Search

Migration has changed the face of Vietnam's highlands in the second half of the 20th century. Areas of forest and swidden agriculture, inhabited by ethnic minorities, have lost their tree cover and, especially in the Central Highlands, are planted with coffee and other commodity agriculture. Their populations now have a high proportion of lowland Vietnamese in-migrants. This paper argues that this transformation is the product of two sets of strategies. One is a state strategy, set in place in the North in 1954 and extended to the South after reunification, to ‘tame’ the region, in terms both of economy and security. The other consists of the strategies of ordinary people in the plains of the North, who migrated with or without reference to the state, hoping to get rich in a region recently described in the lowlands as a ‘promised land’. State organised migration programmes, the Doi Moi process of economic reform, and the decisions and struggles of these families and individuals thus combined to bring about the transformation of the highlands. As the paper shows, however, this combination, has not been without its difficulties.

The objective of this paper is to provide an understanding of how the gap between the ‘global’ and the ‘local-peripheral’ is bridged in the everyday life of the peasantry at a coffee pioneer front. The networks of connectivity between the spontaneous migrant-peasants at the coffee pioneer front in the province of Dak Lak in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, and the global coffee market are explored. This set of linkages helps the peasantry to settle, despite the harsh conditions of life on the frontier. This is illustrated through a brief ethnographic account of the ‘peripheral’ characteristics of life on a coffee pioneer front. By borrowing analytical tools from actor-network theory, the paper also illuminates the (actor) networks through which coffee finally reaches the export gate. This account suggests that global commodity production processes are often embedded in local dynamics, in this case, the political-economy of the frontier. Further, it implies the need to transcend scales when inquiring about peasant-market relationships in export agro-commodity production.

Since 1975, the territory within the limits of Vietnam has been subject to rapid land use changes. Agricultural colonisation by ethnic Viet in the mountains and plateaus of the Central Highlands constitutes one of the most visible trends in this process. As one of the traditional dynamics in Viet history, agricultural colonisation has contributed to the integration of marginal peoples and territories into the national body. In the province of Lam Dong, in the Central Highlands, the actual distribution and structure of the population are directly inherited from four phases of agricultural colonisation: the Colonial period (1858-1954); the regime of South Vietnam (1954-1975); the unified communist State (1975-1987); and the Vietnam of Doi Moi (1987 onwards). By analysing these phases, this article aims to show that agricultural colonisation has contributed to the penetration and consolidation of the State in such marginal territories.