernization, rearrange labour and population, and enable the province to develop rapidly and sustainably in the near future. The dam also serves to raise Vietnam’s status in competition in development with its large neighbor, China. One could hear a very common argument during that time: ‘Why can China have the Three Gorges and Vietnam can’t have the Son La? We are in no way less developed than China.’44 43 Interviews with villagers and resettlement officers in Son La and Lai Chau provinces in December 200S, January 2006, and April 2008. 44 Author’s observations in late 1990s. 128 Compliance with the Law on Environmental Protection According to the Vietnamese Law on Environmental Protection, any development project that causes negative impacts on the environment and people’s livelihoods must have an Environmental Impact Assessment (ELA) before the approval of the project (as described above). The construction of the Son La dam started in December 2005, well before the final review of its ELA in May 2007. This suggests that the EIA was only a required last step, simply a procedure on paper that is not necessarily truly effective in practice. Overall resettlement planning and public participation Even though the Vietnamese government claimed to support the WCD recommendations and emphasized that dam projects were to follow that direction, as mentioned in Chapter 1, much as with other dams in Vietnam in the past, resettlement for the Son La project was still a top down process in many ways. There was no public hearing for the project itself or for the decision to speed up resettlement by two years. The so called free informed process implemented in the Son La project was reduced to one procedure: affected people were informed about the schedule for moving their households. They were not consulted to determine if they agreed to the project or not. In fact, although there was a certain amount of opposition in some areas, people in the end i were persuaded to sacrifice for the sake of the “national interest”. Table 3.4: Public acceptance and implementation of the FPIC in the Son La project 129 Key decision Public participation and prior informed consent Decision about whether the dam should Not at all. The decision was made by the be built or not; Politburo and the National Assembly. Only some NGOs and scientists were able to raise their concerns45; Technical issues including height of the Affected people, who jwere mostly ethnic dam and other design features; minority upland groups, were not allowed to voice their vieWs, as they were considered poorly educated and with little knowledge about the issues. Some NGOs and scientists were able to raise their opinions to some extent regarding height of dam; Resettlement issues: Choice in site; Resettlers were able to visit some of the sites before moving but their choices were limited; Choice in land price and lost crop Not at all price; Housing design; Yes. Resettlers were allowed to build their new houses the way they wanted; Water supply system No. The project designed the water supply system. Ip many cases, when people moved in and there was no water, they had to find their own way to deal with the situation; Amount of compensation for land No participation at all and other lost assets; Choice in the way to receive land In some cases, affected people could compensation; request how they would want compensation (i.e. they could choose either to receive money and find land themselves or to wait for the local 43 There was concern that creating a big reservoir holding large amount of water could be dangerous for the national security in case of war or other conflict 130 authorities in the new place to allocate land); Host communities’ opinion about Mostly only for mixed resettled whether they wanted to receive villages where resettlers moved in to resettlers or not; live in the same village with the host community; Host communities’ opinions about It depended on die political situation the amount of land and resources of different areasr Some communities they would have to share with the were difficult to persuade. In general, resettlers. host communities were usually told about the project and their responsibility in Sharing resources. As a result, they were expected to follow the decision made by the authorities. [Source: Surveys in 2008,2009 and 2010] According to the master plan for the Da River, there were options for developing smaller dams (with a high water level of 150-170m or so above the sea level) instead of one very large dam (215m or 265m). While the government took into consideration opposition voices related to the dam height of 265m (as mentioned in the previous section), the option of smaller dams of 150m-170m height was rejected.46 The argument was that the bigger the dam the more economic benefit it would bring to the economy, i and that the government could only compromise to a limited extent. Even though a master plan for resettlement was prepared in the late 1990s, detailed planning for most of the sites was not ready before the mass displacement started in 2005. By the end of 2006, detailed planning for only 73 resettlement sites had been 46 Interviews with former Vice-Minister of Irrigation and National Assembly members in August 2009. 131 approved (accounting for 25% of the total project sites) (Khuc, 2007). Fifty five resettlement sites lacked surface water but were still included in the master plan because otherwise there would not be enough space for all the resettlers.47 In a nutshell, despite claiming to have made better preparations, the resettlement project for the Son La dam remains similar to that for earlier dams in many ways. At the I end, the project appeared to be business as usual despite the government’s improvement in its policies. Resettlement policy for the Son La dam project This section focuses on detailed policies applied to the Son La resettlement project and some of the main constraints on these policies during the implementation. Due to the scope of the project, the Prime Minister issued extra legal documents specifically for the Son La project resettlement, in addition to the general government decrees described in the earlier section on policy.48 However, the first supplementary diocument, the Decision No. 459, encountered a series of obstacles in application after a few years, and was later replaced by Decision No. 02/2007/QD-TTg. This second Decision gave more detailed instructions for compensation, assistance and resettlement for the Son La project. It included amendments and supplements relating to management practices and benefits of 47 Author’s interviews with two resettlement officers in Son La, December 2005. 48 The key legal documents for the Son La resettlement program are Decision No. 196/2004/QD-TTg and Decree 197/2004/ND-CP. Supplementary policies include Decision No. 459/QB-TTg and Decision No. 02/2007/QD-TTG. Decision No. 196 elaborates the resettlement budget, while Decision No. 459 gives detailed instructions for assigning compensation and resettlement. 132 both resettlers and host communities. Since the resettlement component has been assigned i to local governments, the provinces of Son La, Lai Chau and Dien Bien are entirely responsible for implementation of resettlement within their constituencies. Therefore, each provincial government has also issued a number of decisions to give instructions for implementing the government’s decisions in their own locale. There are four types of resettlement used to achieve the resettling of a hundred thousand people in the northwest along the Da River. These include: • Di dan tgp trung nong thon : A type of resettlement with a village scope, in which there is detailed planning for a new village in the resettlement site; j • Di dan xen ghep: A type of resettlement in which resettlers are mixed with host communities in one village; • Di dan tu nguy$n: A type of resettlement without planning, in which resettled households find a place themselves and move there upon written agreement of the People’s Committees of both their old and new communes; and • Di dan tgp trung do thf: Resettlement of people to a planned town, in which people resettle in urban style resettlement sites. (Son La Province’s People Committee, 2006) The slogan for dam-associated resettlement in Vietnam is that “ Resettlers’s lives must be better or at least equal to their home villages.” This principle was probably adopted from i the World Bank’s policies in the mid 1990s. The government, assuming homogenous 133 upland peasants, pursues an egalitarian policy in resettlement, which means that all affected people receive the same level of support and subsidies related to displacement regardless of differences in their employment, access to capital, social networks, resilience capability, and other characteristics. The first resettlement policy in 2004 for the Son La project clearly stated that each resettler would receive 10 million VND49 for livelihood recovery after resettlement, and that data on land measured by measuring tape in old villages before resettlement were acceptable for compensation for lost land. At the early stages project officers used regular measuring tapes to measure the area of land lost. There was no land survey equipment used by that time for land measure. However, a policy issued in 2007 affirms that only the first person in each family would receive 7 million VND and each of the other family members would receive 3 million VND for the same purpose. The later policy also requires that only land data measured by land survey equipment are acceptable for compensation for lost land, and that other types of measurement (such as by measuring i tape) are invalid. Contradictions between the former and latter policies confused not only local people but also local authorities and resettlement officers during the implementation process, as I will show later in Chapter 6. The decisions were prepared by people sitting in Hanoi who might not understand the local context very well. Resettlers later became I 49 VND10 million was worth about USD750 in 2009. It was about half of an annual average income of an upland family by that time. 134 bewildered about what they were supposed to receive in terms of compensation and support, and how the policy changed.50 For example, people did not want to accept changes in levels of subsidies for livelihood or compensation for lost land. They did not accept the explanation that the changes were due to changes in government policies. They wanted to receive the promises made before they moved. Policies on compensation for host communities who had to share land with the resettlers were also unclear and inconsistent, which has sometimes resulted in violent conflicts among affected groups.51 In addition, the tasks of ministries established in these decisions are sometimes i overlapping, making them difficult to implement in practice (especially between MONRE and MARD). The inconsistencies in data required for lost-land compensation, coupled with heavily bureaucratic administrative procedures, have contributed to slowing down the resettlement and rehabilitation process.52 The Son La dam - uneven power relations amone stakeholders Because the Provinces of Son La, Lai Chau and Dien Bien were entirely responsible for the implementation of resettlement within their respective constituencies, each provincial government issued a number of instructions for implementing the Central Government’s decisions in their own province. Provincial authorities worked closely with relevant ministries in Hanoi, i.e. the Ministry of Investment and Planning (MIP), the Ministry of Finance (MOF), MARD, and MONRE, during the resettlement process in 50 Interviews with resettlers in Phieng Bung 1 and Pu Nhuong villages on September 10-15,2009. 51 Interviews with villagers in Ban Sang, a host community of Pu Nhuong village on September 16,2009. 52 Interviews with district officials of Muong La on October 2,2009. 135 matters of policy adjustment and implementation. This cooperation enabled local authorities to form a better connection with the central authority. Because the provincial governments were given the right to select contractors for all projects with a value less than VND 5 billion, provincial and district authorities became more powerful in a number of matters, such as selecting bids for infrastructure work in resettlement sites, determining the kinds and amounts of compensation, and supporting the rehabilitation efforts.53 Only projects valued more than VND5 billion were required to follow bidding procedures. As a result, districts became investors in most of the projects related to resettlement, including projects on roads, schools, water, ground leveling for resettlement sites, compensation, etc.54 Although provincial and district authorities may have strengthened their positions, commune level authorities in submerged areas faced a very different situation. For many commune leaders from resettled communes who used to be part of their original communes’ government there was a chance that they might continue their work in the new areas—but only if there were vacant positions in the host communes. If not, they had to retire.55 Di xen ghep groups, headmen and representatives of political associations usually did not have the opportunity to continue in their jobs when they merged with host I communities. For the host communes, the authorities faced different types of difficulties. I They were supposed to follow all the resolutions and directions set by provincial and 53 By the time of the policy issuance, VNB5 billion was equivalent to about USD300,000-350,000 (the exchange rate was around US$ 1=VNB15,000) 54 Interviews with resettlement officers (district level) in 2009. 55 Interviews with local authorities in 2009 136 district governments. If there was land judged to be “available” in their locales, it was almost impossible for them to refuse incoming resettlers. They had! to persuade their own people to share land with the resettlers. They also had to deal with all kind of post resettlement problems within resettled communities, as well as tensions between the two communities (host and resettled).56 It is important to note there was a significant improvement in resettlement and compensation policy in the Son La project, compared to previous dam projects. During certain stages of the project, the opinions of local people, though limited, were j incorporated into recommendations passed on to policy makers. For example, in the pilot resettlement projects in Tan Lap, instead of “land for land”, the government resettlement policy described “land for infrastructure”, meaning that host communities had to give up part of their own land to resettlers in order to gain improved infrastructure (roads, electricity etc). The resettlers also did not receive complete compensation for land loss, because there was no detailed measurement of the land they lost in their old villages. People were very unhappy and complained to the local authorities. The local authorities considered these complaints and referred them to the central authorities. As a result, the compensation policy for resettlement was changed: resettlers received cash compensation for the difference between the area of land they lost in their home villages and land received in resettlement sites. Host communities received cash for the land they shared with the resettlers. For people in Tan Lap, the provincial government finally proposed a 56 Interviews with local authorities in 2009 137 solution to compensate both resettlers and host communities as follows: each resettler received VND10 million (equivalent to about USD$670) (no matter how much land they lost); host communities received 70% of the total amount granted to resettlers. Similar changes were made to the original housing policy. In the pilot sites, people had to move into already-built concrete houses, which were very different from their traditional houses built from wood and raised off the ground. These concrete houses exacerbated the loss of ethnic identity. The resettlers were very unhappy and complained to the local authorities. The result was another policy change. Resettlers were allowed to disassemble their houses, and the project helped them move the houses to the resettlement sites. Villagers helped rebuild the houses the way they wanted in the new places. In addition, as a result of experiences with the pilot sites, potential resettlers later were encouraged to visit their resettlement sites before deciding to agree to move there. There were buses to take resettlers to see their designated sites.57 In fact they had the option to say no to the new site, but that was not really a viable choice because those who tried to resist usually suffered negative consequences, as I will describe in the later chapters. Thus, even though there have been improvements in the project planning and implementation, there are still many problems. Affected people had no choice but conform to the state’s overall development project. Their influence to the project was limited to only some few stages during the implementation process. In addition to the problems the dam has posed to resettlers, it has also presented difficulties to local 37 There were only buses at the beginning of the project. Later on people had to travel by themselves, as bus transportation was getting costly for the project (Interview with resettlement officers, August 2009). 138 authorities at multiple levels. With the huge number of people who needed to move in a very short time, resettlement units at district level had to recruit a large number of contract staff who had no or very limited knowledge of resettlement (VUSTA, 2006). As a result, resettlement personnel at the district level have not been competent enough to handle the work smoothly. In a number of resettlement sites, when people moved in there were still no roads, water or electricity. In some areas, especially in di ven and di xen ghep resettlement sites, it took a year or even longer for resettlers to have roads and electricity. Water was a very critical issue. In some resettlement sites people lacked sufficient water for daily use. Supporting programs for livelihood rehabilitation have so far been conducted in only a few places, and those few which have been conducted are inefficient because they were designed by provincial level extension officers who did not c o adequately take social, ecological and cultural factors into account. The resulting gap between planning and implementation Thus, in spite of having improvements in a number of policies related to land, resettlement, and river basin management, there is still a large gap between policies and planning on the one hand, and implementation processes on the other. A diverse range of factors contributes to this gap. First, not all changes in policies are necessarily positive. For example, there was a dispute among different actors in terms of who should be responsible for carrying out 58 Author surveys in 2009. 139 resettlement programs.59 Since the late 1990s, resettlement responsibilities have been placed with local governments instead of with investors (including the national government and international donors). There have been arguments that this change benefits both the investor and the provincial governments, but not the affected people.60 In fact, it is likely that local governments understand their locales better than the investors I do. However, if investors only have to care about construction without taking any responsibility for resettlement, they will have an incentive to speed up the whole process in order to generate electricity as soon as they can. Investors retain the ability to set the schedule and the resettlement operations have to adjust. As a consequence, unprepared local resettlement personnel, coupled with shortened schedules can make things worse.61 Second, not all improved policies are welcomed by implementers, including investors and local authorities among others. Participation has been accused of slowing down project progress and causing problems for getting consensus in project decision making.62 The improvement in the Law on Environmental Protection has not brought much change in practice. Most of the time, individuals and firms try to avoid considering environmental costs. They usually tend to minimize or exclude externalities in their 59 Interviews with Son La’s provincial officials on August 12, 2009. 40 Author’s interviews conducted in August and October 2009 with two staff of the team that prepared the Son La resettlement master plan. 41 After coming back from resettlement areas of the Son La project in 2005, the author had a chance to interview a few staff from Electricity of Vietnam. When they were asked about their opinions regarding resettlement problems in Son La, the answers were quite similar: "We don’t know. Resettlement is not our responsibility. We are only responsible for the construction. Anything related to resettlement, you should go ask the provincial governments". 42 Interviews with officials at PIDC No 1, July 10,2009. 14 0 estimates of costs.63 This is a common situation: the state’s interest in promoting industrial activities severely limits its ability to enforce environmental and other regulations that might decrease the profitability of these activities. Thus, policies to promote industry conflict directly with environmental policies. The Vietnamese state’s 'three pillar approach' to development- economic, environmental and social - permeates most government documents, reports, and policies, but is rendered weak in practice. The required EIA process for investment projects is trumped by economic considerations. Past experience (such as the dams on the Dong Nai River mentioned Earlier in this chapter, where investors cut and pasted EIAs for different projects without even changing names of various locations) and the recent information about EIA status mentioned earlier show that EIA is only a “required” last step and does not help to mitigate adverse impacts if there are any (Tuoitrenews, 5 November 2011). The Son La dam is a very obvious example of this problem: Construction started before approval of the final EIA, and the project was speeded up for economic reasons. An accelerated schedule may bring in revenue sooner, but time is also needed to deal with social issues. Land use permits for specific locations are frequently issued to investors before an initial environmental examination or a full-scale EIA has been conducted.64 Mitigation plans may either be neglected or poorly presented to competent agencies or environmental police. 63 Interviews with officials from MONRE, July 17,2009. 64 Interviews with officials from MONRE, July 17,2009 141 Third, there is still strong pressure for continued dam building in Vietnam, based on the perceived economic benefits and the goal of modernization. Hundreds of dams are still being built all over the country (Dao, 2011). Consequently, we can state that new laws and policies have not changed the overall direction of relying on dams for the generation of power and irrigation. When so many dams are being planned and built at the same time, it is difficult to ensure that policies are properly followed. Last but not least, the cost for hydropower construction has been underestimated by neglecting to account for externalities.65 In the construction of a hydropower plant, there are three key issues: technical, economic and socio-environmental. If there are problems with technical and socio-environmental issues such as flooding downstream, or resettlement difficulties, they are easily noticed. Flaws in economic calculation are more difficult to detect, but can bring no less serious disasters. Overlooking these problems can create a bias in Vietnam’s energy strategy. For example, although provincial authorities have set compensation rates for one hectare of forest or agricultural land, it remains unclear whether the basis for establishing these costs was reasonable (VnnNews.net, 2009). If the compensation price set for forest loss is too low, the investor will raise the water level of the reservoir, regardless of how many hectares of forest will be flooded. And if the calculated production cost for one megawatt of hydropower is set artificially lower than its actual cost, investors may incorrectly consider hydropower cheaper than other types of energy, overlooking the fact that the cheap product in this case comes at 65 Interviews with officials from PDIC No, July 10, 2009 142 greatly concealed costs of production. As a consequence, tjhey will build dams everywhere possible, in order to meet high energy demand. CONCLUSION In summary, conditions have been favourable for rapid development of dams over the last several decades, but in addition to the expected benefits of generating electricity and water supply mostly for urban and lowland areas, dam construction has caused many problems. The politics surrounding dam development, resettlement, river basin management and water governance remain controversial. There has been a clear shift over time in the planning process for dam-associated displacement of local populations. Important changes include compensation policies (subjects to be compensated, compensation for both directly and indirectly affected people), improvements in subsidies and rehabilitation support (time and level), and levels of participation, among others. Policies have changed due to different contributing factors, including international pressure and domestic social pressure, although it is not clear which factors are most important. A few key factors can be highlighted. The first is the interest of the government in engaging with international processes and accepting international standards (at least in policy if not practice), in part because Vietnam is still dependent on international assistance. Second, the Vietnamese Government has learned from earlier problems that without efforts to take rehabilitation seriously, there will be major problems in resettlement areas, which will be hard to deal 143 with in both the short and the long term. Last but not least are the urgent livelihood needs and the complaints of local people and authorities. In addition, affected people are more aware of their rights and interests; they have better access to information and have put more pressure on the government to improve its policies (Tran, 2007).66 Changes in calculation methods to include resettlement and mitigation costs in the measure of total project cost have created better conditions for resettlement planning to restore the lives of affected people. These changes aim at properly evaluating the cost j effectiveness of the investment, even though the actual costs for resettlement and mitigation may be higher than estimated in these calculations. The resettlement planning, compensation and rehabilitation procedures have been improved through time, and local people, even though not allowed to participate in decision making and planning processes for the project itself, are now able to participate in some of the stages during implementation (e.g. in the case of housing policy). All of the above help resettlement processes to some extent become more organized. Despite these improvements, there are still many problems related to dam projects. Notwithstanding efforts to streamline the many agencies in charge of water resources management and decision-making, fragmentation and overlapping authority persists. MONRE is nominally responsible for water management, yet MOIT, by virtue of its control of EVN, continues to take the decisive role in master planning for all big river basins and hydropower development. Although a new decree on river basins was issued 66 Also from the author’s interviews with resettlement policymakers in Hanoi in July and August 2009. 144 in 2008, there has as yet been no accompanying circular for implementation, and in effect the new rules exist only on paper and not in practice. Environmental groups and affected ! people still have a very limited voice in decision-making in these matters. As a consequence, dams continue to be built, despite their negative impacts on communities and the environment. In order to make way for dams, hundreds of thousands of hectares of land were taken away from upland peasants and small farmers. Displaced peasants, who have limited levels of education and face constraints in terms of access to capital, have a difficult time finding livelihood alternatives. Apparently, accumulation is not simply about the concentration and centralization of the power of capital, but also is about “dispossessing alternative practices” (McMichael, 2008:213). Stated differently, accumulation takes away people’s various means of livelihood and their ability to ensure food security. “In particular,” he argues, “the ontology of capitalist modernity, rooted in economism, rules out a place for peasants, physically expelling them from the land, and epistemologically removing them from history”. 145 CHAPTER 4: STATE AND ETHNIC MINORITY RELATIONS IN THE DAMMING OF THE NORTHWEST UPLANDS67 Using the case of the Son La dam in the Northwest as an example, I explore the unevenness in development between the upland and lowland and even within the uplands in contemporary Vietnam since its independence from the French in 1954. In this chapter and the following two chapters, I examine how the Northwest’s ecological, cultural and agrarian landscapes have been shaped by state development policy, and in turn how these landscape reconfigurations have contributed ~ if at all -- to reshaping state policy. I focus on the relationship between the state and ethnic minority people in Vietnam in general and in the Northwest uplands in particular. Changing state policies may be seen as a response to uneven development, but at the same time may cause new forms of inequalities in the upland areas. Furthermore, while hydropower projects are generally initiated by lowland Vietnamese linked to political power centers, project sites are often located in lands inhabited by ethnic minorities. As a result, damming rivers for power generation in Vietnam is about much more than the politics, economy and ecology of hydropower impacts; damming rivers speaks to relationships between center and periphery, highlands and lowlands, ethnic majority and minority peoples, and even between different groups of ethnic minority people. 67 Part of this chapter was previously published in the Journal for Vietnamese Studies, Summer 2011. 146 My research also seeks answers for: how development plans in general and dams in particular have reconfigured the Northwest, a former “autonomous zone” and homeland of many ethnic minority groups, in the last half century. How has the production of ethnicity in the post-independence context shaped dam-building, displacement and resettlement practices? How have these practices in turn contributed to the remaking of ethnicity in the uplands? And what, if any, pathways exist for local people to provide input to or affect the direction of centralized decision-making? I will start by examining relations between the state and ethnic minority groups in contemporary Vietnam, then narrow down to focus on the ethnicity issue in the Northwest upland. 1 examine the relationship between TMi and La Ha people in order to better understand the differences between these two groups in reacting to the state building and development process. A brief review of land use patterns of northwesteners through different periods of history after 1954, as well as their livelihoods before resettlement, help to picture the changes upland people experienced once they were included in the nation-state building and development process. Finally, I explore damming on the Da River and how the Son La dam has generally impacted ethnic minority groups residing along the Da River. Details of the project impacts on resettlers in the studied sites will be elaborated in the following two chapters. 147 ETHNICITY AND RELATIONS BETWEEN THE STATE AND ETHNIC GROUPS IN CONTEMPORARY VIETNAM In Vietnam, during the colonial period, many upland peoples who lived in the frontier were considered “savages” (Keyes 2002, Hickey 1982, Salemink 2003). Ethnic classification has been deployed as a technology of power only by modem states (Keyes, 2002). After 1954, drawing from the Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist theory of “nationalities”, the young Vietnamese state instituted policies that fixed ethnic differences and boundaries by law. Kinh (lowland) people (around 84% of the population) are a separate nationality. Including the Kinh, there are 54 formal ethnic groups in Vietnam (Dang et al, 2000). All the ethnic groups who are not Kinh are defined as ethnic minorities or indigenous. Some very small groups were subsumed into other groups (see Appendix A). Th£i, Mudng, Tilly, La Ha, H’mong and other ethnic minorities mostly in the uplands are among those 53 officially recognized ethnic minority groups who became citizens of Vietnam (see Appendix A). As a result of citizenship and automatic inclusion in the new order, minority nationalities came under increasing state control. These people, their territory and resources were included together in the socialist polity. The Communist Party of Vietnam’s policy emphasizes that different ethnic groups, especially those in the highland, share similarities that are the product of a unique national unification of Vietnam that began in the prehistoric period (Cu, 1992, 1994). The ethnic categories for Vietnam’s minorities were established right after Independence Day, in September 1945. This was done in order to identify the members of all of the ethnic 148 groups living within Vietnam as citizens of the new independent country. This can also be viewed as conforming to the assumption that the state plays the role of promoter of collective goals and the 'general interest' or 'national interest'(Ngo and Boyd, 2006). Ho Chi Minh emphasized the necessity of having an ethnographic institute to identify and classify minority people (Dang, 1998). Ethnographic research began in the 1950s. The Institute of Ethnography was established in 1968 with the goal of putting together the precise classification and categorization of ethnic minorities in Vietnam and carrying out research on social and economic problems of minority areas (Be et al, 1993). Classification (by ethnologists) of different groups was conducted based on languages, residential patterns and ritual activities, a classification which in fact reduced the actual diversity of different groups (McElwee, 2004). Criteria used for merging these small groups (language, material life and culture, and ethnic consciousness) were a target for critics (McElwee, 2004), because they allowed putting various similar ethnic groups into one big group and giving them one name. For example, the different ethnic groups of Hmong TrSng, Hmong Hoa, Hm6ng D6, Hmong Den, Hmong Xanh, and Na Mieo were given the common name Hmdng (or M6o) (see Appendix A). In a number of cases various groups were put in the same group by ethnologists while the actual groups classified themselves as different and/or kept using their own local names (Bui, 2004). Appendix A, about the classification of the 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam, is indicative of an essentialized and fixed identity. The fixing comes with characteristics that ignores fluidity among different groups, as I will show later in this chapter. The majority of ethnic minority people reside in rural and upland areas.68 It is also worth noting that living conditions of ethnic minority groups in the rural uplands of Vietnam are more difficult than those of lowland people. They are the poorest and least educated section of Vietnamese society (Minot and Baulch, 2002). I emphasize that the key to understanding post-colonial Vietnamese policies toward the diverse peoples living within the boundaries of the country is the concept of dan 0c. This term has two meanings: nation (e.g. Vietnamese nation translates to Dan tpc Viet Nam), and the ethnic minority groups (cac nhom nguai dan 0c) who make up the Vietnamese nation. In order to avoid misunderstanding these terms in different contexts, over the last two decades Vietnamese academics have distinguished between the two meanings by using the term dan 0 c when talking about nation, and the term 0 c ngudi to indicate ethnic groups (Dang, 1993). In the non-academic sphere, however, both in daily life and in formal documents by the government agencies, the term dan 0 c is still used with both meanings. As mentioned at the beginning of Chapter 3, from the onset of the country’s establishment in 1945 state leaders saw it as their responsibility to bring the highlanders into the independent Vietnamese nation-state. President Ho Chi Minh constantly and clearly highlighted his ideology of nationalism. He emphasized: 68 Among the S3 ethnic minority groups there are three groups which are different from the rest: Hoa (Chinese) people (around 2% of the population) who usually live in urban areas and are in many ways ranked equal to Kinh people; Khmer people, who live in the Mekong Delta; and Cham people, who are scattered in both the highland and lowland of the south central coastal area. The $0 other minority groups all live in the uplands from the north to the south. 15 0 “...Be they Kinh or Tho, Muong or Man, Gia-rai or Ede, Xo-dang or Ba Na and other ethnic minorities, fellow-countrymen are all sons and daughters of Vietnam, blood brothers and sisters. Through thick and thin we share together joy and hardship, and help mutually in any circumstance. The country and the Government are common to all of us. Therefore, our people of all nationalities must unite closely to defend our country and support our Government. Rivers may dry up and mountains may erode but our unity has never diminished...” Ho Chi Minh (Letter to the Congress of Southern Ethnic Minoritie$, Pleiku April 19,1946) I He continues in his speech in 1955 -- right after independence from the French war -- “The minorities are now our brothers, and if we want them to progress, want them to develop their culture, then we must wipe out prejudice between the nationalities; we must promote solidarity, and we must love one another like brothers under one roof’ (Ho Chi Minh, 1955 quoted in McElwee, 2004). The Constitution last revised in 1992 highlights: “ ..The State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is the unified State of all nationalities living together in the land of Vietnam. The State implements the policy of equality, unity and mutual assistance among the nationalities and strictly prohibits all national discrimination and division behaviours. The nationalities have the right to use the spoken and written languages, preserve the national identity and promote the customs, habits, fine traditions and cultures of their own. The State implements the policy of all-sided development and step by step improves the material and spiritual life of ethnic minorities...” Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Article 5 Part of this process of including upland people in the state’s development agenda was to improve or develop these mountainous areas so they could contribute to the national economic growth. All their territories and resources have been included for the purpose of national development. Another large part of this state-assumed responsibility involved introducing the uplanders to a modem way of life, a strategy predicated on an ideological assumption that human beings would progress over time from the state of primitive uplander towards a new socialist man created by modernizing policies of the state. Indeed, one of the justifications for the perceived need to develop ethnic minority groups was that these groups were judged to be at a lower level compared to Kinh (lowland) people, in terms of both social and economic evolution. A formal document of the Third National Communist Party Congress states:69 Economic development in the uplands is an inseparable part of the Party’s ethnic minority policy in the new period of revolution. It enables upland areas to catch up with the lowland areas, ethnic minority groups can develop as Kinh people do, ensuring equality and unity among different ethnicities. This ideology has not changed and still serves as a key rationale for dam building. As I noted above, one of the justifications for the perceived need to develop ethnic minority groups was because these groups were judged to be at a lower level compared to I Kinh (lowland) people in term of evolution. This classification was partly inherited from Marxist theory on human development stages. It was also partly inherited from the French colonial period when colonial officers, for their purpose of pacifying the region, endeavored to define a hierarchy of races in the province of Tonkin, and administered Kinh “majorities” and ethnic “minorities” such as TMi, Tay or Mu6ng differently. Many 69 Quoted in”D\r thao phuorng in phan vung kinh te n6ng lam nghifp tinh Son La, 1972“. Vietnam National Archives 3 (VNA-3), Phdng UBHCTT Tay BSc, Volume 2, file No 3722 152 people, including government officials up to the present time, still continue “old prejudices” toward ethnic minority people. They disrespect local people’s customs, i manners and beliefs. Ethnic minority people have long been considered lazy, backward and unable to follow civilization. After the French war ended in 1954, Kinh cadres were assigned to all minority areas to help minority people develop. Thus, state officials usually argue that thanks to the government policies ethnic minorities were freed from their ignorant, backward livelihoods and customs. The Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs (CEMA), a ministerial level agency under the Government, was established to perform functions of state management on ethnic minority affairs nationwide.70 The state accordingly has issued a number of policies that emphasize its priorities to upland people, including education, micro credit policy, agricultural support, infrastructure, and health care, among others. In the last decade, Programs 134 and 135 are well-known support programs in Vietnam for ethnic minority people in the upland. There are also other documents by CEMA (Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs) to siipport development of ethnic minorities. 71 However, in reality ethnic minorities in Vietnam perhaps more than in most other countries are subjects of disciplining power/knowledge (Taylor, 2008). This way of thinking continues to the present in Vietnam despite of the government’s effort to keep all 70 President Ho Chi Minh first signed Decision No 58 on March 5,1946 to establish Ministry of Interior, under which there was Ethnic Minority Agency. The Agency was later separated from the Ministry of Interior and changed to Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs, a ministerial level agency. 71 http://www.cema.gov.vn/index.php7newlantFenglish access March 18,2011 153 ethnic groups in “one family”. In Vietnam there is a common clainji that ethnic minorities practicing swidden cultivation are largely responsible for the retreat of the forest (De Koninck 1998). Ethnic minorities are claimed to have a primitive ind destructive way of life. (Dang et al 1972; Nguyen, 2008) Ethnic minorities were blamed for as much as 25% of the estimated 200,000ha of annual deforestation in Vietnam (De Koninck 1999). Ethnic minorities in Vietnam, therefore, were considered as “threats” to the environment and to forest resources. These perceptions continue today, as I will demonstrate in the next section. In addition, even though the state calls for the preservation of ethnic culture, those customs and habits that were defined as backward and outdated were not allowed to continue. Article 30 of the 1992 revised Constitution highlights: “The government will manage cultural work. It is prohibited to disseminate ideology and culture that is reactionary and depraved; superstition and outdated customs should be abolished” (HDDT-QH 2000[1992]:256) In fact, geographical characteristics for a long time remained a significant challenge for the state in maintaining its authority in the upland areas, well known as “rung thieng nude $qc"- very dangerous region for lowland people. Development policies in the upland areas can also be seen as an attempt by the government to sedentarize the uplanders and assimilate ethnic cultures (Keyes, 1997; Salemink, 1997, 2003). Tribal people and ethnic minorities in upland Vietnam have been subjected to remarkably similar policies - ones that aim to eliminate tribal people’s distinctive identities and ways of life. “[The] Socialist Republic of Vietnam’s policies toward 154 minority peoples in general and tribal peoples in particular has been as assimilationist as those of other countries in mainland Southeast Asia” (Keyes, 1987 quoted in Nguyen Van Chinh, 2008:47). Sedentarization programs (moving lowland people to the uplands and forcing uplanders to set their cultivation fields and residential sites in permanent locations) and development projects such as dams, justified as ways to promote development of the uplands, can be seen as tools of the Vietnamese nation-state to assimilate its uplanders and control natural resources. Development projects such as dam construction have caused massive displacement in the uplands. Agrarian transformation in the uplands resulting from the widely applied sedentarization programs and dam-induced resettlement has in turn accelerated the state’s assimilation process. In fact, when indigenous people were affected, a series of extra provisions came into play. Resettlement due to the Son La dam is an example that I will elaborate in the following chapters. The government wanted to show that its policy would compensate losses of the indigenous people in a fair and reasonable way. However, because ethnic people were considered backward and low- educated, they were still unable to meaningfully participate in the very project that caused adverse impacts on their lives. For example, they were not given a say in the planning process of dam projects; their participation was limited to only certain stages of resettlement implementation (Tran, 2011). In the following section I will focus on the relationship between the state and ethnic minorities in the Northwest upland, as well as relationship between two ethnic 155 minorities groups: Thai and La Ha. I also examine how the northwest’s ecological, cultural and agrarian landscapes have been shaped by state development policy and, in turn, how these landscape configurations have contributed -- if at all -- to reshaping state J policy. The contemporary situation of ethnic minorities in the upstream of the Da River Tay Bdc (“The Northwest”) is the highest mountainous area of Vietnam. It’s also a i large area covering 36,101.40km2, of which the main part, 25,460km2, belongs to the Da River watershed (Trang 1995). The Da River (Black River) is the largest river in the Northwest, and one of the country’s ten river basins identified with high hydropower potential. With a total area of about 52,600km2, of which 50% lies in Vietnam, 48% in China and 2% in Laos, the Da River watershed contains many small streams with steep I and narrow flows (Nguyen, B., 2009). The watershed is also home to millions of people t belonging to a variety of ethnic minority groups, including Mudng, Dao, Thai Trang (White Thai), Thai Den (Black Thai), Hmong, La Ha, Khang, Si La, Mang, and Giay. The Northwest is well known for its diversity in ethnicity as well as for its beauty and appeal to tourists. The four Northwestern provinces along the Da River are Hoa Binh, Son La, Lai Chau, and Dien Bien. Originating in Yunnan Province (China) at an elevation of 1500m, the Da River runs approximately 1,183km, with 495km within Vietnamese territory (Nguyen, B. 2009). In Vietnam it flows from the north down to the southeast, through most of the Northwest to Phu Tho province. The Da River converges with other rivers in the Hong 156 (Red) River system at Viet Tri and, from there, goes to the sea.72 The topography is cut by high mountain ranges and there are many plateaus and valleys with different climatic regimes. The rainy season lasts from May to October and provides 75-78% of the annual rainfall (Trang, 2005). Because of its flow and its steep topography, Vietnam’s Institute of Energy considers the Da River to be the largest hydropower resource in Vietnam (Vietnam Institute of Energy, 2006). Since the 1960s, the Vietnamese government has been working on a plan to “tame” this mighty river. The Hoa Binh Dam, the first large dam on the river, was planned in the 1960s. The construction started in the 1970s with technical and financial support from the former Soviet Union. Construction of the Son La Dam, the river’s second dam, started in 2005. In the process, however, government sponsored dam building on the Da River has provoked a number of debates regarding the dams’ impacts on the environment and the Northwest’s social landscape. Figure 4.1: The Da River Basin (portion within Vietnam) 72 There are six provinces in Tay Bdc: Son La, Lai Chau, Bi$n Bien, Hda Binh, L&o Cai and Yen Bdi. Five provinces along the D& River are Lai Chau, Di?n Bien, Son La, Hda Binh and Phju Th Northwest (Hardy, 2002). The aims were to improve the primitive uplanders, and to improve or develop these mountainous areas so they could contribute to national economic growth. “Tay Bdc has a great potential in production, especially for industrialization,” stated General V8 Nguyen Giap in 1958. He continued, “Kinh cadres need to help local ethnic minority people... We are all Vietnamese, We need to facilitate 1 58 Tay Bdc development”.73 All territories and resources in the Northwest were accordingly included in the new nation state for the purpose of national development. Development in the Northwest has entailed a number of Changes, the effects of which can be ambiguous. The development agenda empowered Kinh cadres to help minority people to develop. Elderly villagers report that during the mid 1950s and early 1960s, their living conditions and standards improved compared to conditions during the French colonial period.74 Ethnic languages such as Th&i were taught in school. Nonetheless, development and nationalism tended to emphasize assimilation of ethnic groups into the social fabric of the nation state (McCaskill et al, 2008). When a cooperative economy was promoted in the uplands during 1960s, things started to change at an even more rapid pace. People were asked to join cooperatives. Vietnamese language became the sole formal language used in school. Sedentarization programs were promoted to suppress ethnic minorities groups’ “slash and bum” practices, since shifting cultivation was considered backward and environmentally destructive. All these actions have brought significant changes in the Northwest region. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the state continued to highlight an urgent need for economic development in the Northwest. Development of all the dams in the region fits into a broader strategy to provide energy for national growth and enable this poor and 73 Speech by General V6 Nguyen Gi&p in the meeting with cadres and researchers in Tay Bdc in 1958, page 8. Vietnam National Archives 3 (VNA-3), Phdng UBHCTT TSy Bdc, Volume 1, file No 144 74 Author’s interviews with elderly people in Son La and Lai Chau in 2005,2006,2008 and 2009. 73 Interview with a former sedentarization officer in Son La, 2009 159 backward region to keep pace with lowland industrialization and modernization. These dams facilitated, more than ever, changes in culture and in lifestyle for the upland people in the Northwest. As a consequence of more recent economic reforms (“£)oi m&i") in the late 1980s and early 1990s, political and economic changes have even more strongly influenced all upland areas in Vietnam. £> D6i m&i has also impacted the relationship between the upland and lowland. Over the last two decades, the disparity between lowland and upland has been gradually narrowed. Lowland prejudice against upland people has been lifted to some extent. The idea of modem material things such as clothes, durable goods, entertainment, advanced agricultural techniques etc. has been introduced to the upland areas. Many young lowland people go to the upland for charity work. Tourism packages to the upland have become more and more popular. Ethnic minority culture has become an attractive factor, helping to promote tourism in the uplands. Meanwhile, for young upland people their understanding of modernity now includes the national language and urban lifestyle. As I mentioned in the last chapter, many young upland people now dress just like Kinh people and it is almost impossible to differentiate between them just by looking at their clothes. 160 Children of different ethnic minority groups are now being sent to school; elementary school is compulsory for all of them. Some families now keep their children in school through middle or high school, and even to technical schools or colleges after high school. Some other wealthier families send their children to boarding schools in Hanoi from the age of twelve. According to government policy, students with ethnic minority background are allowed to enter college with fewer requirements and lower marks compared to students with a Kinh background. As a result, it is no longer difficult to find staff of government offices, schools, and businesses who aiie of ethnic minority background. However, in another sense their ethnic identity is becoming blurred. In some areas upland people have even started building houses just like lowland houses or simplifying their traditional houses as much as possible. This can be seen by the state as a success in bringing different ethnic minorities closer to “more developed” lowland Kinh people, but for many older ethnic minority people whom I interviewed, this was considered a failure to keep their culture alive. Despite the narrowing disparity between the upland and lowland, the ethnic minorities are still receiving much attention from the government of Vietnam. The uplands are still considered less developed and in need of support from the lowland for further development and modernization. As I mentioned earlier, there is a ministerial- level government body, the Committee for Ethnic Minority and Mountainous Area Affairs (CEMA), which is in charge of management of ethnic minorities and mountainous areas. CEMA has its own representative agencies down to the district level in areas with 161 an ethnic minority population of 5000 or more. CEMA has a strong influence in political and economic issues in the uplands. Programs that specially target ethnic minority groups are numerous and diverse. These programs cover a wide range of issues including poverty reduction, resettlement and sedentarization, forest land allocation, education, health and communication, among others. For example, Program 134 on land and water for poor ethnic minority groups k % and Program 135 on poverty alleviation for the upland areas m were designed specifically to support the upland areas in development and to help better integrate them with the lowlands. The Prime Minister’s Decision in 1997 on development planning for the Northwest prioritizes programs to integrate local markets to national and international markets, extend intensive farming, promote hydropower, mining, processing industries, and other production activities, all with the goal of modernization, and to increasing the Northwest’s competitiveness in economic development.78 Community development and empowerment projects by NGOs in the uplands are strictly controlled. Not every NGO is granted permission to work in the upland areas. All these policies reinforce the state’s intention of influencing the uplands and bringing ethnic minorities closer to the lowland in a number of ways. As a result, it is almost impossible for the uplands to follow policies different from those pointed out by the state. 76 Program 134 is a common name for the Decision 134/2004/QB-TTg - A Supporting Program on land and water for poor ethnic minority groups since 2004. 77 Program 135 is a common name for the Decision 135/1998/QB-TTg - A Program on poverty alleviation for the upland areas since 1998.. 78 Prime Minister’s Decision No 712/TTg dated August 30,1997 on Approval Integrated planning for Socio-Economic Development of the Northwest in the period 1996-2010. 162 In order to understand how different ethnic minority groups have reacted to being incorporated into the nation state building and development process, it is critical to understand the differences and fluidity among these groups themselves. In the following section I briefly examine the relationship between TMi and La Ha pieople in the northwest over different periods of history. Relationship between ethnic minority groups: the case of TMi and La Ha people Doing research on ethnicity in Vietnam should not be constrained to the relationship between the state and ethnic minorities groups, or between the lowland and upland. It is also critical to understand the relationships among different ethnic minority groups. That helps understand their differences in contemporary development process. As mentioned earlier, there is a diversity of ethnic minorities groups living along the Da River. TMi is the largest group, counting for around 1.5 million people. There are different names for Thai people, such as Thay and Tai. There are Black TMi and White TMi, who live in different places of the Da watershed. Before the French colonial period, Khang and La Ha ruling systems in the Northwest were replaced by TMi Mu6ng, after almost two hundred years of fighting (Dang 1993).79 According to Dang (1993), TMi people in Vietnam have maintained their own language and have had their own writing 79 Even though Thii people (both Thdi Tr&ng, Th&i Den) are formally considered tninorityethnic groups in Vietnam, they are the third largest group in Vietnam after Kinh and Muimg groups. They are the majority in the Northwest. Their population reached more than million (accounts for 1.74% of the total population) in 2000 population statistical survey, while La Ha people only consisting of more than five thousands in the same survey (accounts for 0.007% of the total). Tong di£u tra d&n so vk iM 6 Vi$t nam [Vietnam Statistical Survey on Housing and Population]. 2001. Ket qua di£u tra to&n b$ [Results of the total survey]. Statistical Publishing House, Hanoi. 163 system for a long time (Dang 1993). Their language is similar to Tai in Thailand. Under French colonial rule, the Thai were ranked as a higher developed group compared to La Ha, Khang, Giay, and Mang in the region. Some TMi clans such as the Cim and the D&o were large clans who ruled the area for quite a long time. Before 1954, “phla, t$o” which means the rulers and rich people in the northwest were TMi. The French supported rich l families like the B&o family, helping them maintain their power in the late of 19th Century and early 20th Century (Failler, 2011). Thus, during the French war, following their rulers, most TMi fought on the French side. The American war after that, however, did not affect people in northern upland as it did the people in the Central Highlands, except for the fact that a number of ethnic minority young men were recruited to serve in Vietnamese People’s Army in fighting against American troops and the army of the South. i The TMi’s political domination and relative wealth were, in fact, transformed into the idea that they were more “modem,” having French/Vietnamese influence and “development”. Even now, to many Thai people other small ethnic groups in the region — such as La Ha or KMng -- are regarded as inferior to Thai. Interviews with the villagers also show that the TMi, as a dominant group in the northwest, consider themselves to be more developed. They also believe that the reason they are wealthier than La Ha people is because they always work much harder than La Ha people80. This conforms with what Dang Nghiem Van (1972) describes in his study: that before independence in 1954, TMi 80 Author’s interviews with people in Son La in 2008,2009,2010 and 2011. 164 rulers were very strict and the TMi discriminated against people of other ethnic groups, such as La Ha and Kh&ng. The La Ha group, in contrast, even before 1954 had long worked as “cuong, nh6c, pya” - servants - to TMi families. During that time they did not Mve their own villages. According to La Ha folklore, during the 18th and early 19th centuribs La Ha people were just as developed as the Thai people were. Then the TMi began to try to dominate the area along the Da River. The La Ha people fought for a long time before finally succumbing to domination by the Thai. They have been “cuong, nhoc, pya” for the TMi people since then, which also means they have been on the bottom rung of Northwest society. The La Ha language was also maintained for a long time. However, now only some small groups who live in very isolated remote areas have managed to keep part of their language; the remaining La Ha speak TMi language. For example, in 1972 Dang et al found that La Ha people who lived near Thai areas could only count to four in their own language; from number five on they used Tai numbers. Their customs, houses and dress were also becoming very similar to those of the TMi people, except that La Ha houses were usually much smaller. La Ha women’s hair styles were also influenced by TMi women, either Black TMi or White TMi81, depending on whom they lived nearby. In the late 1950s and 1960s, Thai communities were required by the newly- formed state to share land with La Ha people. The La Ha started to set up their own 81 Black and White TMi are differentiated mostly based on women’s dress and the ways women arrange their Mir after marriage 165 villages. They also followed Thai people to join cooperatives and dear forest for farming (Dang et al 1972). By 2003, the La Ha population was reduced to only approximately 6300 people (Population census data in 2003, CEMA 2011). Studies and statistics show that the La Ha population has been significantly reduced and assimilated/merged into the TMi (Dang et al 1972, Dang 1993). In fact, person bom as La Ha may not remain La Ha, because many La Ha married TMi spouses or adopted TMi customs. An individual can belong to only one ethnic group in the census. In some cases La Ha classify themselves as TMi, because they do not want to be a “minority” in an area where TMi are the majority. In some villages I visited, some people I interviewed called themselves TMi, but when I checked with the local commune’s statistics official he said those people were actually La Ha. This demonstrates that the classifications and fixed categories are constructed and do not take into account the actual fluidity in ethnic identification. In brief, an unequal relationship between Thai and La Ha people has existed since long before Vietnam’s independence in 1954. This relationship still influences the way people in the area behave today. In the next section, I examine land tenure and livelihoods of ethnic minorities in the Northwest, from before the time of resettlement, through different periods since 1954. This will help illustrate and explain the changes which upland people have experienced since they were first included in the building of the nation-state. 166 Land use of ethnic minority groups in the Northwest before displacement Before 1954, it was quite common in the Northwest area for land to be managed by community regulations (VUSTA, 2006). Ethnic minorities used local resources (forests and rivers) to sustain their livelihoods, and they had their own customs and regulations for land and resource management. Traditionally, people practiced swidden cultivation in order to expand cultivated land, and farm land could be either cleared from the common land or inherited from generation to generation. Local populations cleared patches of land along rivers and streams. Clearing waterside land for farming continued until recently. Interviews with villagers show that they had title (land use right certificates (Red book - S6 do)) to 2/3 of the land in their old villages. Areas without documented title were mostly small wet rice patches scattered along streams, reclaimed land belonging to TMi people (usuallyl00-250m2 per patch), and rotating hillside land (alternating between crops and grazing) belonging to Hmong, Gi&y, and Ming people. Some of this hillside land were large parcels of up to 5 hectares in size. While upland villagers practiced swidden cultivation, customary forest management had long been strictly followed, especially the idea of spirit forest or forbidden forest. These forests were usually in the areas of water origin (upper watershed areas), and used for religious activities. Every year, on some special days, the whole village organized ceremonies to pray for health, good harvests etc. For TMi people, that special day is called Sen Ban. Each village worshipped their own village spirit, who was believed to take care of the whole village. According to customary law, people were not allowed to exploit these spirit forests, including harvesting non-timber products. The only things that they were allowed to take out of these forests were dried fuel wood and medical plants. Grazing was also not allowed in these forests. Punishment could be heavy for people who violated the regulations, depending on each village or ethnic group. Given the complexity of land use in the uplands, as I will show in more detail in the following sections, local governments and relevant agencies still do not have a complete picture of land use in upland regions where various ethnic groups reside and practice diverse forms of land management. Even the issuance of the Land Law (1993) ! and the revised Land Law (2003) have not completely clarified these issues. All of this, coupled with an unreasonably short time frame for resettlement and a change in land measurement methods82, has slowed down the land loss compensation process for affected people in both resettled and host communities. Collectivization period 1960s-Mid 1980s: The collectivization period in Vietnam was characterized by a centrally planned economy. In this period, the state controlled and directly managed both production and distribution processes. In the countryside, such control was manifested through the cooperative system. All farming land that used to belong to households was turned into cooperative land. In the lowland areas there was no private land left. Farmers and 82 Decision No. 02/2007/QD-TTg requires all land in both old and new villages to be measured by machine, and the resettlers as well as host communities are only able to receive compensation for their land loss based on machine measurement. All other measurement data (not done by machine) is not acceptable as a basis for compensation. 168 peasants were supposed to be involved in production only, while state agencies were responsible for the exchange and distribution of agricultural inputs, outputs and consumer goods. In the northern upland areas people also had to contribute all the land they had to cooperatives, no matter whether the land was reclaimed or inherited from their ancestors. Thus, cooperatives controlled and managed farming land. Every morning there was a bell rung for peasants to get ready and go to work on the farm. The cooperative was divided into several teams depending on how large the cooperative was. There was a team leader for each team to manage their working day. Each day, everyone who worked (either in the farm, at child care, or as temporary workers ( However, unlike other parts of the country, in the Northwest, there was no food shortage during this period in spite of the low production. In parallel with the cooperative 83 Interviews with local people in 2009,2010 169 mechanism, villagers engaged in their own farming activities. Besides the farming land that belonged to the cooperative (mostly wet rice areas or flat farming land), villagers were informally allowed to clear farming land from common property such as nearby forests, hills, and along streams and rivers to grow subsidiary crops including maize, rainfed rice, cassava, beans etc. Families with sufficient labor were usually able to work harder and clear more land; villagers’ ability to expand their rotating farmland depended on the available labour in their household Accordingly, larger households came to own larger patches of farming land, especially rotating fields. These newly cleared lands were usually untitled. Cooperatives did not manage, or perhaps were unable to manage, these lands, as these lands were usually scattered in very hilly areas. During this period, rotating farming was very popular. Products from the reclaimed lands were mostly for family use, not for commercial purposes. As a result, the nation-wide food shortage did not happen in the Northwest. Even people who worked for the state organizations in the Northwest owned reclaimed land to grow their own crops. Agricultural tax was collected based on the number of labourers in the family, not on their land area as it was almost impossible to measure this rotating farming land.84 Forest belonged to the state and was not assigned to any individual, group or cooperative. Some areas of forest were allocated to state forest enterprises for commercial purposes. For activities like fishing in the river people worked together and shared what they caught. A villager in Phieng Bung 1 pointed out that during that time, since there 84 Interviews with villagers and local officers who worked in the area during that time (August through December 2009) 170 were not yet dams or any development projects on the Da River, villagers were able to catch very big fish, sometimes 20-30kg in weight. The commune had a big boat that transported salt, fish sauce, fabrics and other essential things to distribute to villagers. Land management after the collectivization period After Resolution 10 in 1988, allowing dissolution of the cooperative system, land was redistributed to peasants. The Resolution introduced household contracts (khoan g 171 According to the Land Law 1993, all farming land (including ponds) was redistributed to households for a period of 20 years; and the forest land was 50 years.85 Since there was no accurate measurement, especially for rotating farmland, the data on land amount was based on oral interviews with the villagers. In many places, the commune kept a certain amount of land (around 5% of the total farming area in the commune), called the “5% contingency land budget”, that was used to enable the village to adjust landholdings if there was change in household. Villagers continued to reclaim common land for their farming. However, there was less common (and available for such purposes than there had been in the past, since most of the common land had already been cleared for farming by villagers. Again, these rotating parcels were once common property and had only recently been claimed by individuals; the people who farmed them usually had no title. Management of untitled land in the uplands followed traditional practices. Each community had its own informal regulations to manage the land, and thus disputes over reclaimed land were suitably managed. The villagers always knew which patch belonged to whom. Some patches remained in families through several generations. Informal land transfers were very common. In particular, as cash cropping (esp., maize) became predominant in the Northwest, informal land transfers also became very active. Documenting the ownership of wet rice and dry field lands (rotating farming land) displays very different patterns. Ownership of wet rice land (except the very small 85 Decree 10/1998/CT-TTg dated 20/2/1998 172 patches mentioned above) was normally documented in flies held and managed by the commune’s administrative office. This was perhaps partly because wet rice land is usually located in easily measured areas, and partly because the majority of wet rice land was assigned to villagers after cooperatives were broken up (even though the data may not be correct). Consequently, people received land use certificates for the wet rice land, but they had no formal title for the majority of dry fields, especially hilly land for shifting cultivation. Although they had been using the latter for generations for growing crops and grazing livestock, they had no formal written documentation of their ownership. According to the interviews, there was also a problem with oral estimates: officers often only asked people how large their land was, without actual measurement, and then gave land use certificates based on those numbers. This led to differences in the total amount of farming land each household possessed on paper versus practice as a villager from Then Cho village explained to me: There are more than 10 families in our villages, including my family, who did not tell the local officer about our various shifting farm areas. You know, we usually left the farm idle for 3-4 years, waited for the trees to grow back and then burned them to farm again. That’s why we were afraid of having to pay too much agricultural tax on these rotating lands. So now, there is problem with compensation for these lands. Interview on May 10,2008 Lives before resettlement Before we can understand how the dam has impacted resettlers, it is important that we first understand their life before resettlement. More details about agrarian changes 173 and people’s livelihoods will be provided in Chapter 5. As I mentioned earlier, in Phieng i Bung 1 and Pu Nhuong where I conducted most of my fieldwork, there were mostly TMi and La Ha ethnic minority groups. Interviews with resettlers in these two villages as well as in other sites that I visited before and after resettlement during 2005-2009 reveal that, before moving to the resettlement sites, villagers were mostly self-provisioning farmers. Household-owned wet rice fields were usually sufficient, so that households almost never bought rice for consumption. Families who did not own wet rice fields used money earned from selling maize, cassava, soybeans etc. to buy rice. Ethnic TMi people living along rivers and streams caught fish every day in the river. Fish provided a kind of nutrition that would otherwise be lacking in their everyday meals. Almost every household possessed ponds for fish raising. Households grew vegetables in their gardens and raised livestock. Their herds of cattle used to graze freely, without tending, in their pastures. Pigs also used to run freely in the villages. Wild vegetables and bamboo shoots could be collected in the forest. Residents of these villages went to the market very occasionally to buy things that they could not grow at home. They were not rich, and many of them were even poor, but the survey shows that hunger was not a frequent problem (Table 4.1). Almost every family used to own a motor boat. Since in many villages there were no roads, boats were their main transportation: from going to the market and visiting friends and relatives, to taking children to school and sick people to hospital. This is a very typical lifestyle characteristic of the TMi and La Ha people living along the Da 174 River. Some people used their boats to transport people and goods to earn extra income. And since they had to spend very little money for their daily lives, by the end of each year many families had savings for emergencies or to buy new items for family use (see box 1). Table 4.1: Some basic socio-economic indicators before resettlement Villages Households Some socio-economic indicators Boats TVs Refrigerators Motorbikes Having enough food all year round Phieng 61 95% 10% 8% 4% 90% Bung 1 Pu Nhuong 54 93% 18% 9% 3% 87% [Source: Survey, 2009] Box 1: For these resettlers, transition time was not easy. Losses of things and habits to which they were accustomed created imbalance in their lives and made it harder for them to settle down in the new places. One villager from Phieng Bung 1 told me: “In the old village, we did not have to worry about so many things like we do here. We had our land and, thank God, we had enough to eat. My family did not own either a motorbike or a TV, but we had a boat. The boat was so close to us. We used it every day. I miss it so much. I wanted to sell it, but no one wanted it. After resettlement it lay unused by the river bank for a while and probably got rotten by now. I didn’t have a chance to go back to see what happened to it from last year. We haven’t received compensation for it yet. When we moved here, I had to buy a motoiibike. Before we used our legs to walk and used the boat to go everywhere. Now we can’t. We need to have a motorbike. And you know what? The motorbike made me dizzy and unbalanced every time I rode it. The boat was so much better. You know we did not; work in the field all year round. During off-season time, we rode our boat to go upstream and downstream, 175 visited our relatives and families. It was so much more convenient to have a boat compared to a motorbike.” Interview on August 20, 2009 Thus, even though infrastructure in old villages was poor, people lived far from hospitals, schools and markets, and durable goods such as TVs, refrigerators or motorbikes were often absent, life was secure and followed a seasonal rhythm. And though they were poor, the boats and rivers provided them with a means of being quite connected to regional infrastructure, friends and family. More detailed data about resettlers’ livelihoods before resettlement will be provided in the following chapters. CONCLUSION Even though the Vietnamese state has included ethnic minority groups in its development policies, discrimination between ethnic majority and minority groups was still prevalent. The nature of the state-people relationship remains an issue despite all the improvements in land tenure policy and in resources governance. People, especially upland ethnic minority people, were unable to avoid being clients in this client-patron relationship with the state. Land basically still belongs to the state. No matter how long people have been using that land, whenever the state or developers need it for the 'national interest' or 'development purposes', the users will still lose their home, farming land, and all the attachments both tangible and intangible. The principles of free informed consent are not followed, in part because people are not given the right to refuse. Their sacrifice therefore continues to be necessary for the sake of the state (Roy, 2001). 176 There may also be hidden justifications for internal control and resources governance. When thinking about state power and the ideology of development and modernity, even improved policies are unable to help affected people avoid becoming impoverished due to poorly planned projects that prioritize economic benefits to non local people. Development policies, justified in the 'national interest', in practice continue j to diminish poor people’s ability to control and profitably use the natural resources they have depended on for generations. Every 'national' project is presented as beneficial to the whole population, even though it requires that some poor people give up their land or livelihoods. In the case of dam development, not every resettled village gets connected to the national grid, although their lost lands will be producing electricity for national use. The resettlers lose their farming land and other means of livelihood but do not get jobs from the project. Although the 'greater good of the nation' appears to be a worthy reason, it must appear suspect to the rural poor, who are consistently cljiosen to make all the sacrifices, while the more powerful gain the benefits (Baviskar, 2004). The term “power generation” in conventional usage indicates the generation of electricity; but it can also mean the making and remaking of relations between center and periphery that strengthen the capacity of centralized decision-making. Local authorities, especially at the commune level, consisting mostly of ethnic minority peoples, were disempowered by displacement of their communities, and their political opinions were marginalized. However, not all "local" people suffer: dam building has actually 177 strengthened relations between central authorities and some regional power-brokers in the Northwest region. The unevenness of development has, in many cases, resulted in serious unintended effects such as poverty, cultural loss and marginalization of ethnic groups. Many ethnic minority communities in the Northwest have had to switch from a self-sufficient to a market-oriented economy after being resettled to make way for the dams, as will be shown in the following chapters. Given their limited access to formal education and information, this change in livelihood amounts to an uneasy pathway for many members of these groups. Some recent improvement in resettlement and compensation policy probably resulted from two key factors: One, pressure from the affecte4 people to the local government who, in turn, put pressure on the higher levels; and two, the government wanting to show the fairness of its development policy. Yet ethnic minority people still have very little influence over the policies and decisions, such as sedentarization I programs or dam projects that affect their lives and contribute to the destruction of upland environments. Thus, they were marginalized not only during the contemporary nation building processes, but also during the transition toward a market economy after reform (doi moi) (Sikor et al, 2011). As dams continue to be built in the Northwest region, its agrarian and cultural landscapes continue to be reconfigured. The assimilation process which started after 1954 178 has, in the dam-building era, accelerated. Agricultural land uses as well as the management of forest and river resources are all tightly linked with both state laws and local/community regulations. Community regulations related to land inheritance, spirit forest, forbidden forest, cleared land etc. have played and will continue to play a crucial role in resource management in uplands Vietnam. Failing to pay attention to these regulations and traditions will lead to ineffective land compensation and unsuccessful rehabilitation in resettled communities. Resettlers may be able to continue some of their traditional practices in their new locations, but since they now become “minority” people in their new places, it may not take long before they are completely assimilated with their host communities. After a few generations in resettlement areas, it may be that no one will remember how to manage fish-rice fields or run irrigation conduits from river to rice fields. As I will show in more detail in the next two chapters, cultural changes include not only changes in dress, customs, or traditional lifestyles, but also changes in resource management (land, water, forests), and agricultural practices: from the way people care for their livestock to the way they grow crops. And in the end, after the resettlement, it seems that no matter whether they are Thai, La Ha, Kh&ng, Mang, Giay or H’mong, they become more similar to each other in many ways and are quickly assimilated into the dominant culture of the nation-state. 179 CHAPTER 5: AGRARIAN CHANGE IN RESETTLED VILLAGES-LIVELIHOODS RESPONSES My research examines the various responses of resettlers at different scales (individuals, families and collectives), from the small site where I conducted my fieldwork to the larger area of the Son La project as a whole. The term response is broad. Therefore, I only focus on two types of response: political responses and livelihood responses. I address these in two separate chapters to avoid blending political response (also called resistance) with some other types of action such as livelihood response (also known as production strategies). This chapter introduces the emergence of a new set of production strategies among resettlers, seeking answers for the following questions: How do resettlers reconstitute their lives in the context of being forced to move? How effective are these strategies, and why do people choose to use these strategies over other alternatives? I will focus on agrarian change, market integration and the dynamics of differentiation among resettled communities. Said differently, I will examine livelihood responses through the lens of differentiation. I find the concept very useful in examining livelihoods reconfiguration of resettled communities where it (differentiation) has become more pronounced over the last few years. There are different ways of defining differentiation. Byres (2010) views differentiation as a determining process in peasant transformation that feeds into class struggles. Differentiation is defined by White as a dynamic process involving the 180 emergence or sharpening of “differences” within the rural population (White, 1989). White (1989) also argues that differentiation is not about income inequalities (i.e. some peasants become richer than others) but about changing relations between peasants or between peasants and nonpeasants in the context of commodity relations (White 1989:20). I will draw on White’s argument in analyzing differentiation in resettled villages in northern upland Vietnam. I examine the processes of differentiation among peoples who appeared to start at roughly equivalent social relations. I argue that in the case of resettlers in the Son La project, changes in the nature and intensity of market integration as well as changes in production relations (changes in control of and access to labour and capital) are key driving forces for differentiation in the resettled villages. This chapter also explores answers to the question: do peasants become more dependent on markets or more self-provisioning? Detailed local level studies can contribute to a better understanding of how to use a peasant studies framework to understand agrarian transition processes and differentiation among the millions of people displaced by dams and other megaprojects, who try to reconstitute agrarian livelihoods in resettlement areas. The chapter will begin with a brief discussion on peasants, differentiation and displacement and then explores how differentiation in resettled villages unfolds. The discussion focuses on how differentiation, agrarian transformation and peasant transition all link to the general topic of dam development in contemporary Vietnam. 181 UNDERSTANDING PEASANTS AND DIFFERENTIATION The classic agrarian studies share a common assumption that peasants will disappear or at least significantly shrink in number once they are integrated into a modem economy (Rigg, 2001; Rigg and Vandergeest, 2012). However, some recent studies argue that peasants are growing in number in many places (Ploeg, 2008). Thus, in order to understand this trend, it is important first to understand who can be defined as peasant: what it means to be a peasant. Akram-Lodhi and Kay (2010) considers peasants to be those people whose livelihoods mainly depend on having access to land that is either owned or rented, who don’t own large amount of capital in terms of land, tools and equipment and mostly use their own labour to work on that land. Peasants are to some l extent outside of capitalist markets; they are either self-sufficient or self-provisioning. The concept of self-sufficiency means classical peasant subsistence in food - peasants produce first for their family needs and only then sell the surplus (Ploeg, 2010). So, this definition focuses on consumption. The concept of self-provisioning is framed in a different way. Self-provisioning, according to Ploeg, is tied to “provisioning of all the resources required for the unit of production (as opposed to the unit of consumption)” (Ploeg, 2010:6) (emphasis in original). Self-provisioning results in cost-reduction, but in a way that is opposed to large-scale fanning (Ploeg, 2010). Thus, when a family is self provisioning they are able to have supply/input for their production without depending much on the market. 182 Even though demographic statistics show a significant drop in rural population all over the world (Borras, 2009), and there has been a strong movement of young people out of farming work (Hall, 2008), leaving agriculture (Li, 2008), there have always been and will continue to be peasants who struggle with a range of different livelihood trajectories. Vandergeest and Rigg (2012) emphasizes how rural people (old and new) are “combining livelihoods in new ways across sectors and developmental spaces, they embody new desires and aspirations, and their values are often different from those of past peasant generations.” (Rigg and Vandergeest, 2012:7) Ploeg asserted that “central for the peasant condition is the struggle for autonomy that takes place in a context characterized by dependency relations, marginalization and deprivation” (2008: 23, emphasis in original). Similarly, Batterbury (2001) highlights productive bricolage’ t the ways in which i peasants have constructed a livelihood system that is a response tb local constraints and opportunities, and to broader patterns of income generating possibilities. Schneider and Niederle (2010) use the term plural activity to describe a situation in which agricultural activities are combined within and outside the production unit or where there is a combination of agricultural activities carried out within the production unit and non- agricultural activities in industry, commerce, and/or services. I will draw on these ways of seeing peasants for further analyses of differentiation in resettled communities. For peasants to exist, they need to have access to land, but infrastructure projects (such as dams, ports, bridges or road etc.) in many cases take land away from peasants and have caused dramatic changes in their lives. Ecological changes due to mega-project 183 development in general and dam projects in particular have caused constraints on i livelihood choices, while agrarian changes have produced new forms of inequality, including spatial inequalities (Bernstein, 1977). All over the world, there have been continuities and changes in terms of patterns of accumulation, appropriation and dispossession for capitalist development as well as socialist construction (Borras, 2009). Accumulation, especially accumulation through dam development projects, is not simply about the concentration and centralization of the power of capital, but is also about “dispossessing alternative practices and foreclosing options for alternative futures,” writes McMichael (2008: 213). “In particular,” he continues, “the ontology of capitalist modernity, rooted in economism, rules out a place for peasants, physically expelling them from the land, and epistemologically removing them from history”. So it is useful to scrutinize how peasants/resettlers can continue to be peasants after the resettlement, given their condition of being dispossessed and marginalized. Since difference in livelihood strategies is a contributing factor to differentiation in rural areas, shifts in choices of using land, capital, labour, and technique facilitate and shape the emergence of differentiated access to capital, technology and labour (Akram- Lodhi, 2005), as well as differentiation amongst the resettlers. In the following sections, I will first examine resellers’ lives before the dam and then explore how differentiation has happened after the resettlement. 184 FARMING AND LIVELIHOODS BEFORE THE DAM In Chapter 4, I briefly described the land use situation of ethnic groups in the Northwest before resettlement. In this chapter, I focus more on their pre-dam daily life, farming practices and livelihoods. Ethnic minorities along the Da River used local resources (forest and river) to sustain their lives and livelihoods. The northwest upland ethnic people also had customs and regulations for land and resources management. Rotating farming lands were once common land and were cleared by villagers, so people usually had no title for these areas. Each community has its own informal regulations to manage the land. Most of the households used a large area of land for their farming (Table 5.1). The average area was around 6-7 hectares per family. Since land was not limited, inequality in land was mostly due to the number of laborers in the household. Households with more strong workers normally got more land, as they could do more work to clear land. Households with less land were usually newly married couples, small size households (j)r households without strong laborers. Before being relocated, people were largely self-provisioning, with cash- generating activities including cash crops, providing water transportation along the river, etc. For people (like those in Pu Nhuong), who used to live near the water (river, stream) and had wet rice fields, methods of growing wet rice were passed down from generation 185 Table 5.1: Area cultivated by individual households before resettlement (in percentage of households) Villages No of Area (ha) households 3-3.99 4-4.99 5-5.99 6-6.99 7|-7.99 8-8.99 >=9 (ha) (ha) (ha) (ha) Total 115 1% 10% 16% 40% 2l9% 6.1% 1.7 % Source: Survey, 2009 (Note: for all tables percentages may not add up to 100 because the numbers are rounded to the nearest numbers)] to generation: how to move water from river and stream into their fields, how to raise fish in the rice fields etc. Since they had lots of land for farming and the patches were scattered, people usually did extensive rotating farming. One year they would grow maize, soy beans, cassava, peanut and rainfed rice in some patches, and use other patches for grazing. A few years later, when the land was becoming eroded and infertile, they would bum the grazing patches in order to grow crops on them, while leaving the former I i cropland for grazing. Usually, after burning the field, they planted the seeds. Then they waited for the plants to grow, weeded 2 or 3 times per crop, and then harvested. They rotated farming patches and grazing patches. In the fields of the old site, since they incorporated animal manure from grazing and then burned all the grass and bushes on that patch before growing crops, they did not need to use fertilizers. Their patches of land 186 could periodically lie fallow and stay fertile. Thus, they also did not use pesticides for their maize or soybeans. In terms of livestock management, in th^ir old villages people i did not have to worry about learning intensive husbandry techniques. They let their cattle (normally 10-15, sometime up to 20-25 cows each household) graze freely and needed only to keep an eye on them occasionally. As mentioned previously, almost every household also possessed ponds for fish raising. In addition, in the old villages, their daily activities were organized in quite simple patterns of labour division, and gender played a very clear role. Only men engaged in outside work-work that required going beyond the village boundaries. And only men dealt with outsiders or did heavy work such as chopping trees in the woods, climbing mountains, etc. Women were in charge of work inside the house, including cooking, taking care of the family’s daily meals, washing clothes, and cleaning house. If the family practiced wet rice farming, the husband ploughed and the wife transplanted young rice in the field. If the family did hillside farming, the wife used a stick to make holes and the husband followed and put seeds in the holes. According to these families, putting seeds in the holes was hard work. It required constant work in a bent-over position for several hectares of hilly farm, work that might cause back pain. Women would do most of the weeding. The husband and sons never touched the work identified as women’s work, such as cleaning house, doing dishes, and washing clothes. The labour gender division in i this region was, therefore, also inseparable from and shaped by people’s relations with the natural conditions they were embedded in. 187 Table 5.2 below illustrates different sources of household income in the old villages. Before resettlement, 100% of the interviewees earned cash income from cash crops (maize, cassava, soybean, and peanut), and livestock, while 84% had extra cash i income from fishing activities along the Da River, and 54% from waterway transport. Only 4% had to sell their labor for extra income, and most of those worked for wealthier households in their village or in neighboring communities. They mostly were able to manage their lives without having to leave the area for work. Sine? many of the families had large areas of land, about 24% leased some of their land to outsiders. Table 5.2: Sources of household income before relocation86 Sources of income (in percentage of households) Villages .1 Vegetable Water-way Wage Wage labor Wet riceWet Trade transport Cash Cash crops leasing money Fruit trees Fish pondsFish Forest Fishing Households Land Lending Livestock I* products Phieng Bung 1 6 10 100 100 5 16 23 57 100 71 0 1 % %% %% % %% 0% 57% % % 0% 2% 1 Pu 1 Nhuong 5 56 100 100 4 24 24 78 100 98 0 4 54% %% %%% % %% 7% 46% % % 0% 1 26% 31 100 100 4 20 24 67 100 4% 52% 84 0 0% Total 1 %%%%% % %% %% 5 [Source: Survey, 2009] 86 The income here refers to income of all kinds, including the products and cash generated from various activities they engaged in. It also includes products consumed in household. 188 Before moving to the resettlement sites, the households which had large wet rice fields (more than half the households in Pu Nhuong, see Table 5.2) almost never had to l buy rice, their staple food. Other families, who did not have wet rice fields (in Phieng Bung 1), or had small patches of wet rice fields (some in Pu Nhuong), used the money they received from selling cash crops such as maize, cassava, soybeans, peanut etc. to buy rice (Table 5.3). Because land was available and they had large areas of land for growing i cash crops, they were able to buy enough rice to eat all year round. They went to the market only 5-6 times per year to buy things that they could not grow at home, such as salt, fish sauce, or lamp oil. i The major factor in village stratification involved in the amount of labor in each household. Households with large number of workers were able td clear more land and thus accumulate more wealth. Differentiated control over land resource in the old villages could also lead to differentiated access to their own products and others’ products. In other words, there was inequality in the old villages. According to group discussions with the villagers, in the old villages the households divided themselves into wealthy, medium and poor groups, but the differences among these groups were not of major importance as they were all self- provisioning and possessed large areas of farming land. The difference in income between the wealthiest and poorest mostly depended on the amount of land they possessed which in most cases also means depended on number of workers in their families (Table 5.1). 189 Turning to expenditures, Table 5.3 shows that in the old villages 40% of the interviewees spent money on goods such as furniture and other household items. About 78% were able to have some savings by the end of each year, while only 4% ended up in debt. Up to 16% of the households used hired labor to work on tiheir land during high season, for jobs such as land preparation, sowing or harvest. There were no school fees, but schools at higher grade levels were far away (there was schooling only up to grade 5 in Phieng Bung 1 and up to grade 2 in Pu Nhuong (for both Pa Ban and Hin Hon)), so not many families were able to send their children for higher education Outside their villages. Table 5.3: Expenditure of households before resettlement Main cash expenditures (in percentage of households) Villag es Saving Social Hiring labor Production inputs (fmrtilivorv F oodstuff* Other goods House repair Clothes Education Paying debt Health care activities Telephone Gasoline Households Rice Phieng i Bung 100 0 41 15 61 20 5 44 71 74 10 10 0 0 1 % % % % % %% % %%%% %% 61 Pu Nhuon g 46 0 39 2 80 39 4 43 87 98 22 0 0 0 54 %%%%%%%% %%%%%% 11 75 0 40 9 70 29 4 43 78 85 16 0 0 0 lotai 5 % %% %%% % %% % %%% % [Source: Survey, 2009. *: The foodstuff here equals zero because it refers mostly to nutrition such as meat, fish, egg, fruits and vegetables. Families did not purchase any of these products because they grew them themselves. Foodstuff does not include minor items like salt and fish sauce. Villagers mostly used pork fat instead of cooking oil when they were in the old villages. Also, it is noted that people did not spend on gasoline (x&ng) but they spent on diesel fuel (diu diesel) for their boat.] 190 In brief, in the old villages, with sufficient land for rotational farming, people had enough food to eat and were able to provide themselves with basic needs and also earn some extra for savings. Only families which did not have strong in-house labour might encounter food insecurity for a short time every year. Even though villagers were self provisioning, they were partially integrated into markets, mostly by selling. They were I not dependent on commodity inputs (rice, foodstuffs) for their basic needs nor did they require inputs (fertilizers, pesticides) for their production. Their market integration was at a very basic level. | However, displacement and resettlement caused by the Son La dam have reconfigured people’s lives and livelihoods. There are a number of questions that need to be addressed. Are peasants-resettlers able to sustain the livelihoods strategies they used to pursue, or have they had to become more market-dependent? How has resettlement affected their livelihoods and their ability to reconstitute their lives? What have they done for survival in the context of land shortage, income reduction and expenditure expansion? AFTER THE RESETTLEMENT Compensation, farming land and challenges in resettling The prevailing issue in resettlement areas is a shortage of land for farming. Both the host and resettled communities are farmers. They have no other choice but to rely on land for farming. Only a large area of land for growing a variety of crops can help them sustain their lives without hunger. In general, most villages which used to have wet rice 191 before no longer have access to wet rice land after resettlement (NIAPP, 2005). i According to the resettlement plans, the majority of resettled villages do not receive wet rice farming land; they are only allocated hilly subsidiary crop lands. Their wet rice farming experience became of no use in the new locations. In some exceptional villages, i like Phieng Bung 1, villagers were able to buy a certain amount of land for wet rice growing from the host community. However, these are very small patches, which might provide only enough rice for a couple of months each year. Since there is no irrigation system, these wet rice patches may not produce rice as expected when there is drought. The shortage of farming land is due primarily to land limits at all resettlement sites. The sluggish pace of land allocation in resettlement sites, coupled with delays in land loss compensation, have intensified the villagers’ concerns about their means of living. Since the resettlers in Phieng Bung 1 and Pu Nhuong moved to their new villages in 2005, they have memorized what they were supposed to receive in terms of compensation and support according to the central government’s early policy.87 According to that policy, the area of land loss was based on people’s land use right certificates and/or that measured by measuring tape by project officers, or sometimes just that on interviews with the villagers without measurement. None of the measurement was done with actual land survey equipment. 87 Government’s Decision 459/QD-TTg, and Son La province’s Decision 01/200S/QD-UB 192 As mentioned in Chapter 3, since January 2007, the change in policy88 has required land survey equipment to be used for measuring both the land lost in old villages and the land received in new villages. Resettlers can only receive compensation for the differences in land area between the old and new villages as measured by land survey equipment, not measuring tape. Lands were classified as wet rice land, hilly land, etc., and compensation was based on this classification. The area of land, ignoring the productivity or quality, was considered the main criterion for land compensation in the new place; which means all wet rice land was valued the same, as was all hill farming land. According to the revised Land Law 2003, the provincial authorities are now responsible for setting land prices. Affected people have no role in this matter. This reflects the state’s view on the land compensation issue and highlights the marginalized i and voiceless situation of the resettlers. People were upset but unable to do anything to change the rule. In fact, the change in resettlement and compensation policy has totally frozen the process of compensation for land loss. There have been numerous reasons why the authorities were unable to conduct the land measurement: 1) Resettlers had already moved to their new place locations, 50-100km from their old villages (or even further). If they had to go back to their old villages for re-measuring the land with survey equipment, who would pay for their travel expenses? 2) The farm land of the ethnic people, as mentioned earlier, was scattered along rivers and streams, and on hilly areas. Each family owned many patches that could not easily be measured within a few days; 3) The data on 88 Decision 02/QD-TTg 193 existing land surveys was based on interviews with villagers and measured by measuring tape. These figures probably would be far different from figures collected by new land survey equipment. As a consequence, there might be chaos and disputes over the compensation. By the time my field work was conducted, more than three years had passed since the change in policy, but the measurement by land survey equipment was done only in some of the resettlement sites, for the purpose of taking land from host communities and allocating it to resettlers, but not in any of the old sites. For the Son La project, the government applied a standardized egalitarian policy for all kinds of compensation, including land distribution and food support among others. However, resettlers in different provinces might receive different amounts of land, depending on each province’s land availability. In the commune Where Phieng Bung 1 and Pu Nhuong area located, the amount of land resettlers received for compensation is far from enough to allow people to sustain their lives if relying on cultivation of this land only. In the following sections I will describe in more detail the changes in resettlers livelihoods post dam. Land shortage and livelihood changes in the resettlement sites Even though resettlement for the Son La dam was better planned than it was for the Hoa Binh dam and other dams in Vietnam, land for farming in the resettlement areas is still a critical issue, especially land for wet rice fields. Phieng Bung 1 and Pu Nhuong exemplify this problem. After four years in the resettlement sites, the thing villagers claim to miss the most is their loss of riverine land and dry fields where they could do extensive 194 fanning and rotate crops in multiple patches. One villager in Phieng Bung 1 village said: “When I was in my home village, I could never imagine that one day I would not have enough land to grow my crops. I used to wish to have more strength so I could work harder on my land. We were only afraid of not being strong enough to work, never i worried about not having enough land” (interview on August 10,2009). The contemporary shortage of farming land is manifested in land scarcity at all I resettlement sites, especially in Son La province, where more than 14,000 households have been relocated. In rural planned resettlement areas, the most challenging work has been to redistribute land from host communities to resettled communities. Understandably, host communities saw no benefit in sharing scarce resources with the newcomers. They wanted to receive compensation for their land before giving it to the resettlers. Also, both groups depend on farming; host and resettled communities have no I other choice but to rely on land for subsistence and livelihood. In a number of resettlement sites, including Pu Nhuong, the farming system is particularly unsustainable because the resettlers received only infertile hilly fanning land wjith a very steep slope I (about 35-40 degrees). The green coverage rate in such topographical gradients is very low, increasing the potential for erosion, landslides and flash floods. Resettlers’ attempt j to make a living on this marginal land, therefore, will eventually lead to further land degradation in resettlement sites. In Son La Province, resettlers were allocated approximately 0.25-0.3 hectare per person, depending on the land availability of different communes. This allotment 195 included arable land and fish ponds. In this upland area, an average family of four people consumes about 700-800kg of rice per year. If they don’t own wet rice fields, they grow maize. One family of four people will need about 1.5 hectares of maize to buy rice to feed them all year round (by the end of 2009 the rice price was VND 10,000-12,000/kg, the maize price was VND3,000-3,200/kg). This means that the amount of land people received as compensation (1.0 to 1.2 hectares for a family of four) is not enough to sustain their families if they rely only on land for their livelihood. Babies bom after the resettlement date do not receive land in the new village. As a consequence, young couples with two children bom after moving to the resettlement site may receive only about 5000m2 (= Vi hectare) of land. According to my interviews, these young families complained to the project management board and local authorities, but had not (yet) received any adjustment. In most of these cases, the husband must go out of the village to be hired as a porter or find some other employment to earn a living. If they are not able to do this, then their families go hungry and are therefore forced to rely on social networks, like support from kin and neighbors. A number of other families returned to their home village (about 40-50km from the new village) in order to grow crops on their old land. In Pu Nhuong, before the water submerged the old site in late 2009, 10 households regularly went back to their old land to farm and to raise livestock, leaving their children alone in their new homes. When asked, most said they would rather be farming in their old pre-submergence lands than live in the new village, do nothing and suffer from hunger. After their old land was submerged, these people had to stay in their new villages. In my trip to this area at the end of 2009 I met two men whom I had never met before in the village, since previously they had been away to work their old land. The men said that now they have to go to the forest to (illegally) chop down trees, or to the i market at the center of the commune to find work. The results were not always positive, some days they earned nothing at all. In a nutshell, the state’s land allocation though dam development has been a key driving force that causes marginalization and differentiation in resettlement sites in the Northwest upland. Resettlement has dramatically transfigured resettlers’ lives and livelihoods, and people have suffered different types of marginality (Blaike and Brookfield, 1987). Different types of marginality are correlated, and reinforce one another to create obstacles to resettlers in reconstituting their lives in the new places. As I will describe later in this chapter, resettlement produces rapid differentiation in resettled villages due both to the scarcity of production resources (especially land) and to changes in the nature and intensity of market integration that make it difficult for resettlers to maintain a self-provisioning condition in the new place. Leamim new wavs of farming in resettlement sites In the resettlement sites, due to land shortage and infertility, resettlers have encountered limitations in livelihood choices. In order to settle down in new locations with different environmental conditions, people have had to learn many new skills. Since they no longer live by the water, they have to relearn agricultural techniques. For the 197 resettlers in rural planned resettlement areas, the way to farm in the new place is different i from the way they farmed in their old lands. Their skills/knowledge of traditional farming are gradually fading away. For people who used to live by rivers ai|id streams but did not own wet rice fields (like people in Phieng Bung 1), when they moved to the new place and had a chance to buy some patches for wet rice farming, they had to learn everything from scratch: ploughing, seeding, transplanting, watering, weeding, and even harvesting. i I Moreover, because resettlers encountered a serious shortage of land for farming, they had to learn how to do intensive farming. They approached host communities and learned how and when to apply fertilizers and pesticides in order to achieve the highest production possible. Although fanners can learn these new ways pf farming, the land is exhausted after a few years of such intensive farming. The villager^ understand that crop rotation presents one possibility, but it seems to them that leaving their new, smaller land j fallow for one year is an unaffordable luxury. What are they going to eat during the fallow year? Thus, environmental change here can be viewed both as input and output of resettlers’ making a living. As input, declining soil fertility will lead either to a required i i further investment in land (such as more fertilizers) or to a reduction in incentive to invest in land, and eventually to the sale of land to wealthier people. |As output, decline in farming productivity is closely linked soil fertility and erosion in the area. Resettlers have to learn to deal with the new situation in the most effective way within their constraints. ! Livestock husbandry is no less complicated. But since livestock provide financial security and are easily liquidated when cash is required urgently, aljmost every household i 198 has some kind of livestock. In the new villages of both Phieng Bring 1 and Pu Nhuong, cattle are not allowed to graze without someone tending them. The common area is not large enough for everyone to use for grazing. So each household now usually has fewer than 3 cows. The resettled villagers had to buy new cows, since most of the cows they owned before resettlement died during the moving. They also were not able to raise the I j variety of pig which they used to raise because in the new sites pigsj had to be confined to bams, and were not able roam freely through the new village, as was possible in their home village. Due to all these changes, their sources of income dnd their expenditures Ii after resettlement were different from what they were in the old vi|lages (Tables 5.4 and 5.5). iI Tables 5.4 and 5.5 below show how people’s income and expenditure changed l after resettlement. Even though Table 5.4 shows that more people in Phieng Bung 1 than in Pu Nhuong have access to wet rice land, as mentioned earlier, their patches are very small (less than 100m2, and in many cases only 10-30m2). Resettlers bought these wet i rice patches from host communities or dug their gardens and diverted water from their i ponds if they had one. For them, this rice land is still a source of income and better than nothing. Although in the old villages only 4% of the people had to do paid work, in the resettlement sites that number is more than 24%. Thus, the resettlement process has induced peasants to work as paid-workers. Only one family (1%) is able to continue growing upland rice, compared to 36 families (31%) before resettlement. Without access to the river, there are no longer incomes from fishing in the river or from water-way 199 transport. The resettlers are heavily dependant on cash crops such as maize and cassava. However, with the limited amount of land, income from these crops alone is far from enough to help them avoid food insecurity for half of the year. Such annual food insecurity forces people to seek different sources of income and alternative livelihoods, as I will elaborate further in the following sections. Table 5.4: Sources of household income after relocation89 Villa Sources of income in percentage of households ges Vegetable Wet Wet rice Working Water-way Trade Up-land trnnxnnrt Cash Cash crops mnnpv Fruit Fruit trees lahnr Households Fish pond Forest Fishing Land Lending Livestock Phien g Bung 61 2 100 77 36 14 6 73 55 16 0 50 50 1 64%%% %% %%%% % 0% %%% Pu Nhuo 5 0 100 80 10 9 0 61 61 12 0 53 37 ng 59 %%%% %%%% % % 0% % % % 12 34 1 100 78 24 11 3 68 58 14 0% 0 51 44 iotai 3 % %%%%%% %% % %%% [Source: Survey, 2009] 89 Different produces such as rice, fish, vegetables, fruit, etc. are things people get which can be use for families’ needs, not necessary enough for households’ consumption or for selling in the market. 200 Table 5.5: Expenditure of households after resettlement Main expenditures in percentage of households Villages *b Telephone Gasoline Other Other goods Clothes Saving Production Households Health care Hiring House Education Paying debt Rice Food stu ff Phieng 100 100 97 97 86 5 4 5 1 67 0 6 78 72 Bung 1 % %%% % 9 7 6 7 %% 1 % % 64 % % %% % Pu 7 6 5 2 7 Nhuong 100 100 98 10 90 0 3 4 5 95 0 0 98 70 59 % % % 0% % % % % %%%% %% 100 100 98 98 88 6 5 5 2 81 0 6 88 71 Total 1 1^ %% %% % 4 5 5 1 % % 5 %% 51 %%% % % [Source: Survey, 2009] Following the changes in income and expenditure in these two villages, households’ assets were also subject to changes. Compared to before resettment, the number of villagers possessed durable consumarable goods such as motorbikes, I refrigerators, TVs, furniture, etc. has increased. However, this does not mean that their lives are better than that in the old villages because most of them used money from compensation to buy these items. The number of families having enough to eat all year round was reduced compared to before resettlement (Table 5.6). 201 Table 5.6: Some basic socio-economic indicators after resettlement Villages Households Some socio-economic indicators Boats TVs Refrigerators Motorbikes Having enough food all year round Phieng 61 0% 90% 45% 100% 86% Bung 1 Pu Nhuong 54 0% 88% 37% 100% 62% [Source: Survey, 2009] Since most resettlers grew maize on their land both before and after resettlement and maize has become a dominant crop in the Northwest in general and Son La province in particular, it will be useful to briefly examine the maize growing Situation in the area. Maize erowine in the Northwest and the question o f adaptation Maize has become a very important cash crop for people in the uplands, especially since 1990s when the “revolution on hybrid maize” started in Vietnam. In 1990 there were only 431.8 thousand hectares of maize in the whole country, while by 2008 the total area reached 1.14 million hectares (MARD, 2009). The Son La provincial government has issued a number of policies to support peasants and farmers in the province in the growing of maize. The policies include subsidizing fertilizer transportation (i.e. people who bought fertilizers do not have to pay for shipping to their villages), low rate loans for i seedlings, etc. Extension officers organized training courses on intensive maize farming, replacing local varieties with hybrid varieties, and the use of fertilizers and pesticides. 202 Local people’s old ways of farming, without using fertilizers and pesticides, was regarded as backward by local authorities, extension officers and even the villagers themselves (Son La People’s Committee, 2007). Almost every household grows maize on their hill land. As a result, the northern uplands have become an important producer of maize. In the Northwest, the maize growing area reached 174,000 hectares in 2008 (MARD, 2009), of which Son La counted for almost 100,000 ha (almost double the area of 51,640ha in the year 2000). Average production yield reached 0.34 ton/ha. In 2007, maize production counted for two thirds of the total grain production in the province (Son La People’s Committee, 2007). Maize is usually collected at the fields, transported to lowland areas and consumed mostly for large-scale livestock farming. More than 80% of the harvested maize is sold to livestock food processing factories outside Son La (mostly in lowland areas), while less than 20% was consumed inside Son La (Son La People’s Committee, 2007). In some areas, maize growing has become very controversial, since a large part of the benefit from maize production goes to intermediate agencies while villagers gain only a small benefit. Maize fields are mostly on hillside areas with steep slopes (see picture 5.1), intensifying the problems of soil erosion and land degradation. This hilly location also leads to a quick decline in maize field productivity unless farmers spend more on inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides. The main crop is in the Spring-Summer season, as maize growing depends totally on rainfed irrigation. Hybrid varieties count for at least 203 97% of the total maize area in Son La province90 (Son La People’s Committee, 2007). Even before resettlement, villagers had to buy maize seeds at seedling centers. Currently, three companies that are responsible for maize hybrid varieties include Son La province’s Center for Seedlings, Chieng Sung Agricultural Joint-stock Company, and To Hieu Agricultural Enterprise. The total area used by these three seed providers for growing seed maize in 2007 was 209 ha, which supplied 1020 tons of seed (enough for 50% of the I total maize area of the whole province). The Son La province government continues to strongly promote maize cultivation, aiming at creating more maize specialized zones within the province. Photo 5.1:Maize field in Pu Nhuong resettlement village (by Nga Dao) 90 Some common varieties include LVN10, CP888, CP999, CP989, B.9698, B.9681, LVN99, CP989, G49, C919, and NK4300. 204 According to my interviews, even before resettlement many families had switched from soybeans and peanuts to maize in order to earn a better income. For them, maize is easy to grow as well as bringing a higher income than soybeans or peanuts. Villagers, as mentioned earlier, did not have to devote much time and effort to maize growing. They only had to buy seeds and spend time to weed (just two times for every crop). The maize would be ready to harvest after just a few months. According to the interviewees, the villagers understand that maize, unlike soybeans, is not good for the soil, but the maize market is larger than the soybean market and villagers are able to spend less time in the field while earning more from the same plot of land. Land transaction in the uplands, therefore, became more active ever as many people saw the benefit of maize growing and wanted to expand their maize area. Earnings from maize growing provided these upland people cash to pay for clothes, school for children, boats, furniture and even durable goods in the households such as TV and refrigerators. In the resettlement sites, resettlers have continued to grow maize, but farming techniques changed. The inputs for a maize crop have increased. Farmers need not only seeds, but also fertilizers and pesticides, as they can no longer do rotating farming and the i soil is not as fertile as in the old villages. Even though some villagers have talked about the possibility of switching to soybean to enrich the soil, they seem unlikely to do this as the income from maize tends to stay higher than that for soybeans and other cash crops as the headman of Hin Hon hamlet explained to me: 205 You think that we don’t know how mono crop is bad for our land? We do. We’re used to rotating fanning for many generations. Now we have to do intensive farming in one small piece of land, it’s weird and creates an uncomfortable feeling, but we cannot do it differently. Compared to soybeans, maize is not good for the soil, but maize gives us a higher profit. So we have to keep growing maize no matter what. Interview on November 20,2009. In brief, maize production promotion at the national level, to support large-scale livestock husbandry, has influenced peasants and small farmers’ decisions in the Northwest about labour allocation and crop patterns. Price changes at national and regional levels are, therefore, entangled with local level decision making and environmental characteristics. In the following sections I will elaborate how in resettlement sites a severe land shortage that limits resettlers’s ability to grow maize has provoked resettlers to seek other livelihood options. Diversification of strategies in the new villages Changes in resource availability and natural conditions haVe significantly shaped people’s behavior and livelihoods strategies. After resettlement, the ways that resettlers I reconstituted their lives and livelihoods have not been uniform, and women have started to play a more important role. Resettlers have devised different strategies to fit various individuals, families, groups, and villages. Before resettlement, women mostly worked on their farm and inside their houses. In the new villages, since their subsistence became more commoditised, women became involved more in outside work. Women joined 206 training courses in new farming techniques and spent more time doing livestock husbandry with new technology. They brought their garden products to local markets to sell. If their families opened convenience stores or engaged in service businesses, they took part as cashier and book keeper. In many families (85% of the interviewees in both Phieng Bung 1 and Pu Nhuong), the wife kept the household money, and whenever the husband needed money, he would ask her. In Phiene Bune I : Two years after resettling, people received hilly farming land for maize growing. In the third year they were allocated small patches of wet rice field. Since no irrigation system was available, their farming depended totally on rainfall. In 2009 there was a drought, and the families did not have enough water for their rice fields. The rice withered in the fields and the families got nothing. Some families managed to buy pumps to pump water from their ponds to the fields. This strategy was not always successful, since pump water was useful only during land preparation. When the rice was growing the fanners needed rain because there was insufficient water in the ponds to keep the rice thriving. As a result, the farmers were able to achieve good results only in non drought years, so they were working hard to fight for the completed irrigation system as promised by the project to support their wet rice patches. However, in 2011 when I went back to the village, the irrigation system was not even halfway done and had been left abandoned for months. As mentioned earlier, resettlers also had to learn how to raise hybrid pigs. These pigs grew faster and were sold after about four months growth (it might take at least 8 207 months to a year for the traditional pigs). In order to raise pigs in the new location, resettlers had either learn new methods through extension training courses or go to the host communities to leam how to take care of the pigs (e.g., how to build a good bam; what to feed the animals, how often to bathe them, when to call a vet, etc.). Sometime, if villagers were not successful with the new variety of pig, they just ignored the rule that i pigs must be confined to the pig bam and went back to their traditional pigs, letting them run around freely in the village. Income from selling pigs was very important to the resettlers. Phieng Bung 1 village was divided into three different groups, depending on the location of the houses. This division was the villagers’ initiative. It was done, according to them, to help them more easily assist each other in many things, from cleaning public I spaces in the village (village roads, playgrounds, etc.), to support with housework and other social activities such as visiting sick people, taking care of children, etc. Each of the three groups was also responsible for keeping village paths in their area clean. When the village created its own regulations for environmental protection and social support, people in each division encouraged one another to follow these regulations. It became an important social network for the villagers. Households in each group mobilized in terms of labour and sometimes money to assist the most needy households to deal with emergencies. This helped keep viable the village reciprocity networks and encouraged support for each other in the new village. Kinship relations also helped hold the village together. People who had a kinship relation usually support each other in various ways 208 (taking care of children and sick family members, or working in the field when necessary, lending cash etc). The survey shows that 27% of the resettlers usually supported their I relatives with cash when needed. Thus, in Phieng Bung 1, reciprocitly and social networks are among key factors in resettlers’ coping strategies. The village also sent representatives of the Farmer’s Association and of the Women’s Union to participate in extension training courses to learn how to grow maize using fertilizers and pesticides. Since they did not have to use chemicals on their crops in the old villages, these techniques were new to everyone. After the training courses, these people came back to the village and taught other villagers what they learned. Villagers have started to diversify their activities, combining agricultural activities with non-agricultural activities, focusing more on personnel services and commercial services. In the resettlement site some resettlers become petty commodity producers who produce their subsistence through integration into wider social divisions of labour and markets. A number of them became part-time farmers (Hazell et al. 2007), as their families’ livelihoods no longer entirely depend on farming activities.91 In Phieng Bung 1 in 2008, more than two years after the resettlement, the villagers were able to sell two tons of fresh vegetables from their gardens. People no longer had to buy vegetables in the market as they did when they had just moved in. Villagers started having extra income from their gardens, which had never happened in the old village. They now bring their 91 The term “marginal farmer” here refers to farmers who do not have large amount of land. Their livelihoods depend on various activities beside fanning. 209 produce to the local market to sell, together with bamboo shoots that they collect in the woods. As discussed above, raising non-traditional pigs has become a main source of income for a number of families. In Pu Nhuone. which is very dry and on a steep slope, the villagers were not as lucky as the villagers in Phieng Bung 1. The threat of hunger became an immediate concern. There was no major source of water, so they were unable to have thriving gardens as did the people in Phieng Bung 1. They were unable to earn extra income from selling garden crops. However, every family managed to grow some vegetables to support their daily consumption. Some households even had their vegetable patches on the village path (leaving a very small path for walking) (Photo 5.2), since it was near a small water source. In order to deal with the scarcity of water, resettlers dug ponds. Even though there was no water in these ponds during the dry season, the ponds were used to store some water and raise fish during the rainy season. Resettlers went to the forest frequently to gather bamboo shoots to sell and to collect bamboo and rattan to make household use items for the family and to sell in the local market. They all longed to have larger patches of land for farming as they did before, in the old villages. They wanted to be able to sell vegetables from their gardens as the people in Phieng Bung 1 do, and wanted to have land to do wet rice farming again. Many of them complained that wet rice farming techniques will soon be forgotten in the village, and worried about how the next generation would survive without having enough farming land. 210 On the hilly fanning land that they received as compensation from the project they intercrop maize and cassava. Some families are talking about switching to soybeans soon to improve the land quality. Since they formerly practiced extensive farming, they now have to learn to do intensive farming on their small patches of land. In order to deal with Photo 5.2: Growing vegetables on the village’s path, Pu Nhuong village (by Nga Dao) this constraint, the headman of Hin Hon hamlet went to the commune, district and host communities nearby to learn new techniques, including the proper time for seeding, how to apply fertilisers, pesticides etc., to teach to the other villagers. He also went to a number of families in the host communities who were well known for being successful in 211 raising the new variety of pigs, to learn their methods. The headman of Hin Hon hamlet asserts “whoever pays attention will likely have more chance of success in doing new things”. People in Pa Ban did it differently. They went to the host community to learn things individually, depending on the needs and strategies of each family. In both hamlets, some of the resettlers were successful with raising the new variety of pigs, while some have gone back to raising their traditional local pigs, accepting the fact that these pigs do not grow as fast as the new variety of pigs do. Resettlers have also taken up non-farm activities. They do logging when it is possible. Even though logging is illegal, they still do it in order to have extra income. The forest patrols sometimes ignore logging in the area. With their resettlement compensation money, two families have opened convenience stores, and one has done quite well in this business. In general, people have tried various strategies, depending on their families’ conditions and labour availability. These strategies were characterised by a logic conditioned by particular social, cultural, and economic relations. Each family, every village can have a totally different story. In general, these intertwined relations at different scales can put various pressures on family and individual levels. Strategies are related to changes in the labour situation, to capital investments, productive cycles, reproduction within the family, and even to priorities with regard to social relations - ! each generating alternatives which result in an increase or decrease of dependence/autonomy (Scheider and Niederle, 2010). All these activities have 212 significantly transformed the agrarian landscape in the area. The changes in land use can accordingly be seen as a result of intentional human activities, of the interaction of different institutions, of change in the mode of governance over land, water, plants, and animals (Batterbury and Bebbington, 1999). Bricolaee or plural activity as new trajectories After resettlement, as elaborated earlier, villagers relentlessly struggled for their livelihoods, trying to secure their daily needs, having enough to eat. The villagers combined different ways of earning a living, including working on the tiny plots of land they received after the resettlement, renting farming land from the host community or from wealthier families in the village, and selling their labour - working for wages within and outside their village. In order to maintain income growth, resettlers had to diversify their livelihood activities in both agricultural and non-agricultural areas. Their engagement in plural activities has brought positive outcomes. It has enabled them to raise their incomes, which is one important factor of being independent. In the new conditions in resettlement sites, plural activity has developed strongly. The plural activities people engaged in mostly were tied to the labour market. Even though going out to work as porters, or waiting in the local labour market to see if anyone needs their labour was not an option that the villagers prefered, many of them earned a portion of their income in this way. In Son La resettlement sites, the phenomenon of engaging generally in plural activity may also be partly stimulated by the government policy of promoting 213 diversification in rehabilitating livelihoods. Even though not every household is successful in an attempt to diversify its income sources, most are trying to diversify and are learning to do so in different ways. This trend can also be considered as the result of household compisition (Schneider and Niederle, 2010). The survey shows that families with young and strong sons tended to be more successful in gaining better income through this diversification. However, success at diversification was also related to the number of members of the family, the level of education, networking, etc. Young women who finished high school had opportunities to learn to be nurses, or to work in pharmacy stores or as teachers in daycare centers or preschool classes. People with different resources involved themselves in various non-farming activities, depending on their skills and health condition. If we consider plural activity as the situation where there is a combination of agricultural activities and non-agricultural activities within a production unit (a household), about 62 percent of the families in Phieng Bung 1 and 36 percent in Pu Nhuong can be considered as having plural activities. These activities were mostly in the following fields: Personal services (carpenter, painter, porter, etc.): 36% in Phieng Bung 1, 11% in Pu Nhuong; Commerce (services): 14% in Phieng Bung 1, 8% in Pu Nhuong; and Public services (government work such as teacher, nurse, local authorities): 12% in Phieng Bung 1,17% in Pu Nhuong. 214 Resettlers tried various economic activities to identify the ones which are most suitable to their families’ conditions. When they failed in one activity, they began again in different ways and tried other activities. The importance of this strategy is directly I connected to its potential for meeting the need of resettled families for new income sources. It is vital in creating and sustaining people’s economic independence. Dynamics of village differentiation Just as with any other community, an upland peasant community was never a community of equals. Some households possessed a larger pool of in-house labour and were able to reclaim a larger area of land. Some households could be wealthier than others because they inherited land from their ancestors, so they did not have to work hard to clear new for their rotating farming. Stratification continued in resettlement sites even though all the settlers were ji assigned an equal amount of land per capita. Moving to a new place with a strange environment, each family had its own responses. In the resettlement sites, people’s lives changed dramatically from self-provisioning with minimal market engagement to market- based in terms of inputs and providing for basic needs. Accordingly, highlanders had to find ways to handle emerging inequalities and the new forms of household and community that emerged (Li, 2012). 215 The most vivid change that everyone recognized and felt uncomfortable with in the new place was the need to buy everything, from rice to all kinds of other foodstuffs. One villager in Phieng Bung 1 said: It is scary to think of how much money we need here. In the old village we did not really use much money. We could provide most pf the things we need ourselves like vegetables from the gardens or in the forest, fish in the river and ponds etc. We did not have to buy foods every day. In the first 2 years here in the new village we had to buy everything in the market. It took a while for us to get used with it. Four years passed, but it is still not easy for many of us. (Interview on August 15,2009) Once food production is no longer the primary occupation of peasants, how are they able to continue being peasants? This was especially problematic in the first couple of years, when even vegetable gardens had yet to mature. During the first two years resettlers mostly depended on government subsidies. They were peasants without land and fishermen without access to rivers. The peasant resettlers in Phieng Bung 1 and Pu Nhuong changed from a life without often having to spend money to a life where they need money for their daily needs. If before they went to the market only once or twice a month just for leisure or to I buy things they could not produce themselves such as oil or salt, after they went to the market almost every day to buy food. They all had to buy rice as well as foodstuff no matter if they have access to small wet rice patches or not. Increased market interaction in the village dramatically reshaped villagers’ daily lives form. This put heavy pressure on them to find ways to earn money and pursue various livelihoods pathways. In the new places, they had to borrow more: 55% had to pay debt every year compared to only 4% 216 before moving. Since schools were available, their expenditure for education was | accordingly higher. As time goes by, the villagers learned to adapt to the new way of life, just as they learned to adapt to new farming ways and to a life without the river. Their differential control over capital and production resources brought differential control over other issues in the village, such as making decisions on the village’s common matters. In order to illustrate a more comprehensive picture of differentiation in the two villages of Phieng Bung 1 and Pu Nhuong, I examine different aspects of differentiation: causes, process and indicators (White, 1987) through investigating what happened with different groups of these villagers: wealthy, medium and poor. Similar to the old villages, the resettlers also divided themselves into three groups. The purpose of this division, according to the headman and the villagers, was to make it easy for them to identify who was eligible for the government support program or from the village. I use the group data provided by the headmen and from group ranking exercises which the villagers did. According to the villagers, wealthy families included the families who had savings at the end of the year (no matter how much they saved), who owned more land and/or were able to hire labour for their farming. Medium families had just enough to sustain their lives (which means they had enough to eat all year round without suffering food insecurity). Poor families were the ones in poverty, who did not have enough food all year round. People in the poor group also included people ranked by the local authority as poor and who were eligible to receive food support from the government. I will look at each group 217 separately from different angles such as access to resources and capital, networking, market integration, and the way they spend their compensation and savings. Phieng Bung 1 is considered one of the best resettlement sites in Son La, and as j mentioned in Chapter 2 usually used as model resettlement site by the provincial government. Good infrastructure, including roads and schools, was an important contributing factor. Most of the interviewees were very happy with the infrastructure at this site. Phieng Bung 1 is on a flat area, which also means it was easier for the families to dig fish ponds, and not too difficult to have water pipes run to their houses. This is useful for gardening and for livestock. Even though there were strong disputes between the resettled and host communities when they first moved in, after a few years of resettlement, the relationship between them was going quite well. The village also maintained a good relationship with the commune’s administration. One person from the resettlement village worked as a commune legal officer. Wealthy srouv: In 2011 this group constituted 40% of the village. When they first moved to Phieng Bung 1, they received the same amount of land per person for housing and farming as everyone else in the village. However, even though resettlers ’ housing land was intended to be distributed by lottery before moving, many families simply grabbed i land on a first come first served basis, i.e. those who moved first freely chose the best places to build their houses. These families normally chose a piece of land with a large 218 pond. Thus, even though all families were given the same amount of land per person, some families had a better start and enjoyed more favourable conditions. Some other families, such as that of the headman, were able to buy ponds and paddy rice patches from the host community thanks to their children’s marriage relationships and other connections with the host community. The survey also showed that one third of the families were able to buy wet rice fields or fish ponds from the host communities using their compensation money or savings - either savings from the old village or after a few years of diversified fanning in the new village. Because cash became the most urgent need in the new place, villagers worked out different strategies to raise money for their families’ needs. After moving in, a few families quickly adapted to the land shortage situation and as a consequence made themselves the wealthiest families in the village. They mostly changed from pure farming to doing diversified farming and business and service work - such as raising livestock, providing transportation or starting small shops - to make their livelihoods less dependent on land. These families were also resourceful, often with good connections, ! and had young and strong labour in the family; they were willing to take risks by investing in new things. For example, seeing that maize was a dominant crop in the area, one family used most of their savings plus the compensation money right after moving in to invest in a maize milling machine to serve their whole village and the neighbouring villages (host communities). They grew vegetables in their garden, raised chickens and pigs and made alcohol to sell at the local market. They were lucky to be successful with 219 these activities. Using their savings plus the income from pig raising, in 2009 the father of this family and his two sons were able to afford a big truck to transport maize. In 2010 another family invested in the maize milling business. So, besides farming on the small land they have, some families were able to diversify their income based on other activities. They have been able to support their relatives in terms of jobs and cash when needed, such as enabling their children to buy wet rice land from the host communities. Through these means some of these families started owning a bit more land than others in the village. Those who had family member(s) with higher educational levels and stable jobs like elementary school teacher or commune officer were also doing well. They still farmed on their land, grew vegetables in their gardens and raised animals as many other villagers did, but since they have additional, stable income, they could earn extra money by lending it at high interest rates, and they could hire labour from time to time. A few families even bought water pumps to pump water from their ponds to their nearby rice patches. Some families used compensation money to invest in planting more fruit trees or raising a new variety of pigs. Although, when they had just moved ip, the newcomers had to learn pig raising techniques from the host community, by 2010 and 2011 some newcomers were so successful that even people from the host community came to learn how they could be so productive with their pigs. A couple of other households were thriving based on other people’ needs to buy foods and goods; they opened convenience stores right inside the village. Some others maximized their gardens for vegetables and 220 earned part of their living by selling produce from the gardens (see Box 2 for a story of a family in the wealthy group). Box 2: Story of a family in the wealthy group One person I spent quite a lot of time to talk to was Mr. Nu who was the village’s Party Secretary right before and after the resettlement. Even though he was one of the village’s leaders, he did not want to move and was very concerned about the changes encountered by his villagers. Despite the fact that his family was doing was dqing quite well in the new place, he liked to talk about the old village. It seemed like talking about the old village was his favourite subject. It shows that “doing well” in the new place did not necessarily bring people happiness. One afternoon, I came to his house to have tea. I wanted to learn more about the resettlers’ lives before resettlement. Here is a part of what he told me: “Oh, you want to know about life in the old village? I can spend days to tell you about it. The life there was quite different. You know, I have been through a lot, from the setting up cooperative period in 1960s until now. I used to be a head of our cooperative during the 1970s. The land in our old village was unlimited. You just did not have enough strength to clear them for your farming, otherwise you could have lOha or even more than that. And the fish, oh my Gosh! I miss the fish. Just few years ago, I once caught a 18kg carp. Oh, it was huge. My family had 4 ponds. I caught fish every day in the Nam Mu River (a big branch of the Da River), even in the winter. We had fish in our meals every day. I have 2 sons, so we all could work together in our field, catching fish, etc. We had enough food and were able to have extra for saving every year. I didn’t want to move here, but what could we do? We’re lucky that our house is near a pond and we could clear the other patch (pointed to rice patch a nearby the house) for growing wet rice. Well, it’s just a small patch but better than nothing. My wife and I work in our field. We grow maize. We also grow vegetables in our garden for selling, we have a buffalo and some pigs. Things are ok here. We have enough to eat. It’s convenient as it’s close to the market, close to the provincial and district centers. But I still don’t feel that it’s home yet, and there is so little land for everyone in my village.” j ______Mr. Lo Van Nu, bom in 1956, Phieng Bung 1 village. August 15, 2009. 221 In summary, given the limited amount of land they received in compensation, these families retained more diversification options for their livelihoods. They diversified their income through different farming activities, from growing rice, maize, vegetables, to raising pigs, cows, and chicken, as well as doing other services. With more income they were able to buy more wet rice land from the host communities. These families had better control of and access to labour and capital: they possessed stronger labour, more savings from the old village, or were willing to take risk. Perhaps in some cases they have simply been luckier than their neighbours in their farming or in raising pigs or cows. But they could also be people who benefitted by having higher education. These families started to enjoy the results of their production in terms of having new things that did not exist in their old village: computers, gas stoves, refrigerators, etc. Photo 5.3: A vegetable garden in Phieng Bung 1 (by Nga Dao) 222 Photo 5.4: A fish pond in Phieng Bung 1 (by Nga Dao) Medium group: In 2011 this group constituted 46% of the village. They mostly depended on their fanning land, gardening, raising pigs and chicken, and working as wage labourers during their free time. Living close to the market had its advantages and its disadvantages. On the one hand, villagers spent more money, since it was so easy to go to the market. On the other hand, everything they produce could be sold in the market, from vegetables in their gardens to bamboo shoots or fuel wood they collect in the forest (Table 5.4). Raising cattle, pigs and goats for commerce differed among the households. Since there was not enough land for grazing, each household usually raised only 2 dr 3 cows or a water buffalo for ploughing work. Not everyone was as successful with pig raising as people in the high income group. People in the medium group usually invested in a smaller number of pigs, just enough for them to have extra income to buy rice and needed merchandises. With their moderate income, most of the people in this group were unable to buy more land from the host communities and did not have the opportunity to pnjoy as many luxury items as people in the first groups do. Sometimes it seemed as if the boundary between the medium and poor groups is blurry: even though they had enough to eat there were no extra savings for emergencies. Food shortages could become a threat if they did not do well or if somebody in the family got sick. Poorsroup: 14% percent of the families in Phieng Bung 1 felt that their lives had been miserable since moving, because, unlike the situation in the old village, they didn’t have enough land for cultivation. These families usually suffered disadvantages in both labour and capital. They did not have much savings from before resettlement. Since they did not have any other sources of income and no savings, they were unable to afford to buy wet rice land from the host community. They did not have good connections or networking that could help them overcome this situation. The small area of land given in compensation for their old lands was not sufficient for their crops (maize and cassava) to sustain their lives all year round. Luck also played a role here. Not everyone was lucky with raising cows and pigs. Cows may die during the cold of winter. Some families borrowed money or used up their compensation to invest in pigs, but the pigs died. One man used up the compensation and borrowed money from Bank for the Poor to raise pigs j 224 and chickens, but his pigs and chicken died while his neighbour^’ thrived. He said “I don’t know what to do, who to blame, maybe just blame why God is so cruel to me”. He did not even want to think about borrowing money and investing again because he was still unable to pay his existing debt. A number of families in this group either had many small children or lacked strong labour in the house, so they were not even able to go out to work as porters or wage workers. Some of them were too weak to work on the farm, so they leased their farming land to other families in the village. These families had to mix cassava with their i rice as a staple food for one to six months a year. They usually bought their foods in the convenience stores inside the village without paying right away; the debts for these purchases accumulated and were paid at harvest time. Most of these households resided in the higher, hilly areas. They didn’t have ponds for raising fish. Since 2010, the government has implemented Program 30A, which supports poor families in the uplands. Under this program, families in the low income group all received 20kg of white rice per person per month in the three months before harvest time. Some of the members of this group were seen as lazy by other villagers because, instead of investing in production, they spent majority of their compensation money on rebuilding their houses or buying new things (TVs, motorbikes, etc.) (see box 3). So, after the government’s 24 months of subsidy was over, the members of this group either didn’t have sufficient funds (or knowledge, and/or sometimes luck) to invest in other production activities like livestock or services, or didn’t have labour to go ouit to work for others. 225 These families usually don’t receive much respect from the others in the village, and they long to go back to their old village. Box 3:Story of a family in the poor group Mr Ghing was the first person I interviewed during my first trip to Phieng Bung 1 in 2005. He actually came to talk to me when I had just arrived to the village. By that time, he had just finished building his house in the resettlement site. He wanted to be able to get some of his resettlement money in advance so he could complete his new bathroom. He thought I might know the cash compensation schedule and wanted to ask. I remember him describing how annoying it was to take a bath in a bathroom. He used to take baths in the river, but since there was no river in the new village they had to have a bathroom - that’s why he needed money for it. The headman told me that Mr. Ghin was one of the poorest people in the village. Four years later, when I came back for my dissertation fieldwork, he was still one of the poorest in the village. It seemed like it was very hard for him and his family to get out of the cycle of poverty. Unfortunately), his family was not a special case. There were other families having similar problems responding to the changes in their lives. His voice always sounded bitter when he told me about his life, but maybe not without a hope for a better future: “Well, you know, my family has been always been ranked by the other villagers as poor, even in the old village. I served in the army when I was young (ah, that was at the end of the American war). After I finished my term, I came back to the village and got married late. Unfortunately, we did not have any children. We had to adopt two children. But when they grew up, they did not live with us. I worked hard most of my life, but did not meet my fortune. We live in fear of food shortages most of the time. However, in the old village, things were not that bad, as at least we had our land. We pould work on it, and survived. We did not have enough food all year round though, just 9-10 months. Here, I don’t know what to do. The land is so small and not very productive. The only thing we can grow is maize, and it’s not enough for us to survive more than 6 months. I don’t like it here. There is no river. You know, the river is so important to our life and I miss it so much. Well, but here I have a new toilet. Oh, I also have a new and bigger house. We did not have toilet in the old village. The problem was because we were poor and did not own 226 a large area of land in the old village, the compensation for land lost we received was less than other, wealthier families who owned more land in the old village. And I spent all my compensation for rebuilding the house, building new toilet, bought a TV, furniture and I don’t have anything left. Now I want to raise pigs. I see Mr. E (a villager in the wealthy group) could earn a fortune from raising pigs. But I need to go to the bank to borrow money for it. Hmmm, not sure how it works, but I’ll give it a try.” ______Mr. Lo Van Ghing, bom in 1951, Phieng Bung 1 village, August 10, 2009. There is little evidence that poor people have become landless, since even the poor all try to hold on to the tiny piece of land they received in compensation. People may sometimes lease their land, but most of them do not sell it. People in the wealthy group may possess more land, as they have extra income to buy land from the host communities, but this has not caused large differences in landownership. White (1987) indicates that differential control over production resources does not always mean increasing inequalities in access to land. In the case of Phieng Bung 1 we encounter the situation in which landownership and farm size are fairly stable but agricultural surpluses derived from farming productivity are spent on other production resources like trucks, water pumps, plants, livestock, etc. There are a number of factors that contribute to differentiation in one village. But the most important include access to capital, land and resources, availability of labour (more income from selling their labour or the ability to work more on different farming activities), and social connections and networking. Since the whole village is Th&i, ethnicity is not a factor that impacted who got good land or a good housing location. Families with good connections or who moved earlier or who had more land in the old village were at a greater advantage from the starting point. In fact, there has been no significant movement between these three categories of villagers. The move seems to have deepened already existing inequality as we can see in Box 3. When a family in the old village had no children and owned less land, in the new village they still had less labor and received less money from conpensation for land loss, it was hard for them to cope with the change. Even though in general resettlers in Phieng Bung 1 are doing well with reconstituting their lives, with a high percentage of households in the wealthy and medium groups, it is unreasonable to scale up individual or village success to assume that successful livelihood recovery has happened at a larger scale in all resettlement sites of the Son La project. We just briefly examined how differentiation has happened in the model resettlement site of Son La. The case of Phieng Bung 1 is very special given its farvourable conditions. Now we move on to a very typical one, Pu Nhuong resettlement site, which can be generalized for many resettlement villages not only in Son La and the northwest, but also elsewhere in Vietnam including central area and Central Highlands In Pu Nhuong. the overall situation appears more difficult than in Phieng Bung 1 for both Pa Ban and Hin Hon hamlets. Since it is located in a dry and hilly area, water is a critical issue. Most of the ponds in the villages dry out in the dry season. In October and November, people can even walk on the bottom of the ponds. As a result, either raising pigs (especially the new hybrid variety) or gardening is very challenging work here. Some 228 managed to grow a few varieties of plants that do not need a lot of water. Their livelihood strategies can be viewed as unavoidable outcomes of a dramatic shift from a life by the river to a life in a dry, hilly area. The geographical settings in the new area, indeed, have influenced opportunities and outcomes of the resettlers’ production strategies. My first day in Pu Nhuong in 2008, during my pre-dissertation field trip, I did not buy any vegetables to bring to the village, thinking that if I waited and bought vegetable from the villagers, it would help them. It turned out that it was not easy at all to buy vegetables from them. There were almost no vegetables in their gardens, due to water i shortage. I walked around in the village and saw a woman walking by with a baby. I asked what kind of greens she had in her garden. She said the only thing she had was morning glory (rau muong). “Great! That’s one of my favourite veggies”, I thought. But when I asked if I could buy some from her, she said “No way. These greens are not for selling. They are for my pigs”. I stood speechless while my research assistant burst into laughter. After searching for a while I finally managed to get some young pumpkin leaves from the representative of the village’s Women’s Union. Since then 1 always remembered to bring extra vegetables and other food when going to that village. Thus, in Pu Nhuong, a few years after the resettlement, almost everything needed to be bought at the market, including vegetables. In addition, the land assigned to Pu Nhuong is degraded and not productive. That is mostly because of its location: the area around Pu Nhuong is very rocky, so the 229 villagers have been unable to clear it and turn it into arable land, The land allocation among the villagers was through lottery. There are some other arias nearby which the resettlers cannot clear for farming land, because these lands are under management of the host communities. Whenever resettlers attempted to use these lands, conflict occurred, so they stopped trying. The resettlement families’ access to forest also changed. The nearest forest was poor and contains mostly bamboo. It normally took almost a day to go there for bamboo shoots and fuel wood. So, only the families with stronger labour resources could go there often. There were concerns that soon even bamboo shoots and fuel wood would no longer be available, due to overuse. Even though the land was not fertile, none of the households left their land idle or leased it out. They all grew maize as the dominant cash crop on the land they received as compensation, and held on to that piece of land. They all wanted to be able to have more land for farming or at least have water to grow vegetables in their gardens and raise pigs and chickens. Bom as peasants, they wanted to continue to be peasants even though they had a very limited amount of land for farming. Some wanted the situation to continue to be that way (being peasants) no matter what happens, as they loved that way of life. Others simply had no alternative, because they did not know any other way earning a living. The criteria for grouping families into wealthy, medium and poor are similar to those in Phieng Bung 1. Wealthy group: As categorized by the villagers, twenty percent of the families in Hin Hon hamlet (one La Ha family) and twenty percent of the families in Pa Ban hamlet (half of which is 230 La Ha) belonged to this group, even though their incomes were much lower than those of the high income group in Phieng Bung 1. Just as with the people in Phieng Bung 1, resettlers here received the same amount of land per person. The incomes of these families also came from diversified sources. None of the families relied solely on farming. Some families had more savings from their old villages, and/or received more cash compensation as their farming lands were larger. They lent their money at a high interest rate. A few households spent their compensation/savings to buy wet rice patches from the host communities, a few others had strong labourers going out to work as porters. The people in this group usually had better social networks outside the village (such as family or relatives who run good businesses which they can join). They were also more business-minded compared to the others in the village. The headman of Hin Hon was one example. In addition to maize growing on the plot that he received as compensation, he raised pigs and chickens. His wife planted cassava on plots surrounding the house and on many different small patches he was able to Clear. They used the cassava to feed pigs and chickens. He is a son-in-law of the family which owns a big truck and maize milling machine in Phieng Bung 1, so he was able to join that business with his in-law family. In the last few years, he worked as an intermediary in the maize business: he bought maize from other villagers and sold it at a higher price. Some of his brothers in the village also joined him in this business. Since they did this business together, they routinely received cash support from each other when needed and invested 231 more on raising pigs. In 2011 he consistently had 10-15 pigs in his bam and earned quite good money from selling them. The village’s Party representative92 was the only one who was able to clear a patch of wet rice, as his house was near a stream. However, other families have chosen different strategies for making money in adition to farming. These occupations were not always pleasant to their neighbours. In Pa Ban, for example, one family moved down by the big road to open a small convenience store and became a “debt owner” in the village— people in the village usually just bought their supplies at the store on credit, without paying immediately (see Box 4). The villagers signed a debt book and paid by the end of the month or at harvest time, with high interest. It is worth noting that his family was not in wealthy groups before resettlement. Also in Pa Ban, a couple of families in the high income group often bought young maize from their neighbours - the ones who were in financial difficulty - at a very low price, then sold the maize later to the intermediate agencies at a much higher price. This was a new form of controlling others’ labour using agricultural surpluses that has arisen in these upland villages since resettlement. The traditional system of reciprocity did not seem to work well in these hamlets. Box 4:Story of the convenience store owner Every time I went to Pu Nhuong, I stopped by the house which served as the convenience store of the village. The house was far from the rest of the village because it was located right by the road to Thuan Chau district, a long and lonely road. 92 Headmen, village party’s secretary and other mass organizations’ representatives receive monthly income support (VND 170,000 = USD10, exchange rate in 2009) 232 It’s interesting to learn how the owners of this store became one of the wealthy families in the village. Sometimes, bad luck was not that bad after all. The family used to be in a medium income group before moving. When they first came, their house was located in the highest area of the village, right next to the mountain. After a few years, their house suffered badly from a landslide. They asked the commune to let them move down to a location next to the road. They had to build their house again. Since the land was not enough for them to farm, they didn’t know what to do. The husband went around looking for temporary work, without much luck. One day, a car stopped by to ask for directions; the people in the car asked them if they had water or something they could buy for snacks. They did not have anything to sell. But that gave them the idea of opening a convenience store so they could sell things to other villagers and to people who went by their house on the way to Thuan Chau cjistrict. They used the remainder of their compensation plus money borrowed from the Baijik for the Poor to buy a refrigerator and things to sell. They started with instant noodles, eggs, vegetables and some kinds of snacks for children. Later they added ice cream, yogurt, cooking oil, fish sauce and basic groceries that other villagers needed daily. Their business grew and they became one of the wealthy families in the village. When I asked the husband why they needed to offer credit to villagers who bought from the store, he said: “I can’t do it any other way, since I have to sell stuff to anyone who needs it. But many people in the village don’t have money available when they need to buy things. If I did not sell to them, I might not be able to keep the store. So having a debt-book is a good way to do it. They can always pay me later when they have cash”. ______Quang Van Lam, interview on November 20,2009 Mediumstoud : 35 percent of the families in Hin Hon and about 50 percent of the families in Pa Ban were considered to be in the medium income group. People in this group worked hard all year round and had just enough to eat. They mostly depended on intensive farming on the compensation land, raising pigs, cattle, goats and chickens. Their results 233 from livestock raising were usually just enough to sustain. Some Were able to lease or i bought small patches of farming land from the host community (Ngoang village). Since families in the host communities owned quite a large area of land (as the resettlers did before moving), selling a small piece did not affect their income that much, while they might need the money they gained from the sale for some important expenditure in the house. Since everything can be sold in the market, bamboo shoots and vegetables were brought down to the market when possible to help provide the resettler families with extra income. A couple of families in Pa Ban intercrop vegetables in their maize fields. Only families with strong labour were able to go to the forest for bamboo shoots, as the forest was quite distant. Kinship support in terms of cash help in this group was less common compared to the high income group as it was hard for them to have enough to meet their basic needs, not talking about supporting their relatives. Also, the reciprocity support system was not well maintained. For example, the husband of the representative of the village’s Women’s Union (the one I got the young pumpkin leaves from) had a stroke in 2007 and could no longer remember who he was. Ever since, his wife had been the head of household. Since their relatives were also in medium and low income groups, they were unable to support her. She had worked very hard to allow her children to continue their schooling, as she said the only benefit she saw from moving to the resettlement site was better education for her children. She dug a pond for raising fish for a few months each year, she grew 234 vegetables when it was possible, and raised a pig and cow. But, just as with many other ponds in the village, her pond had water only during the rainy season (normally in May, June, and July). Thus, she was able to raise fish for only a very short time each year, and did not have enough water to grow vegetables all year round. Because of all this work at home she could not go out to sell her labour or do other services. As a result, her income was very modest. When I came back in 2009 she had even stopped working as a representative of the village’s Women’s Union to have more time for other work such as farming, tending her cow, collecting fuel wood, and taking care of her husband. Poor sroup: Since 2008, eight households in Pa Ban have had no money at all for their daily food. These people also used up their money to buy consumer goods. They borrowed money from lenders at the commune’s center for their food, seed maize, fertilizer, and pesticides, at the interest rate is about 4%/month. When the harvest time arrived, the lenders came to the fields and collected the debt in kind, from the maize right on the field. So these villagers had nothing to bring home as the lenders took all the maize to repay the debt, and the each year followed the same pattern. Other families, who chose not to borrow from lenders, were able to sell their young com to their neighbours in the high income group. Some people did not use intensive farming, which means they did not buy fertilizers and pesticide for the com. This was not because they did not want to, but because they did not have enough money for these inputs. As a result, their maize 235 production was low and money from selling maize was not enough to buy food sufficient for the entire year. Since there was a water shortage on the site, villagers were unable to raise the new variety of pigs. Many of them have gone back to their local variety of pigs after failing to successfully raise the new hybrid variety. They let pigs run around in the village, feeding them whatever is available. Box 5:Story of a family in the poor group Each family has its own story, and not every family in the poor group was poor before resettlement. Moving and coping with changes varied widely from family to family. One day I went to a house where the husband was weaving a basket and the wife was babysitting their grandchildren. They were about my age but already had three grandchildren. The husband told me he that he was lucky to find some special bamboo to make his new basket. From some of his family’s photos on the wall, it seemed to me that his family once was not that poor. When I asked him why he did not work in the fields that day, he sighed: “Well, we have only one hectare of land for 4 of us. Not much to work on. We used to have 9 hectares in the old village. We also had a number of patches for wet rice growing. We grew rice, soybeans, maize, etc. and had more than enough to eat. When we moved here, my wife was very sick. We had to spend quite a large amount of our cash savings and compensation during her hospitalization. Now we have nothing. No water for a fish pond or for raising the hybrid pigs. Do you see our traditional pigs rjunning over there? It will take a while until we will be able to sell them (well, if nothing goes wrong). We have nothing in our garden either. No water, and the land is so poor. You know, I want a patch of wet rice so badly. I want to be able to move water from the spring to the rice field again [he sighed].” ______Mr. Quang Van Thinh, Pa Ban hamlet, Pu Nhuong village, August 19, 2009 In both Pa Ban and Hin Hon, about 40% of the resellers used up their compensation money buying durable consumption goods such as TVs, motorbikes, 236 refrigerators, freezers, and furniture, among other things. After two to three years, most of the families who bought freezers ended up selling them. When asked, most of them said they did not know what to invest in, given the fact that there was no Water available in the i village. As a consequence, after the government’s subsidy ended (October 2007) many of these resettlers faced food insecurity. Since 2010, when the government’s program 30A started, people in this group received rice support from the government before harvest time. It is interesting that ethnicity has also played a role in differentiation in Pu Nhuong. In Pu Nhuong, Thai people seemed to get better land at the beginning and settle down faster than La Ha people did. And as a result, there were more Thdi people in the high and medium income groups than La Ha people. However, there is not enough evidence in this dissertation to support the argument that ethnicity was always a key factor in differentiation. The resettlement has reinforced the differentiation of the villagers. However, the process is not linear (Zoomers, 1999) as some wealthy people became poor while some poor became wealthier. In brief, good social networks like the case of the headman of Hin Hon or more abvailability of labor were important conditions for the poor became wealthy. Luck also played a role in this process (see the cases in Box 4 and Box 5). In addition, the resettlement also changed relationships within the village, making it even harder for people to settle down. As the headman of Pa Ban hamlet said: Things have been changing so much, even the relationships among us. Before, if one family had some important work to do, such as building a house, the whole 237 village and relatives would come to help. Now, if one family wants to build a house they just go out and hire someone to work on it. Neighbours and relatives are busy earning their living. (Interview on November 10,2009) CONCLUSION The above analysis shows how the state and its development narratives are crucial actors in creating rural poverty, accelerating differentiation, transforming the agrarian landscape and further degrading it. A casual glance might give the appearance that residents had the same start in the new places. They all moved to a strange environment, received the same amount of land (per person) and other subsidies from the government. In the new places, they all suffered land scarcity (compared to their old villages), and changes in control over and access to surrounding resources. In the new places, their access to resources such as land and forest was mediated by the host communities. Resettlers started with different capacities, with different resources and networks. In the new area, human activities and natural conditions are intertwined and have shaped both the cultural and agrarian landscapes (Batterbury, 2001). Differentiation is not a static variable in agrarian transformation. It happens all the time and in any community - host or resettled, upland or lowland, minority or majority ethnic people. Given the fact that there is no single theoretical model of agrarian differentiation (White, 1987), each study might illuminate only some aspects of it. My research shows how this process of differentiation is shaped by the contours of the resettlement experience. There are various factors that lead to differences in the dynamics 238 of differentiation in upland resettlement sites. Markets and differences in choices of using capital and labour were important factors. But there were many different aspects that influence the resettlers’ choices including their social networks, the availability of labour, i capital and sometimes education. Their strategies were not always been effective, but they also learned to adjust depending on what resources they have, itheir individual cases showed that the changes in the nature and intensity of market integration have played an important role in accelerating the differentiation process. Instead of being self provisioning and partly engaged in markets with their cash crops, they became totally dependent on the market because the land they all tried to hold on to was too small and not sufficient for them to sustain their lives. In spite of all these constraints, they still wanted to continue to be peasants and be able to farm, either by choice or due to having no alternatives. Effective use of funds for investment helps people become less dependent on limited land. On the one hand, people who used their compensation and/or savings to buy wet rice land from host communities or successfully invested in livestock or other businesses did not face too many difficulties settling down. Labour mobility/availability enabled some families to earn their living without too much reliance on the area of land they received. People who hadgood social networks also tended to recover faster as they usually got support from people in their network (either friends or relatives). Those who received better land (near the water or a bit more fertile) were also doing better. On the other hand, those who did not spend their money investing in production, or those who 239 were less mobile or could not provide strong labour, or those who got less land (because they were small size households), or those who agreed to resettle later, or those who were far from water, all had a very difficult time in rehabilitating their livelihoods. At the time of my fieldwork in 2011, four years passed, and differentiation in the villages was becoming more pronounced over time. Some households had become quite wealthy compared to others. They had expanded their businesses and made more money than theu ever could have in the previous villages. Other households worked hard to just sustain their lives and not go hungry. But there were also people who became impoverished and struggled to find alternative livelihoods strategies: suffering from a food insecurity not known in their previous homes. Stated differently, the resettlement process offered opportunities which only some households managed to benefit from, allowing them the escape the constraints imposed by resettlement. The differentiation process in the villages was complex and was changing over time. It was triggered by the state development project and shaped by production relations between resettlers both inside and outside the villages. Differentiation in material terms and in the way villagers have merged into the market society unavoidably brought along differentiation in terms of social relations and even commodification of social relations. This differentiation process has further reconfigured peasants/resettlers in upland Vietnam. 240 CHAPTER 6: DAILY POLITICS OF RESETTLEMENT: POLITICAL RESPONSES Along with the livelihood question my research seeks to answer the questions: How have resettlers negotiated the resettlement process? What forms of political response have taken place? What strategies have people used in order to make the best of the situation? In this chapter I emphasize political responses which are acknowledged in literature as related to resistance. In my research I use the term political response for two reasons: first, to cover broader types of resisting actions, not just opposition resistance against the state and its development apparatus; and second, to avoid any potential risk of using the term “resistance” in Vietnam’s context. This will help give a comprehensive picture of resettlers as agents and show how they respond to dislocation and dispossession i under the largest resettlement project in Vietnam. I will particularly focus on the resettlers ’ relationship with the state and with host communities as well as relationships among the resettlers themselves. In relation to dam development, upland resettlers in Vietnam manifest their responses in many different ways. People fight for their new resources and new institutions and for autonomy. This is a multiple response that expresses itself at many different levels, unfolds along different dimensions, and involves a wide range of different actors (Ploeg, 2008: 265). These actors can be individuals, families and larger 241 collectives. Multiple responses among Son La’s resettlers were produced through resettlement conditions and their social, cultural, and environmental interactions. The state and its powerful development apparatus reconstituted the upland society through development projects such as dams, road construction, and sedentarization in ways that challenged the social, economic, and political patterns that previously prevailed in that area. As I described earlier in Chapter 4, ethnic minority people in the Northwest were mostly self-provisioning even though they partly engaged with the market for some of their crops such as soybean or maize. Hunger was not a daily threat. Before, during, and after the cooperative time, people always reconstituted their strategies to fit various contexts and situations, although there was no easy path. Nevertheless, resettlement due to the Son La dam can be seen as the hardest blow ever to afflict these already marginalized people, as they were forced into displacement and received only small amounts of low-fertility land in resettlement sites. As a consequence, there have sometimes been intensive and violent struggles over the land and resources surrounding dam sites. Often, rural disputes in resettlement sites were between villagers rather than with the state institutions and local authorities. But that is not the only way resettlers have responded to and resisted changes in their lives and living conditions. Wherever dams are located, in the northern mountains, central region or the Central Highlands, they impact in a characteristic way upon ethnic minority people-the upland resettlers. The resource base on which the resettlers’ mode of farming was grounded, and the community in which people were embedded, was distorted by 242 resettlement. Elimination of access to water, a serious shortage of land, the destruction of important institutions such as communal landownership and arrangements: these and other factors have made it difficult for resettlers to secure their lives and livelihoods in the i new resettlement areas (Baviskar, 1995; Roy, 2001; Richter et al, 2010; Jeuland, 2010). However, they were not passive victims of the project. On contrary, they actively fought for their survival and fought to establish their presence and their spheres of independence. The structure of this chapter is as follows: The next section examines the concepts of resistance and responses in geography and agrarian studies. The following section briefly explores the resistance and peasant mobilization in Vietnam after independence in 1954 and up to the present. Then the focus turns to the multiple responses of resettlers from the Son La dam, the largest dam under construction in all of Vietnam. CONCEPT OF RESISTANCE AND RESPONSE IN GEOGRAPHY AND AGRARIAN STUDIES As I mentioned in the Introductory Chapter, resistance is popularly understood as being in opposition to the state and comes in violent and non-violent forms. But in fact resistance is more than that; resistance itself as well as the meaning of the term is contingent. Resistance manifests itself in many ways and geographers have understood it in a number of ways but there is a tendency to emphasize certain forms over others. “Agrarian Angst and Rural Resistance in Contemporary Southeast Asia”, the book edited by Caouette and Turner (2009) is important to my work as it takes a multi-scalar 243 approach to examine resistance in relation to agrarian transformations in Southeast Asia. The authors draw on Gramsci (1971), Polanyi (2004), and Scott (1976, 1985, 1990) to analyze resistance at different scales and in different contexts. Caouette and Turner argue that while it seems that these thinkers focus on different projections and concepts of resistance, these conceptualizations are more linked than their differences would suggest (Caouette and Turner, 2009). One way to understand resistance, as Caouette and Turner point out, is that it is explicit and declared, but may take different forms, from violent to non-violent (Caouette and Turner, 2009). Violent struggles or demonstrations are only certain forms of “resistance”. Thus, when we are thinking through geographies of resistance we need to examine our assumptions as to what constitutes resistance (Pile, 1997). It is important to understand where and how it (resistance) takes place. Peasants’ response to changes can be in a multitude of forms and more explicit forms of response are increasingly common despite power of ‘big players’. It is a multiple response that can express itself at many different levels and, as I mentioned earlier, not necessarily just as collective action. It is not just struggles against the ruling groups, but it also involves daily life strategies for survival. It unfolds along different dimensions and involves a wide range of actors (Ploeg, 2008). Recent studies reveal some new forms of resistance, with increasing attention to how peasants and farmers in rural areas are facing new and increasing constraints imposed by ‘food empires’ (Ploeg 2008, Friedmann 2004). While these studies focus on examining how new alternatives have been created, which allow farmers to react to the control of the big players in global value chains 244 (Schneider and Niederle, 2010, Ploeg, 2008), they overlook situations where peasants were displaced and forced to give up their land and livelihoods for development projects such as dams, and how these actors establish their agencies through actions. These situations are unfortunately more and more common due to “landgrabs” (Borras Jr. and Franco, 2010), broadly understood as including land taken for large development projects. In my research I follow Ploeg (2008) in arguing that resistance is not articulated only through overt struggles such as demonstrations, marches, road blocks etc., but resistance resides “first and foremost, in the multitude o f responses” (2008:265) that are continued or created in order to deal with changes caused by the state and its development apparatus. It is not only a process limited to everyday life suggested by James Scott (1985) as ‘weapon of the weak’, but it is encountered in a wide range of “heterogeneous and increasingly interlinked practices” (Ploeg, 2008:265). It resides in the site where both positive and negative things happen. These can be any action by an individual or collective that attempts to challenge, to negotiate, adapt and/or to change the existing situations and conditions for any purpose. RESISTANCE AND PEASANT MOBILIZATION IN VIETNAM Over the last several decades, a growing amount of research has been examining the issue of resistance and mobilization in Vietnam (Caouette and Turner, 2009; Trang, 2009; Scott, 2009; Akram-Lodhi, 2007). These topics were not well examined before the country opened to outside researchers prior 1990s. 245 In their case study on Hmong people in Sa Pa, Turner and Michaud (2009) argue that resistance of the Hmong people is one of a more or less explicit; refusal to cooperate, not a stance against stronger opponents (the state and its apparatus). They assert that the resistance of the Hmong in Vietnam is based on centuries of “proximity, quarrels, political and economic exploitation, rebellion, invasion, war” (in Caouette and Turner, 2009:58). Thus, it is “an attitude of resistance to assimilation and domination, a form of collective self-defence rooted in their knowledge of their comparative political weakness” (in Caouette and Turner, 2009:58). According to Turner and Michaud (2009), upland people’s resistance is usually not straightforward. Tran Thi Thu Trang (2009) emphasizes that in Viet Nani, different forms of resistance have existed during different historical periods, as well as simultaneously in separate locations (Trang, 2009:160). Trang highlights four different aspects of resistance: forms, agents, causes and targets. Having examined peasant resistance in Vietnam through different important periods: collectivization (1960s- early1980) and reform and globalization (mid 1980 onward), Trang points out that interactions between structure and agency vary considerably according to context, through both time and space, revealing the diversity of resistance processes. In a nutshell, Trang argues that peasants adjust their forms and methods of collective action according to the context of ! political opportunities and their understandings of what might be effective resistance. Recent studies (Akram-Lodhi, 2007; Stephanie Scott, 2009) show that after the upheaval of the collective system by the end of 1980s, Vietnam’s agricultural sector has 246 been experiencing a major shift from subsistence farming to more intensive and market oriented production. Peasants and farmers in Vietnam have autonomy in production decisions and they have more freedom to manage their own time and labour, as well as crop composition and marketing their produce (Stephanie Scott, 2009). However, the results can be different between the upland and lowland people. Lowland and middle land farmers are mostly Kinh. A number of Kinh farmers seem to be quite successful in their coping strategies (Stephanie Scott, 2009). Given the ways uplanders are positioned in Vietnamese society (as described in the previous chapters), upland people might appear not as successful in dealing with policy changes as lowland people; even though the gap between lowland and upland seems to have narrowed recently. As I described in Chapter 4, there are differences between various ethnic minority groups in the upland, not just between lowland and upland. Thus, the “one size fits all” policy for all ethnic minorities is not the right one (McElwee, 2004). In dam-induced resettlement sites, besides struggle between the rich and the poor, between the state as patron and its clients, and between the powerful and the powerless, there is also struggle among the powerless , at either individual or collective levels. This is very different from other parts of Vietnam described by the authors cited above. Struggles in resettlement sites involve many other forms of social inequalities in rural upland Vietnam, including ethnicity, gender, and age. In Vietnam, earlier wars and political situations as well as Cultural and historical i conditions play a crucial role in shaping people’s responses. The development discourse in Vietnam which is promoting peasant dispossession for the sake of ‘national interest’ 247 under the name of d6i mdi has actually stirred up some forms of resistance/political responses in the last decade. For a long time, people in the North who had experienced the cooperative period from the 1960s through 1980s had expressed less overt resistance, compared to people in the South who joined the system much more recently -- since the late 1970s. Ethnicity and traditions are also involved in this process. Different ethnic groups responded in different ways and at varying levels. However, their responses are getting stronger and more overt. It is no longer just an effort to remain 'below the radar' as described by Turner and Michaud (in Caouette and Turner,2009:14). For the rest of this chapter, the term “response” will be used more frequently than the term “resistance” to illustrate resettlers/peasants ’ political responses to disturbances in their lives due to displacement and resettlement. SON LA RESETTLEMENT SITES - GROUND FOR MULTIPLE RESPONSES Land, life, and language are inseparable from the identity of ethnic minorities in the northwest upland area. Through many generations of living and cultivating the land, ethnic minority people understand and accumulate knowledge about the area. Their lives entirely depend on the land and its resources. But they were forced to displace to make way for the dam construction. Unlike peasants and small farmers in other places, upland dam resettlers are more vulnerable and face many difficulties because of their isolation, limits in access to capitals, education and mobility. 248 Organizing resettlement As I mentioned in Chapter 3, the Son La hydropower project has displaced 100,000 people (around 19,000 families) in the three provinces of Son La, Lai Chau and Dien Bien. In Son La province alone, portions of three districts (Quynh Nhai, Thu£n Chau and Mudng La), especially the whole of Quynh Nhai town and a large part of Murfmg La district, are in the submerged area, with a total of 31 communes, including 248 villages with 14,993 households (Son La, 2006). The most challenging task of the project has been to organize resettlement. The complexity of resettlement work is due to a number of factors including, but not limited to, the following (Son La, 2006). First, this is the project with the largest number of displaced people in contemporary Vietnam. Second, the resettlers consist mostly of ethnic minority people, entirely dependent on farming. Third, the area is complicated, segmented and divided in terms of topography. Unsubmerged arable land is very limited and scattered. This has seriously affected the process of rehabilitation in terms of agricultural production and income generation for the resettlers. Fourth, inadequate infrastructure in resettlement areas, especially roads for transportation, means that investment in infrastructure in resettlement sites was costly and time consuming. With a great number of people to be resettled and heavy time pressure on the resettlement process, it was very difficult if not impossible for the contractors to have infrastructure in resettlement sites ready before people moved in, as required by the government. Fifth, the 249 legal framework and supporting documents regarding compensation policies, as well as guidelines for implementation, were incomplete and were being amended during the process (2003-2009), creating obstacles and delays. For example, Decree 22/1998/ND-CP identifies those assets which are to be compensated. According to these documents, legal land users will receive compensation for land and its associated assets, while investors are asked to complete the construction of resettlement sites before people move in. However, this Decree was not actually fully implemented: compensation was inadequate and resettlement sites were not ready on time. Finally, personnel of project units at district and province levels were insufficient in number and limited in capacity. During the dam construction process, displacement was divided into three main periods: (1) Preparation of the dam construction site (2003), (2) Resettlement of people who live below the 140 m water level of the dam (2005-2006), and (3) Resettlement of people who live above the 140 m water level but below the 218 m water level (2007- 2009). All resettlement sites required two types of infrastructure. First, they needed infrastructure for receiving resettlers (to be completed before people moved in, as per government policy) including roads, water, and electricity. Second, resettlement sites required infrastructure for livelihood rehabilitation (not required until after resettlers move in) including health clinic stations, schools, irrigation facilities, etc. Before the resettlement process started the project and administrative system (district and commune authority) had had a hard time persuading affected people to move. 250 Information regarding moving and resettlement was delivered to communes by the district authorities. District officers went to every commune to announce the moving plans. The whole commune authority’s administration attended these meetings to learn about the project. Representatives of the village administrative system (headman, village’s Party secretary, representatives of the Farmers’ Association, Women’s Union, Youth Union, Veteran’s Association, and Fatherland Front Committee) also attended these meetings. These representatives then went back to their villages to persuade other villagers to follow the plan. The people in the village administrative system were supposed to set an example by pioneering this moving process. However, in fact some of these people refused to be the first ones to move. Each commune formed a steering committee headed by the commune’s Party secretary. In each village, tens of meetings were held to announce the central and local governments’ decisions related to resettlement, compensation, and livelihood rehabilitation. The first commune level meetings related to moving were in the late 1990s. But quite a number of respondents (30%) when asked said they did not know anything about the project itself or about the resettlement until the year 2000. The frequency of these meetings was increased in 2003 and 2004. In 2005, villagers living under the 140 m water level were asked to sign agreements to move. They were required to move immediately, during the dry season of 2005, and the rest were moved in the dry season of 2006. In the following years (2007-2009), the resettlement was very tense, due to the large number of people required to move and to the difficulty of completing basic 251 infrastructure for the resettlement sites. By August 2009, Son La province had completed the removal of 10,361 households out of the 12,500 households who lived above the 140 m water level but below the 218m water level. The plan was to move everyone out of the submerged zone (in all three provinces) by the end o f2009. However, by the end of April 2010 there were still hundreds of households in Dien Bien province moving out of their homeland in a hurry to meet the deadline for sluice closure in May 2010, even though the resettlement sites were still not ready. Resistance to the displacement and its decision making In the Son La hydropower project, resettlers had various ways of dealing with the news of displacement. In this section, I focus more on general terms in the Son La project as a whole. The next section will focus on the specific villages where I conducted most of my fieldwork. As Caouette and Turner suggest, resistance is “context-dependent and a force that is changing relative to dominance and within a dynamic network of power which can gather strength, diminish, and shift positions” (Caouette and Turner, 2009:9). Thus, even though people did not act against the dam itself, they were against the idea of moving out of the place where they had spent their whole lives and had so many memories. According to resettlement officers, what happened in many villages in all the to-be-submerged areas was when the authorities and resettlement officers came to persuade them to sign the papers to move, in some cases, people refused to sign, in other 252 cases, people signed the papers, but then refused to move.93 Many resettlers even argued that it did not matter if they signed or not. Without realizing exactly what a hydropower plant and its reservoir were and how their homes would be submerged, they believed that if they just stayed, then nobody would kick them out of their houses. In some villages, people persisted in not signing the moving agreements until the local government sent officers of the same ethnic group to come to persuade them. In a number of village meetings I attended, villagers admitted that they were afraid of moving. My household surveys in the field site in 2009 also shows that 59% of the people worried and were afraid of moving, 39% felt sad but not too worried (they believed that the government would do anything to help them resettle and that their lives in the new places would not be too difficult). Only 2% were not concerned about the resettlement. These were young people and they earned their living mostly by engaging in service activities such as transport of maize, beans and foodstuffs on the Da River. For these particular people, their livelihood before resettlement did not depend much on land. Some families reacted to the approaching dam project by ceasing to work on their houses or to invest in business. Their lives were uncertain and they had a hard time dealing with this uncertainty. The chairman of a commune (in Lai Chau province) I visited in 2008 is one example. In his garden, there were piles of big logs to be used for housing. He said he had bought them in 1995 intending to build his own house. Then he overheard the news about displacement for the dam and did not do anything, but just 93 Interviews with resettlement officers in Son La and Lai Chau 2008-2009. 253 stored the logs and waited. The house his family had been living in was just a cottage, not a real TMi house with a staircase. Other families, even though they were very upset about moving, simply ignored the news of the coming dam or did not pay much attention to it. They kept their lives going as if nothing would happen. They bjuilt new houses and invested in businesses. When asked, a food store owner in Lai Chau answered with a question: “What do you think is real: our existing lives or the dam?” He continued: We don’t know when the dam will be built, but one thing we know for sure is we need to live. And if we don’t work and keep our life going, then we will sure be in trouble, as we will not have enough to eat. When the time comes close, then we’ll see what we can do. (Interview on May 15,2008) In fact, my surveys in 2008 and 2009 show that in many villages people were telling each other that in order to get higher compensation they should plant fruit trees, perennial trees, have more cattle, and build good houses etc. Results of this strategy were seen in a number of villages in Son La, Lai Chau and Dien Bien provinces in the forms of more trees, cattle, and new houses before resettlement. And the strategy in fact worked quite well for a number of families in these areas. Thus, even though these upland people did not have the power to change the decision on the dam building, they demonstrated ‘weapons of the weak’ (Scott, 1985) by strategizing to undermine the process and maximize their benefits. When it was close to the time to move, people were allowed to go visit their designated resettlement sites. At this time they began to realize the potential difficulties, including land and water issues. Their reluctance to move became stronger. Even though they had already signed papers authorizing their displacement, they did not pack or 254 dismantle their houses. The government then promised to give an extra 4 million dong (USD 350) award for any family which moved on time. Resettlers were also promised an advance of 50% of the compensation amount (averaging about 1|5-18 million dong = ! about USD 1,000-1,200) to buy durable goods and logs for housing. Some resettlers even refused to receive the advance payment. They did not care abojut the money. As a village’s Party secretary stressed: Who would want that amount of money to move early? That’s where we were bom. Our life is there. Moving out of our home land was the biggest pain we ever experienced. If you have never been through it, you can’t understand. I would have done anything to slow down the moving process. I’d rather have lost my position in order to stay. But we had no choice. (Interview on August 10,2009) It is true that I have never been through such a situation, but I believe I can partly understand how it feels in those circumstances. Sentimental connections with the ancestors’ land, with the place where they were bom and grew up, with the neighbouring communities, and kinship were key factors creating resistance to moving, alongside the concern about land and water shortage in the resettlement sites. The closer to the time to move, the more diverse the reactions were. In general, people found all kinds of reasons to delay their moving. If the whole village was planned to move to the same resettlement site it was easier, as people mostly followed their headman’s instruction. But for those villages that had to scatter into different places, the villagers hung on to each other and tried to stay. In some extreme cases, some people even refused to move with the whole village because they did not want to move away from their home land (for example, the cases of Pa Hat village moving to Muong Khieng 255 resettlement site, or Tra village to Huoi Hao). They decided to stay despite the fact that the rest of their village followed the headman and moved to the planned resettlement site. For these people, the ending was normally not very pleasant, because eventually they had to move, and since they moved after other people in the village, good sites were already taken. For resettlement from Pa Hat village (It Ong commune) to Muong Khieng i resettlement site (Muong Khieng commune), people finally moved after some time struggling with the local police and authorities. It took them a while to get along with the other villagers as well as with the new local authority. ! Things were worse when the resettled village (usually the headman and majority of the villagers) did not want to receive these late resettlers in the new village, because the early resettlers were afraid of sharing the scarce resources. In another village I visited in the fall 2009 ten families who did not move together with the whole village were left out. These people had no place to move to after they finally agfeed to relocate. The trouble was not only with sharing resources, but also with other issues, such as education and health care. Since their names were transferred to the new commune, their children were supposed to go to a new school and, when they were sick, they were supposed to go to a clinic in the new village/commune. But since they had not actually moved to the new place, and had not registered with the clinic station, when they got sick they had no doctor. Once their home village was flooded by the waters of the dam, they either moved to relatives’ houses to live temporarily or used compensation money to buy a small lot for housing in the new commune. For these people, having sufficient money to buy a plot for house building was difficult enough, leaving little money to buy land for farming. They became refugees in their new hometown. In brief, in a number of cases, there were negative consequences for people who chose to resist. After resettlement, forms of response have varied even more, mostly focusing on problems and injustice in resettlement process. The responses in some cases were overt, collective and confrontational. In Phong Tho district, the resettlers actually threatened resettlement officers, because those officers had given them false promises about post resettlement compensation, especially in terms of land. In Quynh Nhai district, resettlers dug trenches across the road that went by their village, to demand a higher level of compensation. They did this every night for quite some time until the local authority finally met some of their demands. People in Quynh Nhai district even massively cut down bamboo forests as a way of reacting to what they called “unfair resettlement”. In a number of other resettlement sites, such as Tan Lap commune (Moc Chau district) and Pu Nhuong village (Muong La district), people went back to their old villages for farming and grazing despite the fact that those villages were now 40-100 km distant from their new homes. In most of the resettlement sites, there were delays in compensation for lost assets and property. Resettlement officers usually blamed complicated and lengthy administrative and disbursement procedures as the main reason for the delay. However, there was a rumour that resettlement officers had simply put the money into the bank to earn interest, although no one knew this for sure. In some places people could not wait for 257 so long, and they decided to fight for their money. For example, in a mixed village with the host community, after more than a year of waiting, the resellers marched down together to the district center to ask for their compensation money. First, the resettlers sent their representatives to the district center to ask for their compensation. Twice the representatives went to talk to the district level Resettlement Board officers, but nothing happened. So the third time the whole resettler group went down together. Their demonstration was not violent, but it was extremely upsetting to the district authorities. The commune chairman and Party secretary were even criticized for being unable to control their people. It is worth noting that the money the resettlers were demanding was brought to them on the following day. When I went to visit them a week after this event, the villagers were still excited about the result. Many of them sat with me under a house on stilts and talked about what had happened. The villagers underscored that they did not ask for something unrealistic. They only wanted what belonged to tljiem. In 2010, something happened for the first time among people in Chieng Lao commune of Muong La district: Two villages went to Hanoi together to request that they not have to move to a different district as planned. They just wanted to move higher uphill in their old commune, which meant they could still have access to the reservoir. The authority finally agreed to let them stay in their old commune. In summary, upland resettlers’ resistance in the Son La resettlement project is not invisible. Their reaction to the dominant actors took different forms and led to different consequences. The fact that resettlers who chose to resist ip the earlier stage of 258 resettlement sometimes suffered negative consequences did not suppress their fights for their survival after the resettlement. As a result, resettlers were successful in their resistance and achieved part of what they were promised. The above examples, where I villagers went to the district center or to Hanoi to express their requests or to demand what was due them, were not just everyday actions. Even though these may be viewed as only peasant resistance at the micro level, they illustrate the villagers’ strong collective resistance against the unreasonable ways development projects have been implemented. j POLITICAL RESPONSES TO THE CHALLENGES OF RESETTLING IN NEW PLACES - THE CASES OF PHIENG BUNG 1 AND PU NHUOlVG RESETTLEMENT SITES As mentioned earlier, political responses in resettlement sites in Son La were not an organized at larger scale, but were more likely to happen at the individual, small group or village level. The cases of Phieng Bung 1 and Pu Nhuong will help illustrate varieties of response in resettlement sites in Son La. Even though these sites lie only 3 km apart, their ways of responding were not the same. Responses to resettlement ranged from violent reactions (fighting among resettlers, threatening resettlement officers) to non violent marching and demonstrations, to diversification in ways of reconstituting their lives, as I have elaborated in the previous chapter. Resettlers’ responses crossed multiple levels and intertwined among different actors. They were not confined to opposition to the state or to other ruling groups, but even occured among affected people themselves. i 259 The nature of the responses was shaped by gender, age, and ethnicity, among other factors. Relationships with the state, host communities, and among the resettlers themselves Phieng Bung 1 village: Resettlers in Phieng Bung 1 were among the first people to move out of the area below the 140m water level in 2005. They were all from one village, Nom, in Muong Trai commune (Muong La district). Before moving they held a lottery to distribute the housing lots in the new village. However, just as in many other villages that needed to be displaced, when the moving time came no one was ready to move. Some families which were part of the village administrative system had to move first, as an example for the rest of the village. When they arrived at the resettlement site, the project officers told them to build houses wherever they wanted in the designated site, disregarding the selections which had been made through the lottery. That was considered to be a reward for being the first people to follow the relocation plan. As a result, those families chose to settle down near ponds, and claimed those ponds as their family assets. This led to serious conflicts among the villagers themselves, as the ones who moved later felt that this land distribution was unfair. Fortunately, this kind of conflict did not last very long, as all the resettlers saw the need to be united and rely on each other in the new location. As described in Chapter 2, Phieng Bung 1 resettlement site is located in a mango orchard of the host community. It is a flat area with good infrastructure (roads, schools, 260 water supply to the houses). Vehicles are able to drive straight to the village center. When I first went there in 2005 the orchard was beautiful and the host community was just i about to get their first harvest. So when the resettlers came, the host community was very upset and angry; some in the host community tried to chop down the trees, as they did not want the resettlers to harvest their fruits. Even though the commune formally organized welcoming activities to receive the resettlers, including the performance of folk songs and dances, food support, house building and moving assistance (the host community actually helped resettlers move their houses, furniture, and belongings to the designated sites), the tension was still high, but mostly among young people. The host community lost their land but did not see any benefit yet: for instance, they did not have a new water supply system as the resettled people did. Young people of the two communities fought many times. The commune’s police and the commune authority had to come often to solve problems. In the first few months after resettlement, the resettlers complained that their belongings had been stolen by people in the host community. In a few cases, thieves were i captured, but the problem continued. Sometime, even though they did not know who was i to blame, the resettlers would accuse the host community, and vice versa. I remember visiting a house where the owner had just lost his slippers the night before. His family was one of the poorest families in the village. He insisted that the thieves were some teenagers from the host community even though nobody had seen what happened. When I asked how he knew that the mischief was from the host community^ he said “of course it is from the host community, who else would do that? In my old village, we never experienced this. Nobody stole anything from other people in the same village”. And then I i for the whole afternoon he went on to tell me how hard his life had been and asserted that, besides the shortage of land and water, the most miserable thing about the resettlement site was dealing with the host community. The relationship between the two communities did not go well for more than two years (from the end of 2005 until mid 2008). The problems culminated when the host community, which did not have access to running water, destroyed a water pipe which ran to the resettlement village. In April 2008, when I came there for my pre-dissertation fieldwork, there was a fight on the first day of my stay. I saw a group of young people with knives threatening to cut down mango trees that used to be their property. Other villagers were standing nearby but no one dared interfere. The village policeman94 came, then the headman. They all argued and talked. There was much argument and talk for the rest of the day. The people with knives finally went home. There was no damage and no one was hurt. For these upland villages, the authorities’ rules may not always be honoured. In many cases, the villagers have their own ways of settling disputes. In those cases, the headman plays a crucial role. The woman in whose house I stayed told me that the young people of the two communities fought quite often. They could get into fights i for any reason: a dispute over a tree, a girl, a place for grazing, buying things, etc. Although young people, in the early stages of the resettlement, reacted quite overtly, women and older people in Phieng Bung 1 village had different ways to respond 94 This person was not a regular policeman. He was appointed by the villagers and the headman to be the person dealing with security problems in the village. 262 to the changes in the situation. One afternoon, when preparing dinner, I asked the representative of the village women’s union how women experienced moving and settling down in the first few years. She smiled sadly and said: You can understand that women are hit harder than men ip the resettlement sites, especially in terms of water for daily use. Since we’re no longer near a river or stream, ensuring enough water for daily use is a big problem even though we have running water to our houses; the amount of water is not enough for the demand. Last year, two children drowned taking a bath ip a pond. That was also considered the responsibility of the woman in the house, because she was supposed to take care of the children. When we were in the old village, we all bathed in the river, no one drowned as we knew the river so well. ThPi men never pay the slightest attention to what is daily needed in the family. Women have to take care of everything, from where to get the water to what to eat each meal, etc. That is a women’s job: to work out ways to deal with these problems. Men never care. For men, having rice to eat for dinner is the women’s obligation, and not the responsibility of the men. (Interview on September 5,2009) In the first two years, when young men paid more attention to fighting with the host community, many women resettlers went to host community families who had helped them move and offered their labour to these families. So, in two years, before they received any land for farming, they helped these families in the host community in a variety of types of farming labour, including land preparation, seeding, weeding, and harvesting. They, at the same time, learned how to do intensive farming and various techniques from the host community. One woman said: We know we will have to live here probably for the rest of our lives and then the next generations too. This is our new home. So, what is the point of fighting with the host community? We are neighbours. For what happeped, it is not their fault and not our fault either. We did not want to leave our ancestors’ land at the first place. But now we are here. We need to learn how to survive. (Interview on September 5,2009) 263 Then she laughed as if to say that this is an obvious thing that doesn’t need to be talked about. When I asked why they chose to go to offer their labour to the host community families, a number of them said “Oh, they helped us move. That is one thing. The second thing is, what do you think we should do? Just sit home and do nothing? No, we need to have something to work on. Doing nothing has bad consequences. When we came to help them, it was fun, we made friends, and we leamejd new things”. This illustrates differences in gendered strategies of coping, both within households and at the village level. Fortunately, things got better once the resettlers in Phieng Bung 1 decided to share their drinking water pipe with the host community (mid 2008). They sat together and worked out how to manage the water supply. Every village assigned two people to join a water management team. They installed water meters for every household. People in the i management team were put in charge of reading meters, collecting water fees and using the fees to pay for pumping, electricity, and fixing the pipe in case of necessity. These managers also received monthly support taken from a portion of the water fee. Over time, people in the two communities got to know each other better. Their relationship changed for the better. There were then cross marriages between the two communities. Some of the resettlers were able to manage buying fish ponds or wet rice land from the host community. Beyond the village boundaries, resettlers in Phieng Bung 1 encountered false promises made by the resettlement project officers at different levels (district, provincial 264 and central) before and even after the resettlement. Many promises did not come into reality, including the amount of subsidy for livelihood rehabilitation and an irrigation system for wet rice farming. In Phieng Bung 1 village, resettlers were assigned some small patches of land that they were told would be used for wet rice farming after the project provided an irrigation canal. These patches were very dry and far from any source of water. The resettlers said they had been waiting for the canal for 4 years and nothing had happened yet. A few times, the village’s Party secretary and the headman, together with the village management board, went to the district center, where the Resettlement Project Management Board is located, to ask for the irrigation scheme to be implemented. They asked the staff of the commune’s administration to help channel their claim to the district level. But the answers were always the same “We are going to do it. You need to be patient”. While the promise of an irrigation scheme is one important target that resettlers aim to achieve, they also have to deal with other issues related to resettlement. The compensation was slow, especially compensation for livelihood rehabilitation. The amount was also much lower than was promised before relocation. Just as with the irrigation canal issue and all other issues related to the resettlement and compensation process, most of the time all the resettlers are able to do is to write letters to the authorities and the Project Management Board, or go to see the local authorities and project officers. Sometimes this meets with success, but many times the resettlers have come back with no positive outcome. However, this has not made them stop trying. The 265 village’s Party secretary is very keen to continue the process and press for results. He told me “We will keep doing this until they give us what they promised, or at least most of it”. In brief, local struggles, created by the state development projects, can be either among the poor or between the poor and the authorities or government development apparatus. To some extent, the struggles also shape the implementation of development projects. Local political responses can be constructive (like the actions of the women in Phieng Bung 1) and fruitful, but can also be frustrated. People who are negatively affected by development projects are usually depicted as victims of domination, but in fact are sometimes able to work out strategies for themselves for their autonomy and survival. In these cases, resistance can be seen as the politics of everyday spaces, through which political identities constantly flow and are fixed. These struggles do not have to be overt, about fighting back or active opposition, but may exist in “enduring, in refusing to be wiped off the map of history” (Pile and Keith 1997:xi) Careful examination of the situation in Pu Nhuong in the following section will elaborate this point further. The situation in Pu Nhuone village is different from that in Phieng Bung 1. The resettlement site is located on a hilly area near a bamboo forest and a state forest enterprise that grows teak wood. The village (also called the Pu Nhuong resettlement site) consists of two hamlets: Pa Ban and Hin Hon (their old villages’ names). They were two different villages from the same commune as people in Phieng Bung 1 (Muong Trai commune). Their old villages were not next to each other but both lay by the Mu River, 266 the largest branch of the Da River. There were both Th&i and La Ha people in these two hamlets. About 40% of marriages are mixed ethnicity (Thai-La Ha). When they just i moved in, people in the host community refused to give the newcomers farming land, and by the end of the research period the resettlers had to share infertile dry fields, not wet rice farming land. This resettlement area is heavily affected by landslides. In 2005 when I first went to this village, the main road to the center of the village was beautiful and it was easy for any kind of vehicle to go up to the village center. However, in the three years since then the road has been seriously damaged by landslides. It has become very bumpy with large holes. Cars cannot reach the village’s center. During my visits in 2008 and 2009, the only way to reach the village was to walk. The road was never been repaired. In 2008, five houses (three in Pa Ban and two in Hin Hon) were half destroyed by landslides. At the beginning of the resettlement period, the relationship between the two hamlets went well. The host community (in Sang village) helped resettlers in Pu Nhuong building houses and settling down in a new place with a strange environment (See photo 6.1). However, the difficult conditions in the new location may have affected this friendly relationship. In addition, the historically unequal relationship between the TMi and La Ha ethnic groups seemed to make La Ha people less assertive. In this particular site, for example, TMi resettled families somehow received better land and adapted faster to the 267 new environment. While all of the Thai families stayed in the resettlement site, many La Ha families ended up going back to their old village for farming and grazing before the land was submerged. They normally went by motorbike: both the husband and wife, leaving their children alone or with relatives. One couple died on the way, due to an accident. La Ha people were quieter and did not usually openly fight for their interests. Photo 6.1: Building house in resettlement site. Thai people in Sang village (host community) help La Ha people in Pu Nhuong build new house. (Men are helping with the house, women are cooking) I attended several of their village meetings and realized that even when they were members of the village’s administration, they did not usually raise their voices dwing meetings. The La Ha always took a back seat. It helps explain their “getting along well” through many generations. As settlers in a single resettlement site, people in Pa Ban and Hin Hon hamlets have to share their community hall. Things did not work out very well when both of the 268 hamlets wanted to use the common house. As a result the two groups requested another community hall, so each hamlet could have its own hall. Sharing the cemetery was also a problem. The cemetery designed for the village was on the opposite side of a stream from the village, a stream which floods during the rainy season. The project promised to build a bridge for the resettlers before they moved in, but after more than 4 years of resettlement nothing has happened. Several people did die during this period, all from Pa Ban, none from Hin Hon. Since there was no bridge, the villagers in Pa Ban were not able go the other side of the stream to the designated cemetery, so they decided to temporarily bury their dead on the village side of the stream. They argued that it was the project’s false that they had to burry their dead in the wrong place. And it was the project’s responsibility to find a new place for cemetery and to fix this problein. Even though there were both Thai and La Ha people in Pa Ban, the people who had died were La Ha, and the Thii people in Pa Ban were not involved in the decision of where these dead should be buried. Unfortunately, the village side, where the dead were buried, is upstream of the origin of the main water source used by the host communities (See the map in chapter 2). For the Th£i people, this was an unacceptable situation. The water origin area should be strictly protected and have no source of contamination. Villagers are not even allowed to graze their animals there, because cattle manure might contaminate the water. As a consequence of this perceived contamination of the water source, someone (the rumour was that it was people from the host community) broke the water pipe to the resettlement site. From that point on the whole village began to struggle with water ! 269 shortage. Villagers had to use water from dug ponds for bathing and washing. There was not enough water for drinking and cooking, not to mention water for gardening and I livestock. Hin Hon people blamed Pa Ban people for being the caUse of the water pipe being broken. The tension between the two hamlets became more severe. The commune l authority had to intervene many times, trying to settle the disputes between the villagers, but the result has not been very satisfactory. Both headmen were |tubbom and did not want to compromise. By the end of 2009 the disagreement was enmeshed with many other issues: from rebuilding the road to the village’s center, to the location for the bridge to the cemetery, to the use of the community hall, land allocation etc. The tension occurred not only between the two hamlets, but also between the resettlers and the host community, mostly among young people. The headman of Hin Hon hamlet also became very angry with outsiders, especially journalists who came to the village. He said that journalists have failed to help the villagers deal with all these problems. The morning I went to his hamlet in August i 2009, he was not home. Late that morning, when I was talking with a group of women, I heard his voice calling “no intruders allowed, this hamlet does hot allow strangers”. j When he realized that I was the one who had come back and forth to his village a number of times since 200S, he dropped his opposition. Later he told me that when he heard someone had come to the village he thought that it was one of the journalists who had visited their village earlier in the year but had written nothing to support the villagers. During my stay, he was the one who actively helped me during the interview process in I 270 his hamlet. The village’s administration, especially the headman of Hin Hon hamlet, has been very active in going to the district authorities and the Resettlement Project Management Unit to inquire about many issues, including compensation for the lost land, construction of the road and the bridge, water scarcity, etc. Since the wait for the bridge to go to the cemetery had been so long, the headman went to the district government and i announced that if someone in his hamlet died during the raining season, he would bring the body to the district center. The district authority and Project Management Unit promised him that they would build the bridge as soon as possible. But by the time I left (early 2010) there was still no sign of the bridge. Not until early 2011 were many of the mentioned problems addressed by the project management board and the local authority. They allocated a new lot of land for the cemetery; fixed the water pipe; and started reconstruction of the roads to the two hamlets. It was interesting to learn that the headman and other members of Hin Hon hamlet had been studying the government’s resettlement policies very carefully. They understood the policies very well and used that knowledge when they went to the district authority or the district’s Resettlement Management Unit with grievances. The headman also realized that if the villagers simply marched down to the district authority, this might not bring the hoped for results. So, as well as leading a march he sent many complaints to the provincial government, requesting a supervising team to come to check the project’s activities in the village. He contended that combining these strategies would help the villagers get results, because simultaneous top down and bottom up pressure was likely to 271 push the district’s Project Management Unit to process the villagers’ requests quickly. However, if things did not work out, the villagers sometimes even found quite confrontational ways to deal with the situation. Getting the compensation money for livelihood recovery in Hin Hon was a dramatic story: after a long period of sending complaints and inquiries without success, in late 2010 the villagers of Hin Hon went down to the district center add captured one local official who was a member of the district’s Resettlement Board. They took the official to the office of a deputy head of the Resettlement Board and locked both the official and the deputy head there. The villagers took turns to guard the locked office while sending demands for their compensation back to the district authority. They refused to accept the vice-president of the district’s People Committee’s promise of giving compensation after ten days. They asked for their money back in two days. They finally got it. In brief, more open forms of resistance can be found in many resettlement sites of the Son La hydropower project. The upland peasants - the ethnic minority resettlers - have learned how to use different tactics to get what belongs to them in their imbalanced fight for their life reconstitution and autonomy. They were also willing to take risks even going so far as to capture and hold local officials. However, their political responses have not been “counter hegemonic” and have not involved strong collective opposition to the state (Gramsci, 1971). These responses were also not necessarily coherent, and did not happen at a larger scale (De Goede, 2005). Yet they were in multiple forms and have been a powerful force of change in their own right (Kerkvliet, 2005). 272 CONCLUSION This chapter has given a comprehensive picture of how resettlers have reacted and responded to the pressure created by the ruling state and its development apparatus, and how they have found ways to reconstitute their lives and livelihoods in an alien environment. Resettlers’ agency is strongly represented in various contexts. They have the capacity to resist and challenge state development pressure, arid to create different strategies in order to meet family needs. Resettlers did not sit and wait for change. They played an active role in these processes. They have done this constantly, even though they are not always successful. Importantly, we notice in the stories recounted above that where resistance was more at the individual or family level consequences were often negative- the families refused to move, teenagers fought, etc.-and where resistance was more organized and participants acted as a community, outcomes were often positive. Thus, only if the mobilisation was well organized, and not just at an individual or small group level, was the result likely to be successful. In summary, the ‘weapons of the weak’ was not so useful here. One of the local officials I interviewed stressed “This resettlement process is extremely hard work. It hurts almost every single resettler. The thing is, there were only certain people or small groups of people overtly resisting the displacement. They did it differently in different locations and the actions were not collective. If half of the 273 resettlers had collectively resisted the moving, the project scenario would have been way different.” However, in fact, as shown by the case studies, resettlers sometimes did react collectively in certain ways. Collective action at village level did not challenge the dam, but merely where to move, compensation and resettlement. Said differently, political response/resistance of resettlers in the uplands of Vietnam happened at different scales. Resistance did not scale up from individual, family and village to project and wider levels. As described throughout the chapter, responses at individual and family levels seemed to be less successful and people were likely suffer uhexpected problems. I Collective actions at village level usually had better chance at being successful. Given the political context in Vietnam, organized collective resistance above village level is not likely to happen in the upland regions. There was never a project-wide network and mobilization against the Son La dam. The dam was a top-down national strategic development project, and fighting against it would be like “an egg trying to crack to stone” (trung chpi d& - a Vietnamese saying about the weaker trying to confront the stronger). Thus, the situation in the northwest uplands of Vietnam is different from elsewhere in the region, and from other situations around the world—different, for example, from the case of the Pak Mun Dam in Thailand. Resistance to the Pak Mun Dam began with informal networking among villagers who opposed both the dam and the state’s process, and then spread to townspeople. In the Pak Mun case, there were counter hegemony collective actions that later contributed to formation of the Assembly of the Poor, a national level alliance of issue-based and regional groups and networks. By the 274 late 1990s the Assembly of the Poor had emerged as a distinctive new political actor, which successfully worked to bring positive outcomes for people affected by the Pak Mun dam (Foran, 2007), including a partial de-commission of the dam itself. Said differently, resistance in other places, outside Vietnam, have more often been well organized collective actions which accordingly have brought significant outcomes. In this struggle for survival in the uplands of Vietnam, everyone works hard for their own sake, but women are the ones who suffer the most, as they must always take care of their family’s daily needs. At the end, they are the one who make their own history, even though it sometimes can be bitter and not what they want. For the majority of the resettlers, reaction to the development apparatus has been a non-violent process. They have moved and created their own ways for survival. Resettlers’ ‘reactive strategy’ based on ‘choice and adaptation’ has normally come from families who are more vulnerable in terms of economic issue (Ellis, 2000). Their responses, therefore, at some points have been daily resistance that requires little or no coordination or planning (Scott, 198S). But these responses were multitudinous and active (Ploeg, 2008). These responses at times went beyond ‘weapons of the weak’ such as collective action at village level and using force as in the capture of local officials. Villagers understood what they could do and how they should do it in different situations. Their strategies reveal how resettlers have been able to deal with different situations, depending on their social and political contexts. Sometime their reactions have not been explicit, but many times they are straightforward and overti The cases described 275 in these case studies also show that it seems impossible for resettlers not to be in trouble with the authorities if they try to resist the development machine run by the state. But they still do resist, collectively or individually, one way or the other, in the contentious journey for autonomy. In the end, their responses/resistance are not just “below the radar” i as described by Caouette and Turner (2009). For the host communities, the way they resisted the presence of resettled communities in their midst might also be understood as a way of resistance. The conflicts between resettled and host communities may not just be struggles among the powerless after all. These people do have some level of power to respond/resist in some ways. Since the concept of “state” is so abstract. The ones on behalf of state presented in the area can be policemen, and local officials. But they are too powerful to fight against, thus the blame is therefore displaced from the state on to the resettled communities. In brief, the multitude of responses is embedded in different social, political and economic contexts which can alter the space for resettlers to exercise their agency. As Scheider and Niederle suggest “Building autonomy is part of a social process in which agency is not taken for granted, rather it depends on the capacity of the involved actors to gain power and mobilise resources.” (2010:400). A multitude of responses by resettlers in northern upland Vietnam reveal a broader process at larger scale. It shows what peasants- resettlers can manage to achieve even though they are forced to opeiiate in a very new and difficult context. It especially shows that ethnic minorities were able to mobilize 276 collectively with significant results - not at the scale of the dam itself, but at least at the village level. 277 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION My research reveals the ways development projects configure and reconfigure agrarian landscape in rural upland areas. My main theoretical and empirical objective is to show that development-induced displacement can cause tremendous effects on i inhabitants in the vicinity of dam sites, transforming social, cultural and agrarian landscapes of the region at different scales. I examine the pivotal ways in which water- related development projects shape interrelated processes of agrarian change. My research emphasizes the politics surrounding dam building in Vietnam, the relationship between the state and ethnic minority people in resources use, and the ways ethnic minorities/resettlers in the dam vicinity have experienced and responded to changes in their everyday lives - their political and livelihoods responses. The research also highlights the fact that upland peasants/resettlers are not passive victims of the state development projects. In any situation they have actively fought for their survival and autonomy. SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS Understanding agrarian landscape transformation has been a key interest in geographic scholarship. These transformations play an important role in shaping ethnicity in uplands Vietnam. My examination of the Son La dam in northwest Vietnam has shown the connectedness of dam-induced resettlement and agrarian change, and exposed its importance in the creation/modification of ethnic identity in upland spaces. The research 278 has revealed the deeply unequal power relations among different stakeholders in Vietnam. There has been unequal development not only between lowlands and uplands, but also among the uplands communities. This socially unjust and disproportionate allocation of benefits, costs and risks arises for many reasons. My dissertation highlights several of those reasons. First, as described in Chapter 3, the development of dam building in Vietnam is a political process. Hydropower projects are justified as fuel fof national economic i development in general, and the development of the upland areas where the dams are located in particular. As I mentioned in Chapter 4, hydropower dams speak to the relationships between the center and periphery. The state assimilation process has been accelerated through agrarian transformation in the uplands, a transformation which resulted from the widely applied sedentarization program, new economic zones (moving low land people to upland areas), and, especially, the extensive dam development projects located in the uplands. All these have contributed to the transformation of the uplanders i over the last few decades. Upland ethnic identities were shaped and reshaped once they were included in the nation-state building project, as described in chapter 4. Uplanders are citizens and are eligible to receive state allocated land; since they are defined as “less developed” compared to lowland people, they receive the state’s support for economic development, education, health care and other infrastructure, through different special development programs. As a result, the uplanders are becoming similar to the lowlanders in a number of ways (Chapter 4). Their identity has changed to some extent. As 279 mentioned earlier, even though uplanders have in the past attempted to distinguish themselves from lowland people, young generations are becoming closer/more similar to lowland people in many ways. And in many cases, it is hard to tell the difference between upland and lowland people if one looks only at their clothing, hairstyle, housing and/or even education. In addition, the state’s justification for dam building has been strongly reinforced by the views of developers and investors, especially after the country opened its economy I toward the free market. The state’s dam discourse has long been dorhinant and ubiquitous among related actors. Dams, as result, have long been a symbol of development and modernization in Vietnam. The state’s development narrative also has led to the fact that national planning and development continue to narrowly privilege economic growth and accumulation. Second, there are still many problems with the dam planning process in Vietnam. Planning and decisions for dams, as well as for most other development projects in Vietnam, have continued to be top-down even after the recommendations of the World Commission on Dams and despite rising international demands for free, prior and informed consent among the affected parties. External and internal social pressures for policy improvement have led to a number of changes in Vietnam’s policies including policies on land, resettlement, water, and environmental protection. Indeed, as the Son La case study shows, there have been some improvements in the participation of affected people in certain stages of the resettlement implementation process. However, those 280 improvements have been far from enough to help ensure fair and meaningful participation in dam development projects. The participatory rhetoric invoked by dam planners, in fact, masks the actual social exclusion of people displaced by the dam, thus further silencing people whose voices have historically often been muted. There are thousands of people who were displaced to make way for the Son La dam but were told about the project only after the decision was made and when the moving time came. Everi though the issue of participation in decision making processes related to resources management has recently been receiving much attention from different stakeholders in Vietnam, there is still a lack of clear mechanisms for people to participate in river/water governance. The free informed process in fact has only happened on paper. The existing policies have made assumptions about the ease of adaptation to a new environment by resettlers, and have failed to address consequent impoverishment. Thus, even though resettlement policies in Vietnam have significantly improved during the last two decades, they are still far from meeting the target of rehabilitation for many people after displacement. The costs of dam building have never been accurately estimated. Dams have been built regardless of their impacts on resettlement, changes in local communities’ livelihoods, loss of forest and biodiversity, and serious soil erosiojn due to changes in water flow and sedimentation, among other problems. The state and dam developers usually underestimate the costs associated with dams, as well as underestimate the impacts caused by dams on people and on the environment. As a result, there has been an 281 overemphasis on dams by the state and developers, leading to the construction of many dams within the country over the last two decades. Moreover, bureaucratic wrangling and overlap in responsibilities among different ministries, including the three key ministries involved in water/river basin management -- MONRE, MARD, and MOIT - continue to cause negative impacts on decision making related to water development projects. Unreasonable appraisal procedures for hydropower projects, as described in Chapter 3, clearly illustrate this point. As a consequence, the benefits of dams continue flow to the lowlands, while the costs fall on resettlers’ shoulders. Broader speaking, there are actually two cost/benefit problems with Vietnam’s current dam policies: the first is unequal distribution of costs and benefits and the second are hidden costs as mentioned in chapter 3 which may affect the country as a whole. The unequal distribution of costs and benefits in water infrastructure projects points to the need for properly addressing questions of social differences and inequality in resource uses and access. This at the same time also highlights the issues of geographical unevenness, social inclusion, and ethnic identity transformation in contemporary Vietnam. My research emphasizes that with unequal consequences of development, upland people have experienced and responded to the dam building in different ways. Their responses, resistance, and coping strategies differ at various scales, from individuals to families and collectives. Resettlers/peasants have not always been submissive to the 282 changes imposed on them due to dam construction. Resettlers have not been afraid to express their opposition to unreasonable policies or to problems with policy implementation. They have actively reacted and worked out alternative strategies, depending on the availability of family assets. As I have shown ih Chapters 5 and 6, resettlers have had to deal with constant pressure from the state and its development apparatus. They have created their new livelihood trajectories in an alienated environment. In the context of being displaced under a single large project, resettlers in the Son La project have appeared to start from a similar social position, but their future lives may work out differently depending on many factors, including ethnicity, age, and gender. Sometimes, rural disputes in resettlement sites have been between villagers, rather than with the state institutions and local authorities. Collective actions to confront local government have resulted from collective grievances, and have happened only when resettlers have felt that their interests were ignored and that promises by the government officers were unreliable. These collective actions often brought positive results, even though the actions were different for different situations and contexts (Chapter 6). My research at the same time highlights the linkage between dam induced resettlement and agrarian change in uplands Vietnam. As I pointed out in Chapter 2, resettlers usually have had to move to places with different types of resources and environments than they have been familiar with. After resettlement many of them no longer have the access to the river that they had before moving. This has made it very I hard for them to recover their lives and livelihoods in the new places, especially when l 283 they are ethnic minority people who have long been politically marginalized both in the building of the nation-state and in its contemporary development process. In the past, their identity was expressed in the unity of the village community, defined by the clan, which included different generations inhabiting a particular physical space. The villagers’ land ownership was egalitarian. Forest and other resources were held in common. The river supported their lives in many ways. The community for long time was ruled by the ideology of reciprocity. Households used their labour to clear land and farmed on the land for their subsistence. Thus, there was almost no differentiation between landowners and labourers. The slight differences were mostly due to a family’s ability to clear land and to work on their farm. However, things changed radically when construction of the dam started. Dam induced displacement and resettlement has broken communities and accelerated the differentiation process. This stratification among and within upland resettled communities is underscored in Chapter 5. While there were opportunities for new levels of wealth among some of the households, there were also families who experienced real food shortage for the first time. Poor families were pushed to further marginalized situations ecologically, economically, and political-economically (Blaike and Brookfield, 1987). Chapter 5 shows that there are many factors that have brought and reinforced differentiation among resettlers, including their access to capital (both financial and social capital), their choice of using labour, changes in market integration, among others. In particular, the nature and intensity of market integration has played a key role in 284 accelerating the differentiation process in resettlement sites. Dam development alters social processes that re/constitutes the peasants/resettlers, which in turn has accelerated differentiation. Conditions created by resettlement affect different resettlers differently. As mentioned above, resettlement has allowed some families to impilove their lives, while others have fared relatively worse. The villagers have become stratified into different groups. The wealthier soon became owners, landlords or investors while the poor have had no other choice but sell their labour and struggle to survive at a minimum level. The relationship with the new forms of labour was not immediately fully capitalist. As we see in the case of Phieng Bung 1, it has been, to some degree, still influenced by reciprocal relationships. In brief, having sacrificed their land for hydropower development, for the “national interest”, resettlers have not always been given the benefits they were promised. That people still long for the life they had in their old villages does not mean that they want to return to a life without electricity, with poor (or absent) roads, minimal schools and no local hospital. What they long for is to be able to have enough land, or effective support for alternative livelihoods, to sustain their lives without halving to go out every day to sell their labour. This process of resettlers ’ daily political straggles, however, is a cross-scale process, not just at individual, family or village levels, but at the same time reaching towards and caught up in unfolding processes at larger scales. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS 285 The findings of my research contribute to the field of agrarian studies and development studies. My dissertation shows how dam building is aii intertwined process of power relations. The massive displacement and resettlement caused by dams, at the same time have created significant changes in the agrarian and cultural landscape of northwest upland Vietnam. The state’s development project has significantly shaped and transformed the upland areas. It imposes trace of the state’s control in its territories, at every comer within its boundaries. My focus on water governance and dam development is quite deliberate, as I argue that socio-ecological changes caused by water development projects reorder the everyday life of people across the urban-rural divide, highlighting the uneven development and the political connections between water, land, labour and livelihood struggles. State development projects such as dams in the Vietnam highlands and the Mekong region are often justified as symbols of modernization and industrialisation; and as ways to modernize and develop minority people in the upland regions. However, the negative aspects of these projects are often ignored. Development, therefore, is full of contestation and negotiation. And the concept of development itself remains questionable. For example, the upland people aim for ‘development’ so they can develop as lowland people do, but they are also the ones who suffer from the state-led development - and in this case, it is the dam for the national interest. And even though there is a rich body of literature on development in general and dam development in particular which point to many problems and lessons learned, political reasons and interest of some certain groups are still dominant in decision making related to development projects. In addition, my study in the uplands of the Da River yields new insights because of the highland locations and the presence of different ethnic groups. Various minority groups who live in diverse areas of the upstream area of the Da River have experienced and responded to resettlement processes different ways. My focus on the politics of displacement enables me to not only draw attention to how development works as a force of domination, but also to consider ways in which the politics of hydro development are negotiated and contested. Understanding the historical circumstances of domination in the northern uplands enables a better understanding of the meaning and experience of it in modem contexts. This examination shows that ethnic minority groups have constantly fought an unequal battle against outside oppressors - the colonial rulers, the state and its development ideology, and the market. Although the central power has changed over time, from the French to Vietnamese nationalists, the ethnic minority people have experienced only a steady erosion of their material base and their cultural autonomy. The building of the modem nation state did not extensively change this process. Upland people’s lives continue to be ruled by bureaucrats and developers, and their resources have been alienated by the state through its development projects. Uplanders have been completely plunged into market relations, and not in a way they want or understand. However, their responses and resistance indicate that even though they accepted domination in some ways, they keep fighting in some other ways. From the cooperative period during 1960s-1980s to the time when the country opened its economy in late 1980s to 1990s and up until now, their resistance has taken various forms. The condition of domination has shaped the lives of upland people. A village community is defmed in relation to the physical place where it resides. The economy of the resettlers’ original village was based on the use of land, forest, and river. Their lives have since been affected by ecological and political-economic marginalization due to the dam development project. Since they became alienated from the surrounding resources by the state’s actions, their livelihoods have, in many cases, gradually eroded. The destruction of natural resources has also exhausted the environment, causing poor and marginalized people to no longer be able to depend on land, forest and river to sustain their lives. Constrained by their lack of access to and control over resources, people in many cases were forced to deplete resources in ways that were contrary to their traditions. The upland transformation is never a static process. It happens all the time at different paces. The dam has accelerated it and pushed it to a new level where differentiation occurred faster than ever due to the loss of land and access to the river. The relationship between the environment, upland people and the state is even expressed through individual and collective actions. Besides political actions against the authorities, the villagers either individually or collectively fight each other. After resettlement, their fights were mostly over the use of and access to resources. These frequent conflicts demonstrate that the upland resettled communities have faced many difficulties in recovering their livelihoods after resettlement, but that they are not passive 288 victims of the state’s development projects. The resistance of resettlers to project’s officers was more natural as resettlers just fought for what they were supposed to receive. It fits to traditional way of thinking about peasant resistance. However, the resistance of host communities to presence of the resettled can give a different lens to resistance. It is also a way of resisting state’s development paradigm. It shows that resistance is not merely contextual, but contextual in an equally spatio-temporal way. These levels of action have been overlooked by scholars interested in ethnic minorities and their resistance in the uplands of Vietnam. As Baviskar (1995) argues, the appropriation of nature and labour is intrinsic to industrial development - an inherently resource-intensive and Socially inegalitarian process. The struggle against destructive development projects involves people marginalized by its processes. In Vietnam, the government’s development discourse highlights the trade-off between development and environment, such as the case of Dong Nai 6 and 6A hydropower projects mentioned in Chapter 2. However, local people and environmentalists consider ecological sustainability and social justice to be two inseparable issues, and they have started working together on their own discourse which is counter to that of the government. This counter-narrative is rather new in Vietnam given its political context. However, it will open for better participation in development in Vietnam in the coming time. From a practical point of view, my research generates useful information as lessons learned for resettlement policy formulation and implementation, and describes the 289 agrarian dimension of the resettlement process in Vietnam, through different reports that I have worked on for NGOs and policy dialogues on these issues. I believe that these research outputs will also be useful to other in-country stakeholders (including development institutions, policy makers, and local officers) and to NGOs which work on resettlement and agrarian change issues. Dissemination of my research among domestic and regional NGO meetings and workshops helps raise these issues to a wider audience in the region. i RESEARCH LIMITS While my research has pointed to critical aspects of resettlement and agrarian change relations, there are also issues that are absent from my research. Most notably missing from my dissertation is a detailed examination of measures that might be taken i for effective and meaningful participation in the decision-making processes associated I with dam development projects. There are important questions that ij have not addressed, including how participation and negotiation takesplace when stakeholders often employ ! different logical frames regarding rivers, development and modernization, given prevailing differences in perspectives towards rivers and their resources. » At the outset of this research 1 sought to investigate the politics surrounding dams in Vietnam in more detail, taking into account different actors at all levels. However, I have been unable through the course of fieldwork to gather sufficient information to address this issue in a more comprehensive way. For example, there are other broader 290 relations that were not examined in this dissertation, issues that deserve attention, including the international forces driving dam development in Vietnam, the constraints behind state and ethnicity relationships, and the attempts by overseas Vietnamese, among others, to influence internal social movements. RECOMMENDATONS EMERGING FROM THE RESEARCH The study findings point to an urgent need for a clear mechanism for encouraging meaningful participation from civil society in water resources management. Specifically, NGOs and affected people should be able to voice and participate in decision making related to dams. All hydropower projects should get ‘public acceptance’, which means communities should have the “power to consent to projects and negotiate the conditions under which they can proceed” (WCD, 2000). Thus, the government and MONRE should issues circulars and guidelines to give clear instruction on how to implement the free, prior and informed consent. Affected people should be provided with adequate information about potential impacts of the project before the consent. As mentioned in Chapter 3, NGOs and media have recently played critical role in disseminating information and raise public awareness on dam issues. Therefore, media and NGOs should continue to play their role in raising public awareness of and concern and over impacts of dam development projects on people and the environment. As a partial remedy for problems of different ministries’ overlapping roles in river basin management, it is important that serious project appraisals be done before granting approval for new dam projects. Regulations on hydropower management in Vietnam need 291 further revision. There is also a need for an independent monitoring system to ensure that non-biased, accurate and sufficient information will be collected in the Strategic Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Assessments. In fact, both the investors and government agencies should be responsible for resettlement to make sure resettlement will be conducted in fair and effective ways. When people buy and sell “electricity” at very cheap rates, this apparent cheapness comes at a cost that has been unevenly distributed among different stakeholders. Thus, it is very important that externalities should be seriously included, i.e. fully internalized, in calculating hydropower’s costs, in order to avoid/mitigate any potential bias. Because of these and related problems, there is a need for improved standards to assess, account for, and justify any hydropower project. This does not mean that a government or an investor will be able to set a “true” cost for hydropower projects that can be exactly measured, but improved standards and accountability may help lessen the costs borne by local people and the environment. Otherwise, the benefits from dams will continue to accrue to certain groups such as investors, urban consumers, or downstream farmers, while the costs will still be bome by people who must be displaced to make way for the dams. Organized efforts by ordinary people are necessary to pressure and take advantage of improvements in policies, to narrow the gap between policy and implementation in dam-induced resettlement in Vietnam. In summary, hydropower should not be considered as a cheap and clean source of energy, even including the word ‘sustainable’ before it. It should only be developed with 292 acceptance of affected people, and after environmental degradation and costs to local people have been added in. FUTURE RESEARCH Water governance is more than just about water and related services but involves issues of access to decision-making and information, issues of participation and justice, ! and issues of ethnicity and gender. The linkages between processes of governance, the outcomes of the decisions taken and the possibilities that are created at different levels I and scales by different actors in specific contexts are all equally important (Badenoch et al, 2011). Ethnic minority groups whose livelihoods are highly dependent on the river and I its resources are very vulnerable to the potentially negative impacts of water governance policies and decisions. However, they are usually poorly represented actors in water decision-making processes (Floch and Blake 2011), including decisions on whether a dam should be built, and how to deal with resettlement and compensation issues. My future research will explore the nature and extent of water governance in the Mekong region through a sustained investigation into the process of participation in dam development and the associated re-making (marketization and neoliberalization) of nature i and landscape, and how affected people’s livelihoods are remade in ways that intensify market relations. One way to understand the concept of neoliberalization of nature is as a form of environmental regulation that minimizes formal government involvement in an attempt to integrate the goals of economic efficiency and environmental conservation (Bakker 2010; Castree 2008a, 2008b). Thus, understanding regional/national trends in 293 environmental regulation, the dynamics of different governments and stakeholders, and their participation in decision-making related to water development projects in the Mekong basin will become increasingly salient in both academic and public policy realms as these actors play important roles in ensuring water rights and social justice in the Mekong region. My research will also explore what happens when negotiations cross not only language barriers but also conceptual barriers. Addressing these questions will further our understanding of regional water governance and the remaking of the regional landscape in general and the problems particular to the Mekong basin in particular. 294 LIVES CHANGE IN PICTURES Before resettlement Thai traditional village Making fishing net by Da river During resettlement Taking houses apart to bring to resettlement sites 295 After resettlement Tan Lap pilot resettlement site with ready concrete houses (before the change in housing policy) Kindergatem in Phieng Bung 1 Rebuilt house m resettlement site (after the change in housing policy) 296 Sibblings taking care of each other Picking hot pepper to sell at the local market Drying cassava on the village path (Phieng One of very few ponds in Pu Nhuong that Bung 1 village)______has water______BIBLIOGRAPHY Akram-Lodhi, H.A. and Kay, C. 2010. Surveying the agrarian question (part 1): Unearthing foundations, exploring diversity. 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Amsterdam: Royal Tropical Institute/Center for Latin American Research. 315 APPENDIX A: 54 ethnic groups in Vietnam (including the Kinh majority people) Order Group Primary Other names Local groups Population number names Total Estimation investigation (July 1, (April 1, 2003) 1999) 1 BSh nar BaNa BoNam, Ra Ngao, Ra 174,456 190,259 Roh, Kon Lang (Y Lang), Kde, Ala Ta Lo, Ga Lar, K6 ng, Krem Kpang Kong 2 B6 y B6 Y Chung Chd, B6 Y va Tu Di 1,864 2,059 TrQng Gia... 3 Brau Brao 313 350 4 Bru-Van Bru Bru, VSn VSn KiSu, Tri, 55,559 62,954 Ki6 u KiSu Khua, Ma Coong 5 Cham Cham, Cham Hroi, Cham 132,873 148,021 (cham) Chiem, P6 ng, Cha Va Ku, Chiem Cham Chau D6 c thanh, Cham Pa, Hoi... 6 Charo Chau Ro, Da 22,567 26,455 Ro, Chro, Thugmg 7 Churu Cha Ru, 14,978 16,972 Kru, Thugmg 8 Chut Chut Rye, Arem, May, Rye, Sdch, 3,829 3,787 Sdch. Arem, Md Lilng 9 Co Cor, Col Cua, Trau 27,766 29,771 316 10 C6 ng Xam 1,676 1,859 Khdng, Phuy A 11 Caho Co Ho Xre, N qp (Tu 128,723 145,857 N dp), Co Don, Chil, Lat (Lach), To Ring. 12 Cor lao CdLao Tu Du, Ho Co Lao Xanh, Co 1,865 2,034 Ki, VoaDS. Lao TrSng, Co Lao D6 13 Catu CoTu Ca Tu, Ka 50,458 56,690 Tu 14 Dao Kim M£n Dao D6 , Dao 620,538 685,432 Mi6 n, Quin Ch?t, Dao Kim Lo Gang, Mun DaoTiin, Dao Quin tr&ng, Dao Thanh Y, Dao Lan T 6 n 15 E d 6 An&k £ AnSk E De, Kp5, Adham, 270,348 306,333 D6 Ra D6 , E Krung, Mdhu, De-Egar, De Ktul, Dlie, Hrue, Bih, Bio, Kah, Kdrao, Dong Kay, Dong Mak, Ening, arul, Hwing, Ktle, Epan 16 Giay Giiy NhSng, 49,098 54,002 Gi£ng 17 GiaLai Gia Rai Gio Ray, Chor, Hdrung 317,557 350,766 Cho Ray (gom c& Hbau, Chor), Arap, Mthur, Tobuan 317 18 Gie- Git, Ca Tang, Gi6 30,243 31,343 Tnengnr* • a Tneng,m • a Giang Ray (Gie),Trieng,Ve, Ve, Bnoong Bnoong (Mnoong) 19 Ha Nhl m Nhi U Ni, Xa U Ha Nhl C6 Ch6 , 17,535 19,954 Gia Ni Ha Nhl La Mi, Ha Nhl Den 2 0 Hoa Khach, H&n, Quang Dong, 862,371 913,248 (Han) Tau Quang Tay, Hai Nam, Trieu Chau, Phuc Kien, Sang Phang, Xla Phdng, Thang NhSm, Minh Huong, H?... 21 H're Hre Cham Re, 113.111 120.251 Chom, Thugmg Ba To, Luy, Son Phong, B6 Vach, Cham Quang NgSi, Ch6 m, Re, Man Th^ch Bich. 2 2 HMong Hmong, Mgo, M£o,Hmong TrSng, 787,604 896,239 (Mto) Na mieo Mieu Ha, Hmong Hoa, Man TrSng Hmong D6 , Hmong Den, Hmong Xanh, Na mieo 23 Kinh Kinh 65,795,718 69,356,969 (Vi*) ______1_____ 318 24 Khang Ma Hang, Brin, Khang Ding, 10,272 15,213 Khang Xd Khang Ho$c, Khang D6 n, Khang Sua, Ma Hdng, Bu Hdng, Ma Hdng Bdn, Bu Hdng C 27 La Chi CuT 6 Th6 Den, 10,7^5 12,095 Mdn, Xd 28 La Ha La Ha, Xa Cha, Xd La Ha c^n (Khld 5,686 6,388 Kid Plyo Bung, Xd Phlao), La Ha Khao, Xa nirdc (La Ha ung) Tau Nhy, Xa Po 319 30 Ldo Thay, Phu Thay, Ldo B 6 c (Lao 11,611 12,379 Thay Phu Ldo Can), Lao Noi Dudn, (Ldo Nh 6 ) Thay Nhudn 31 LoLo LoLo Mvin Di, Di, Lo Lo hoa, Lo Lo 3,307 3,327 Man Di, La den Ha, Qua La, 6 man, Lu L qc Man 32 L\r Lu, Phu Lu, L\r Den (L\r 4,964 5,553 Thay, Nhu6 n, D3m), L\r Trdng Thay Lur. Duon ( 6 Trung Qu6 c) 33 Ma Ma Chau M?, Ma Ngdn, Ma 33,338 36,824 Cho Ma, X6 p, Ma To, Ma Che Ma Krung 34 Mdng Mdng Mdng LT, Xa Mang Gung, 2,663 2,634 Mdng, Nieng MdngL? 0 , Xd Bd 0 35 Mudng Mol Ao Td (Au Ta), 1,137,515 1,230,054 (Mon, Bi Moan, Mual) 36 Mnong Mnong Mndng Gar, 92,451 104,312 Mnong N 6 ng, Mn 6 ng Chil, Mnong Kuenh, Mnong Rlam, Mnong Preh, Mnong Prang, Mnong Dip, Mnong Bu Nor, Mnong Bu Ding, 320 Mndng Bu Deh... i 37 Ngdi Sdn Ngai Ngai Hdc 4,8417 | 7,386 Cd, Ngdi Ldu M§n, H?, Sin, Dan, Le, Xuyln 1 38 Nung Ndng Nung Giang, 856,412 914,350 * Nung Xuong, Nung An, Nung Inh, Nung L 6 i, Nung Chdo, Nung Phdn Sllnh, Nung Quy Rjn, Nung Din 39 0 du 0 Du, I Tay H?t 301 370 Du 40 Pd Then P4 Hung Mdo Ldi, 5,569 6,529 Meo Hoa, Mho D6 , Bdt tien tpc... 41 Phu La Lao Va Xd Ph 6 , Can Phu Ld L5o-B6 9,046 8,947 Xa, Bo Thin Kho P9, Phu Ld Kho P& Den, Phu Ld Hdn. Phu La 42 Pu P6 o Kabeo La Qua, 705 900 Penti Lo Lo 43 R&glai Rai, Hoang, La 96,931 108,442 Oang 44 Ra-mSm 352 418 45 Sdn Chay San Hem Ban, Cao Lan, San Chi 147,315 162,031 (Cao lan- Chay Chung, 321 Sdn chi) Trai... 46 Sdn Diu San Ddo Tr^ti, Trai 126,237 140,629 Nhin ( Ddt, Mdn Son Dao Qudn Cpc, Nhan) Mdn Vdy xd 47 Si La Cu D6 KhaPd 840 1,006 Su 48 Tdy Th6 Th6 , Ng^in, Phen, 1,477,514 1,597,712 Thu Lao, Pa Di. 49 Tdoi T6 i 6 i, Pa Ta 6 i, Pa Co, Pa 34,960 38,946 Co, Ta U6 t, Hi Kan Tua, Pa Hi... 50 Thdi Tay, Tay Thanh, Ngdnh Den (Tay 1,328,725 1,449,084 Thay Man Thanh, DSm). Ngdnh Tay Much, Trdng (Tay Don Tay Mucmg, or Khao) Hdng T 6 ng, Tay Dq, Th6 51 Th6 Th6 Ngudi Nha K?o, Mon, Cu 6 i, 68,394 76,191 ldng. Hp, Dan Lai, Li Mucmg, Con Hd, Tdy Popng Kha, Xd Ld Vang 52 Xinh Xinh Pupc, Xd, Xinh Mun Da, 18,018 21,946 mun Mun Pn^i Xinh Mun Nghpt. 53 Xa-ddng Xa Xe Ddng, Xa Tmg, To Drd, 127,148 140,445 Teng, To Kmrang, Mnam. Ca Dong, Drd, Con Lan, Ha Ldng, Td Tri, Mnam, Brila. Chau. Ca Dong, Ha Ldng, 322 Ta Tit, Chiu 54 Xtieng Xa Bieng, Bu Lo, Bu Bek 66,788 Xa Chieng (Bu Beh), Bu Bi£k. [Source: Committee on Ethnic Minorities Affairs (CEMA), 2011] 323 APPENDIX B: Interview questions I. Questionnaires for resettlers: Background information of interviewees: Age Gender Ethnicity Marital status Relationship to the household-head Education Professional: Farmer/teacher/nurse/small business/others (for all adults) Association: Youth/ Women/ Elderly/ Farmer/ Veteran/ others (for al adults) Religious (A table of background information for all family members) Life before moving 1. Can you tell me a bit about your life before moving? 2. Tell me about your village before you moved here? 3. When you were a child, was there a school? 4. Did people from outside the village ever come into the village to do work? 5. Did you and/or other villagers ever come outside the village to do work? 6 . What were your sources of livelihood prior to the moving? 7. How did you see your village in relation to other villages and the local authorities before moving? For old people who lived through the war: 8 . What were you doing during the war? 9. What is your best memory about the war? Worst memory? 10. How did the war change the relationships you had in the village? Moving 1. When did you first hear about the displacement? Through which channel: formally from the local authority or informally from other sources? Please specify. 2. How did you feel when you heard about the dam and displacement? How did it affect your life by that time? 3. How did you find out where you were moving to? 4. How the resettlement site was chosen? Were you able to visit it before move in? 5. When did you move here? 6 . What are your perceptions of the moving? How do you understand about the project? 325 7. How would you describe your preparation for the moving? What role did each family member take in this process? 8. How far is your old house from here? 9. Who in the old village moved here with you? 10. Did you know about this new area before moving? Settling down in new place Political organization in the village 11. What is the political organization in the village? 12. How does it work in making decision or submitting request to the higher level? 13. Who is the headman? What’s the role of the headman and other political figures in the village? Differences between old and new places 14. What’s the biggest difference between your original place of residence and the new place? 15. What do you miss the most/least about the original place of residence? 16. What are the differences between the farming land in resettletnent site and the old land you had? Is there any difference between the planed and actual amounts of land you received? Livelihoods 326 17. How many members in your family? Their ages and involvement in the household income generation? Who controls the money in the house? 18. What are your main sources of livelihoods? - Cultivating - Husbandry - Services - Paid work - Other 19. Do you have access to farming land? - Wet rice field? How big is the field? - Upland field? How big is the field? (How many bag of com or cassava do you harvest each crop?) 20. Do you have access to: - Forest? - Funding for livestock? - Micro credit for other livelihood activities? 21. What kind of crops/plant do you grow, area and production of each one? - Rice - Com - Soybean - Peanut 327 - Cassava - Tea - Fruit trees - Trees for logging - Others 22. What kind of livestock do you have, how many each kind? - Cow - Buffalo - Pig - Chicken - Goat - Fish - Others 23. How did you decide to engage in these activities after moving? How do they compare to your livelihoods prior moving? 24. Why did you choose to do these activities for your livelihoods? Was that because of the situation or did you follow your neighbors or headmen? Who make that i decision (husband or wife or both?)?What are the outcomes? If you have a choice to do it again, what will you choose? Socio-economic conditions 25. What are the main sources of energy in your house: 328 - From national grid line? - From pico-hydro? - Others? 26. What are the main sources of fuel in your house: - Electricity? - Gas? - Wood? - Leaves and sticks? - Straw? Others? 27. How do you spend your compensation: - to housing? - to kitchen? - to bathroom? - to production? - to durable goods? - to daily expenses? - Other? (education, health, transportation?) 28. Why did you choose to spend on these things? 29. How much income is generated from each source in the last 12 months: - Cultivating? 329 - Livestock? - Forestry? - Non-farming (specify)? - Salary? - Other? (Specify) 30. How is your income different before and after moving? 31. How have your family expenses been changed after moving? 32. How much do you spend (monthly) to: - Foods? - Clothes? - Community activities (wedding, funeral, meeting...)? - School for kids (books, stationery)? - Health care? - Gasoline and transportation? 33. Do you have land use certificate for your residential land? For farming land? If not, what was the reason for not having one? 34. Do you have enough food for all year round? If not, how many months a year do you suffer food shortage? How do you deal with the food shortage problem? 35. Do you have access to water for domestic and/or productive needs as shown in the resettlement plan? If you have access to water, do you have to pay for it? How much per month? 330 If not, how do you deal with the problem? 36. Do you have access to health care and school right after movirig? 37. How far the health care? School? 38. Are you able to settle down next to your old neighbors or relatives? 39. What are the most difficulties you facing after moving? And why? 40. What have you done to overcome these difficulties? Did it work? 41. Do you have to come back to your old land for farming? If so, how often you go? How do you manage your lives in two places? 42. Have you told anyone about the problem (neighbors? Officials?) Rehabilitation program 43. Is there any livelihood rehabilitation program in your locale? Are you part of it? If not, why? 44. Is there any training for changing livelihoods organized in the village? (And by whom?), if yes, do you participate in the training? Associations/memberships 45. Are you a member of farmer association, youth union, women union or any other grassroots movements? 46. If so, what are your perceptions about their direction and in what ways has your membership supported you? 47. If you’re allowed to do it all over again, what do you wish to change? 331 48. Is it anything else you want to add? II. Interview with key informants such as headman, youth aHd women union representatives, farmer association (These etc. people can also be asked the same questions in I) 1. What is your role (or your organization’s role) in this relocation process? 2. Is there any change in the social relation within the village after moving? 3. What do you think about the connectedness of the village after moving? How do people cooperate in solving problem in new place? 4. How often the village meets regarding problems in resettlement site: farming land? Water access? Conflict with host community? Sanitation and environment in the village etc? How have decisions related to these problems been made? 5. What do you think about changes in farming activities? 6. What the role of women in this process? 7. What the role of youth in this process? 8. What do you think about the existing resettlement policy? How does it impact your own community? What has your organization done to try and improve it? Can anything be done to improve it? 9. If you’re allowed to do it all over again, what do you wish to change? 10. Is it anything else you want to add? III. Interview with local authorities 332 1. How did you receive the news about the project? 2. What type of information did you receive? 3. What were you told you had to do? 4. What did the local authority do in informing people about the project and the moving plan? 5. Was there a meeting? What was discussed at the meeting? 6. How the roles were assigned among Chairmen, Vice-Chairmen and other officers? i 7. What is organizational structure (personnel issue) in dealing with this project (at province level? District? Commune?) Were there any ethnic minorities or women in the People Committee? 8. Did any change happen in organizational structure due to the moving? (in case the whole commune was moved to different places?) How to deal with these changes? 9. Did you hear from community members (headman, organizations, individuals) about any unhappiness, any change they wanted? Any requests? 10. Did the authority need to make any adjustment when implementing the resettlement policy in order to fit to the local context? 11. If you’re allowed to do it all over again, what do you wish to change? 12. Is it anything else you want to add? IV. Interview with resettlement officers 1. When did you start working on this project? 2. Did you grow up around here? 333 3. Which ethnic group do you belong to? 4. How did you get the job? 5. How do you understand about resettlement? 6. What is your background? 7. Were you able to attend any training course on resettlement before getting involved in this project? 8. How were you assigned to work with different villages? 9. Was there any part of the resettlement plan that was difficult to implement? 10. Are the policies and implementation instruction clear enough? 11. Was there any change in the plan during the implementation? 12. What are the difficulties in implementing the resettlement policies in practice? (at province level? District level? Commune level?) 13. What mechanism has been used to monitor this resettlement project? Advantages and disadvantages of it? 14. What types of concerns have communities had? How have the state office responded? 15. What do you think can be done to improve the situation? 16. If you’re allowed to do it all over again, what do you wish to change? 17. Is it anything else you want to add? V. Interview with polity makers 334 1. What rationales are given for the project? 2. What do you think about the role of Son La dam in water management and development in Vietnam in general and the Northwest region in particular? 3. What were the challenges of the project? 4. What are your hopes for the future with this project in place? 5. What problem does it solve? 6. How do you understand about resettlement? 7. How the resettlement policies to Son La dam were formulated? Were they based on WB or ADB guideline? If not, what was the approach to it? 8. How many new decrees, decisions related to resettlement issue have been issued for the Son La project? 9. Who take the main responsibility in this process? Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development? Ministry of Finance? Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, or Ministry of Industry? 10. How the mandate is divided up among the ministries? 11. Which division/department under each ministry is in charge of it? Why? 12. How often the Ministries meet to discuss about policies related to this project? 13. If you’re allowed to do it all over again, what do you wish to change? 14. Is it anything else you want to add? 335