Negotiating agrarian change livelihood agriculations of the commercial craft peasantry in northern vietnam

Negotiating agrarian change livelihood agriculations of the commercial craft peasantry in northern vietnam

NEGOTIATING AGRARIAN CHANGE: LIVELIHOOD ARTICULATIONS

OF THE COMMERCIAL CRAFT PEASANTRY IN NORTHERN VIETNAM

NGUYEN PHUONG LE

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS

FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

IN SOCIAL SCIENCE

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL CHIANG MAI UNIVERSITY

JUNE 2009

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was completed thanks to much support, help and contributions from a variety

of people and organizations

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisors Dr Santita Ganjanapan and Dr Romyen Kosaikanont, who dedicatedly gave me lectures that were not only helpful for the development of concepts in my dissertation, but also for my future work My special gratitude goes to Dr Pinkaew Luangaramsri, who devoted invaluable time to reading several versions of my proposal, as well as my thesis draft, and who provided critical comments and encouragement, thus helping me to improve my work

I would like to express my grateful thanks to Professor Dr Anan Ganjanapan, who provided creative instructions for my ideas and shared with me his knowledge and experience My respectful acknowledgement also goes to Associate Professor Dr Chusak Wittayapak, who worked

as my external committee member throughout my PhD course His comments and support helped

me to overcome the difficulties of various examinations

At the Regional Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development (RCSD), in Chiang Mai University, I would like to thank all the professors and lecturers, especially Dr Chayan Vaddhanaphuti, Professor Dr Yos Santasombat, Dr Jamaree Chiengthong and Ajarn Ekamol Sainchan for their kindly help and encouragement My appreciation goes to RCSD staff, in particular Kanchana Kulpisithicharoen (Oy), Muttika Thungsuphuti (Bpong), Chanida Puranapan (Nuk) and Fongchan, for their great support, kindness and friendship I wish to thank the librarians

in the library of the Faculty of Social Sciences and in the Main Library of CMU, for their kindness and useful guidelines whenever I went to borrow books there

My PhD program in general and this thesis in particular, was made possible thanks to a grant from the Project for Rural Sustainable Development in Vietnam (RDViet) I would like to express my gratitude for this My respectful thanks go to

Dr Britta Ogle, Swedish leader of the project and Dr Le Duc Ngoan, Vietnamese Project Coordinator, who always found the ways support me during my long course in Chiang Mai I also offer my deepest thanks to Mr Nguyen Trong Dac, who works as Regional Coordinator of the project, and who actively facilitated my funding success I also want to thank all members in the Faculty of Economics and Rural Development at the Hanoi University of Agriculture, where I have been working as a lecturer, for their material and moral support during my study

During my fieldwork in Vietnam, I was helped by many people in Kim Thieu village, though unfortunately it is impossible to make a list of their names here My thanks go to Mr Nguyen Van Man, the Chairman of the People’ Committee of Huong Mac commune, who created the right conditions for my research I am also indebted to Mr Sinh, the headman of Kim Thieu village, and his all family members, who not only provided me with food and accommodation but also worked as my local research assistants, particularly Mrs Toan, Ms Tuyet and Ms Tam I also appreciated the help and contributions of Mr San, Mrs Hoa, Mr Dang, Mrs Chuan and Mr Suong

I also received excellent support from those Vietnamese living overseas in Chiang Mai, and also Vietnamese students at Chiang Mai University, as well as other international students at RCSD, especially my classmates Atchara Rakyutidharm, Yuki Miyake and Natedao Phatkul I would like

to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to all of them

My greatest debt is to my family My parents, my mother-in-law, my younger brother and younger sister have strongly supported me in both material matters and in spirit I am deeply grateful to them Above all, I owe the deepest gratitude to my husband, Nguyen Mau Dung, and my lovely son, Nguyen Mau Nhat Nam, who have sacrificed so much for my study

Finally, I would like to thank Gary Morrison from RCSD, who spent many days reading, checking and editing my English writing

Nguyen Phuong Le

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Acknowledgement iii

English Abstract v

Thai Abstract viii

List of Tables xvii

List of Figures xviii

Abbreviations xix

Unit of Measurement xx

Glossary of Terms xxi

Scientific Names of Timbers xxiii

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rural Transformation in Red River Delta 3 1.2 Understanding Conventional Theories of Agrarian Transition 6 1.2.1 The Category of Peasant in Agrarian Theories 7 1.2.2 Dichotomous Thinking of Farming and Industry in Agrarian Theories 8 1.2.3 Unfixed Meanings of Farmland 10 1.2.4 Changing Meaning of Farm-work 12

1.2.5 Determinant Forces of the Peasant’s Fate 14

1.3 The Assumptions and Research Objectives 18 1.4 Research Methodology 19

1.4.1 Locating the Field Site 19 1.4.2 Entering the Village 20 1.4.3 The Analytical Approach 22

1.4.4 Research Design and Procedure 23 1.4.5 Methodological Reflection 27

1.5 An Overview of Kim Thieu Village 29 1.5.1 The Physical Background 29

1.5.2 Demography and Livelihood Strategy 30

TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONTINUE)

PAGE

1.5.3 Customs and Rituals in Agrarian Society 33

of Traditional Woodcarvings 41

2.2.3 The Trans-border Commodity Chain of Woodcarvings

2.4 Gender Differentiation of Production 50 2.4.1 Gender Relation of Production 50 2.4.2 Reorganizing Gender Relation of Production 52 2.4.3 Bargaining Power and Changing Gender Relations 53

2.5.1 State Policies on Agrarian Transformation 56

2.5.2 Patriarchal Ideology of Gender Relations 57

CHAPTER 3 STATE PROJECTS, LOCAL MANEUVERS

3.2 Agrarian Transformation as an Ongoing

3.2.1 The Modernization Theory of Agrarian Transition 61

3.2.2 The State-Led Policy of Agrarian Transition in

3.2.3 Peasant’s Negotiation with the State-Led Agrarian Transition Program 69

TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONTINUE)

3.3.3 Economic Policy Changes:

An Outcome of Negotiating Process 86 3.4 Economic Liberalization: New Regulations for Rural Economy 86 3.5 Contested Meanings of Work and Peasanthood 89 3.5.1 Interrelations of Craftwork and Farm-work

CHAPTER 4 THE TRANS-BORDER COMMODITY CHAIN FOR

Reproduction of Chinese Designs 112 4.4 Raw Materials: Consumer-Driven

and Transnational State Policies 116 4.4.1 The Imperfect Competitive Market for Inputs 116 4.4.2 Impacts of Transnational State Policies on Input Market 120

4.5.1 Production Process of Woodcarving Industry 123 4.5.2 Categorization of Woodcarving Producers 125

TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONTINUE)

4.7.2 Modes of Livelihood Articulation 154

in Changing Division of Labor 172 5.2.3 Outward Labor Migration in the Woodcarving Industry 181 5.3 Division of Labor within the Household:

5.3.1 The Complexity of Household Members 183 5.3.2 Changing Gender Relations in the Production Process 187 5.4 Relationships between the Owners and the Workers 189

TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONTINUE)

CHAPTER 7 NEGOTIATING THE FEMALE ROLE AND SPACE

7.2 Gender Relations in Production:

Social and Cultural Construction 233 7.2.1 Gender Relations in Production in

the Pre-Collectivization Time 233 7.2.2 Changing Gender Division of Labor

during the Collectivization Period 236 7.2.3 Changes in Women’s Roles

in the Period of Economic Liberation 238 7.3 Diversification of Work and Spatial Mobility 244 7.3.1 Home-based Work: Cultural Constraints

or Individual Decision? 244 7.3.2 The Patterns of Women’s Spatial Mobility 251 7.4 Negotiation for Spatial Mobility 262 7.4.1 Female Shopkeepers: Moving about Double Roles 262 7.4.2 The Contract Female Labors 271 7.5 The Spatial Mobility: Changing the Female Roles and Space 273

7.7 The Gender Re-division of Labor: Corporation or Conflicts? 278

TABLE OF CONTENTS (CONTINUE)

PAGE

8.2.1 Contested Meanings of Farming, Farmland,

8.2.2 Market-driven Traditional Handicraft Production

8.2.3 Flexibility in the Woodcarving Industry 289 8.2.4 Modes of Livelihood Articulation:

Risk Minimization and Lifestyle 290 8.2.5 Trans-rural Migration and the Fragmentation of Labor 291 8.2.6 The Re-organization of Labor within Households 292 8.2.7 The Invasion of Female Labors into Male Work 293 8.2.8 Gender Negotiation: Change and Tension 295

8.3.1 Rethinking Agrarian Transition and Persistence of Small Farming 295 8.3.2 The Role of Culture in Livelihood Approach 298 8.3.3 Redefining the Gender Division of Labor 300

APPENDICES 325

LIST OF TABLES

TABLE PAGE

4.1 Classification of wood carving households according to their main

products

1044.2 Prices of wood materials in Kim Thieu village 1224.3 Categorization of woodcarving workshops in the village in 2007 1284.4 The annual production of a medium-scale family factory in 2007 1354.5 Classification of households by livelihood strategies 1596.1 Rice areas in different household categories 2016.2 The wage rate of contract workers in rice production 2087.1 Reason for decision as self-employed workers 2457.2 The journeys-to-work of the village woodcarving shopkeepers 254

7.4 Characteristics of hired female labors working in Kim Thieu 257

4.1 Map of the trans-border commodity chain for woodcarvings 1084.2 This chair style was produced during the Ming Dynasty in China and is

now being reproduced in Kim Thieu

1104.3 This screen was produced during the Ming Dynasty in China and is

now being reproduced in Kim Thieu

1104.4 Qing railed beds produced in China hundreds of years ago and in Kim

Thieu today

1114.5 Tea table and chairs made with rosewood: a mixed of Asian and

Western styles

1134.6 Scholarly style of tea table and chairs made by rosewood 1144.7 These senna chairs look like ebony after painting 1154.8 The production process of wooden furniture in Kim Thieu village 1254.9 Diagram of the trans-border woodcarving commodity chain 1434.10 A chair back made from several pieces of wood 1535.1 Fragmentation of village labors in woodcarving production 1686.1 Villagers burning straw to use the ash to manure their soil, as ‘organic

7.1 The productive and reproductive roles of self-employed workers 2507.2 A mobility map of a home-based female worker 2527.3 The mobility map of a home-based female worker 2537.4 The differences between the owners and the female hired labors 258

7.6 Social networks of a female trader of woodcarvings 275

ABBREVIATIONS

ACIAR Australian Center for International Agricultural Research ADP Agricultural Development Policy

FAO Food and Agriculture Organization

FSC Forest Stewardship Council

HCMC Ho Chi Minh City

MARD Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development

VWP Vietnam Worker’s Party

UN United Nations

US United States

USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

UNITS OF MEASUREMENT

1 sào = 360 square meters

1 US dollar = 16,590 dong (official exchange rate by 2008)

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

bạch đinh landless person

communal works within a year

speech and proper merit

hợp tác xã nông nghiệp agricultural cooperative

làm vụng doing things on the sly

lễ cúng cơm mới devoting to the ancestors with ‘new rice’

mở cửa đình the grand opening ceremony

called your teacher

phường guild

land in the collectivization period

tam tòng tứ đức three subordinations and the four virtues

SCIENTIFIC NAMES OF TIMBERS

Gỗ mít Jackfruit Tree Artocarpus integrifolia Linn

One day in October 2005, my husband and I took the local bus from Hanoi

to Thai Binh Province to visit my mother-in-law During the trip, I made friends with a middle-aged woman whose hometown was nearby my husband’s village I asked her what she did in Hanoi and what she returned for She said to me that she went to work as a cook in a small restaurant which chiefly served students in the Hanoi University of Agriculture She had to return for a few days to prepare a rice nursery for the next crop season, because her husband did not know how to manage

it and her children were so small that they could not yet be responsible for rice production She said there were many other such women in her village who also migrated to work as domestic workers, cooks and vendors in urban areas The movement of female labor from rural to urban areas in this area had caused a new social phenomenon, called the ‘masculinization’ of the rural workforce

While she always returned home in the peak rice season to transplant and to harvest, other people decided to stay in urban areas for the whole year round, and thus had effectively given up farming As a result, a large area of farmland had been abandoned, even though her hometown used to be considered the largest granary in the Red River Delta in Vietnam Through talking with that woman, I found that she felt sad due to the abundance of abandoned land in her village For her, people should farm because they were farmers, though she knew that it was very difficult for them to rely on rice farming at that time, because both production and living costs were very high, while rice prices were low In addition, a number of people in her village had migrated to make a living away from their hometown They did not want to go back home to do farm-work, so they had decided to abandon their land

The story made me think of the findings of a research project funded by the Australian Government, entitled “Agricultural Development and Land Policy in Vietnam” (ACIAR Project ADP 1/1997/092) which ran from 1997 to 2004, and in which I used to be a research member One of the conclusions of this project was

different from what the woman had told me The project reported that in Ha Tay Province, where the population density was very high and craft villages were the most developed in the Red River Delta, “over 70 percent of surveyed households reported that the land area they farmed had stayed about the same”, since the time when they were first allocated (Marsh et al 2006: 101) This meant that people left farming because they migrated to work in other locations In contrast, those who could make a living in their hometown did not need to remove themselves from farming, even if their income was mostly generated from off-farm activities

Keeping in my mind these two stories of changing rural livelihoods in Thai Binh and Ha Tay, I decided to go to Bac Ninh Province, where traditional craft villages had been intensively developed, as in Ha Tay, to look into what had really happened with the rural economy, and in order to develop the research problem for

my PhD dissertation During the time I waited for my former student to introduce me

to the communal staff, I listened to the discussions of the owner of a small tea shop which I was sitting in, and her regular customers Through their talk, I could pick up that they were discussing the prices of pesticides and fertilizers and also discussing farm laborers’ wages I was surprised at their concern for rice cultivation, because I knew that the woodcarving industry had been the main livelihood strategy of these people for a long time

My former student, Truong took me to an office in Huong Mac commune, where his friend, San, was working as a statistician After the preliminary introductions, I started to talk about the intentions of my visit I told him what I had heard at the tea shop located in Huong Mac commune After listening attentively to

my narrative, he seemed to agree, and then explained:

We look like rich urban people, but we are still farmers My family has 6.5

sào of rice field, but we just grow half the total area to get enough rice for our

self-consumption The remaining area we lend to others We have to grow

rice because income from the woodcarving industry is very high, but not

stable As furniture producers we have a lot of money when we have just sold

products, but we also have nothing, even not enough for a small amount of

rice, when we have to invest in materials purchasing and our customers have

not yet paid, or our products cannot be sold The woodcarving industry

should be considered a sideline, only because we don’t know how its future

is If the Chinese customers still buy, we can expand and develop production,

but when they stop buying, the production will stagnate Further, being

farmers, we should grow rice at least for ourselves, because we cannot

survive without rice Income from the woodcarving industry will help us to

buy foodstuffs and other things which improve our living standards, while

rice helps us to avoid hunger (May 2006)

This story showed that while some people divorced themselves from farming, others retained their farming activities, even if they no longer relied on the agricultural sector alone Thus, the questions which I have decided to raise here are: (i) why do people still keep farming, even if they tend to live on off-farm activities? (ii) who retains farming together with their off-farm strategies and who gives up farming?, and (iii) why do many people still maintain the property rights on their farmland and their peasants’ identity, even when they have become detached from farming?

1.1 Rural Transformation in Red River Delta

It could be said that the biggest change that has taken place in the

Vietnamese economy during the time of Doi Moi, has been the adoption of ‘market

socialism’ by the Sixth Party Congress in 1986 At that Congress, the peasant household was defined as an autonomous economic unit of production with the authority to operate (Werner 2002) Together with a new definition of the peasant household economy in rural areas, the means of production has since almost completely reverted to the household, through the reconstruction of agriculture Arable land formerly belonging to the Agricultural Cooperatives, has been allocated

to individual peasant households with long-term ‘land-use rights’, rather than being based on private ownership

With long-term land-use rights and autonomous decision-making in production, the peasant household economy in the Red River Delta in Vietnam, has undergone a major transformation, as its economic base has moved away from subsistence farming towards intensive, high-value food production both for export and for local urban markets, and to non-farm employment The livelihoods of rural residents have changed considerably Peasants no longer live on rice cultivation alone; their livelihoods have become more diverse and more dynamic One of the routes taken by peasant livelihoods in the Red River Delta, has been to combine on-farm with off-farm activities, especially the craft making industry The reason for this having taken place, is the fact that Vietnam has thousands of traditional craft villages,

of which over a half are presently in the Red River Delta, especially in the provinces located immediately around Hanoi, such as Bac Ninh, Ha Tay and Hung Yen Many craft villages considered as ‘traditional’, have existed for hundreds of years The historical and general reality of craft village development in the region indicates that handicraft activity was considered as a sideline activity for rural livelihoods in the past, because peasants lived mainly on farming, especially rice cultivation (Scott

1976, Popkin 1979) Handicraft production and other income-generating activities were merely developed and paid scant attention to, as complementary sources of income when peasants were on the edge of starvation (Scott 1976)

However, after the introduction of Doi Moi in 1986, traditional craft villages

were revived and developed as an important economic strategy Since then, they have played an increasingly significant role in rural livelihoods The production operations in craft villages have since absorbed about 30 percent of the total rural labor force In the Red River Delta, about 60 to 80 percent of total households in the craft villages have become involved in the production process The income per capita in those villages has moved to between three and six times higher than the agriculture-based communities (Xo 2000) The infrastructure and material living standards in the craft villages has become much better than in the farm-based communities Cuc (2001) shows that in Bat Trang, a famous traditional ceramics village in the Red River Delta, all households have brick houses, of which 40 percent have two and more stories, 60 percent of total households have motorcycles, small trucks and cars, and 90 percent of total households have a color TV set For this reason, the revival and development of the traditional craft villages in Red River Delta has been viewed by policy makers as a crucial facilitator of rural income improvement

Although the craft making industry has become an important part of rural livelihoods, most craft villages show varying modes of livelihood articulation between that off-farm activity and farming It is impossible to find a pure craft village

or an entirely agricultural village in the Red River Delta As mentioned in the previous section, craft-peasants have run varying modes of livelihood articulation for various reasons which cannot be generally interpreted for the country or the region as

a whole Therefore, my explanation for the craft-peasants’ modes of livelihood

articulation will be situated within the context of a traditional woodcarving village in Kim Thieu village, which belongs to Bac Ninh Province in northern Vietnam

The woodcarving industry is seen as an age-old traditional occupation in Kim Thieu In the time before collectivization, craft making activities were merely considered as “supported activities for the household economy”, because most rural people lived on rice cultivation At the end of the 1950s, the Vietnamese Government implemented a policy reform within the agricultural and rural economy The main content of this agricultural and rural economic reform was to collectivize all means of production By doing this, all villagers were gathered together either into an agricultural

cooperative (hợp tác xã nông nghiệp), or a handicraft cooperative (hợp tác xã tiểu thủ

công nghiệp) During the collectivization period, the Vietnamese State redefined work

and labor, so that those who worked for the agricultural cooperative were called peasants, and those who worked for the handicraft cooperative were defined as craft-workers According to this differentiation, craft-workers were detached from the collective land, and remunerated in the same way as those who worked in the state owned enterprises Under the collectivization program, rural livelihoods were simplified However, both peasants and craft-workers were able to make a living from combinations of farming and craft making activities, in different ways

After the initiation of the de-collectivization process in the late 1980s, and since the more recent acceleration of land reforms, agricultural and rural livelihoods

in Vietnam have experienced a significant transition (Tuan 1995) Nonetheless, the biggest transformation in rural livelihoods happened when the 1993 Land Law was introduced, under which peasant households were allocated land use rights and were given security of tenure over their allocated land (Marsh et al 2006) In the context of economic renovation, peasant livelihoods in the region in general and in Kim Thieu village in particular, have since no longer depended on rice cultivation, but on a number of income-generating activities This change in rural livelihoods was brought about by the State’s program of rural industrialization Since the early 1990s, the term

‘craft village’ has been established based upon a set of indicators, including the number of households engaged in craft making and the proportion of income generated from craft making, and has then been used to refer to communities where people chiefly live on craft production, as in Kim Thieu, my study village

Similar to other Asian regions and in the context of wider agrarian change, farm work has become less important in comparison with off-farm activities in the Red River Delta, though in this region, most craft villagers have retained farming together with their handicraft making This can be interpreted in several ways, but has mostly occurred for three reasons The first driver has been caused by the State’s policy on agricultural land According to the 1993 Land Law, as a farm landholder, a peasant must cultivate on their allocated land, instead of leaving it to fallow If the landowners

do not cultivate for any reason, they must lease, transfer, or sell the land to others Any farmland which is kept idle, must be confiscated and transferred into communal land The second reason is related to the vulnerability of the market economy, under which people have been driven by external forces, rather than by their own decision making The instability of the market for handicrafts has heavily influenced craft makers’ income levels, so that they have tended to keep farmland for their own security The last reason is related to the cultural values of farm work and farm produce Rural people in the region still perceive that they should cultivate at least two rice crops per year, because they are peasants However, this situation is totally different from the Mekong Delta, particularly in Binh Duong and Can Tho, where a number of households have sold and leased their farmland, because of ‘unprofitable production’, ‘insufficient labor’ and ‘debt recovery’ (Marsh et al 2006)

1.2 Understanding Conventional Theories of Agrarian Transition

Theories of agrarian transformation have been around for almost a century, throughout the world The debates on agrarian transformation have varied in accordance with the historical context, but they have mostly concentrated on (i) categorization of the peasantry, (ii) the relationships between peasants and non-peasants, and between farming and off-farming activities, especially industry, (iii) the meanings of farmland as well as farming, and (iv) external forces such as the market, states and culture, which says that traditional customs determine the fate of local people and drive the process of transformation In this section, I will not analyze the variations among the different schools of thought on agrarian transition Instead, I will try to problematize the conventional thinking on the four issues mentioned above

1.2.1 The Category of the Peasant in Agrarian Theories

According to Marxism, agrarian transitions equate to capitalist transformations Classical theories of agrarian change assert that the penetration of capitalism into the countryside leads inexorably to the polarization of landholdings, and the development

of impersonal wage labor relations, therefore leading to the disappearance of the peasantry and the emergence of proletarians Although Kautsky and Lenin analyzed the process of agrarian transformation differently, both of them supposed that it amounted

to the processes of ‘depeasantization’, and of the proletarianization of the peasantry (Shanin 1980) Lenin’s and Kautsky’s works strongly influenced their followers, especially those who worked in the 1960s Most of the arguments on agrarian change in that period, tried to convince people that under the impacts of capitalism, land and labor

in rural areas were being rearranged such that they would eventually be concentrated in the hands of a few large owners; those who would become landlords These processes might cause an expansion of the landless, whose livelihoods might depend upon wage labor in the agricultural sector

This classical argument originated from essentialist thinking, which considered peasants as those who only lived on farming (Wolf 1966) As a result, peasants would inevitably turn into farm wage laborers under the direction of others, when they lost their own land The heavy dependence on farming and land constrained peasants in the rural bounded communities Current scholars, particularly Kearney (1996), claim that in the era of post-peasantry, peasants are no longer bounded within the village In contrast, they have a larger spatial mobility, so that they are now able to become transnational farm wage workers, who might say leave Mexico to work in the USA Nevertheless, through a number of case studies, Kearney retains the idea that considers peasants as those whose livelihoods are confined to farming and farmland, whether they make a living on their own land in their hometown, or toil on others’ land outside their home area, or even their country In contrast to this line of argument, since the late 1980s several agrarian studies have indicated that farm-work is not the only source of a peasant’s livelihood, but that peasant’s livelihood strategies have become so diverse, that they have been able to make a living from both on-farm and off-farm activities

Indeed, it is witnessed that peasants in many regions have made their living from several economic activities, for a long time In the Red River Delta, and since pre-modern times, rural people have lived on a variety of income-generating activities, including farming, animal rearing, gardening, and to some extent, on craft making The reason for this is the fact that rice cultivation alone could not allow a village to become

a standalone and complete economic cell (Tung and Dinh 1993) Moreover, the craft making industry has contributed towards emancipating peasants from their traditional bounded areas of work, because it has been much more related to spatial mobility, especially in the service provision and product sales sectors During collectivization, although the Vietnamese State attempted to re-define the peasantry by dividing local people into two main groups, peasants and craft workers, this classification only worked

at the administrative level and in the formal workplace The fact of the matter was that those who were categorized as agricultural cooperative members (farmers), did not only live on farming, and similarly, craftsmen (craft workers) did not rely purely on their remunerations from the handicraft cooperative; all of them implicitly conducted diverse livelihood strategies Since the early 1990s, with the introduction of economic renovation, peasants’ livelihoods have become increasingly diversified, such that they now no longer live on farming alone It can now be asserted that the peasantry category consists, not only of those who mainly live on farming, but also others whose livelihoods are diverse and whose livelihood strategies are no longer dependant upon farming and farmland alone In other words, the monolithic and general concept of the peasant, as well as the peasantry, no longer works as an explanation of the reality of a heterogeneous agrarian society

1.2.2 Dichotomous Thinking of Farming and Industry in Agrarian Theories

Unlike the classical theories, agrarian studies in the 1980s showed that there were complex modes of production in the rural economy, rather than simply polarized relations between landlords and farm wage workers Scholars like Anan (1989) and Fegan (1989) indicate that a variety of relationships exist between the landowners and the landless, in the context of agricultural commercialization Despite this, they still concede the existence of the process of land becoming concentrated in the hands of a small number of landowners, under the process of commercialization For them, the

landless are not a victim of commoditization as classical theorists’ claim, but rather active participants who can diversify their livelihoods Although these scholars have gone beyond the essentialist thinking of the classicists, by claiming that peasants are able to diversify their livelihoods, they still consider farming as a basic strategy The evidence for this is the fact that these scholars suppose that a critical reason for peasants wishing to diversify livelihood strategies, is the loss of this land

Rigg (2001, 2002) and Elson (1997) also argue that rural livelihoods have shifted from farm-based to off-farm-based strategies However, the contemporary scholars contend that this transition has been caused by the proliferation of off-farm job opportunities, rather than the scarcity of farmland As a consequence, for Rigg (2005), farming has become a low status occupation to be avoided by a large proportion of rural population, especially the younger generation Increasing numbers of rural residents have begun to make their livelihoods, not from toiling on their own land, but working the land of others or, more importantly, finding waged employment outside the traditional sphere of rural production (Elson 1997)

It is said that almost all scholars have supposed that rural livelihoods will transfer from farm-based to off-farm-based strategies By supposing this, they seem to assume that farming appeared in peasants’ lives before off-farm activities such as craft making In other words, the off-farm economic strategy has been viewed as an evolution away from farming Farming is often referred to as traditional, backward and subsistence, whereas off-farm activities, including petty trade and cottage industries, are considered to be more developed and aligned to modernization The dichotomous relations between farming and industry have appeared in the debates on agrarian transition of the classical theorists, especially Lenin and his followers Thus, Lenin asserted that the farming sector only developed when it had been industrialized, modernized and commoditized (Lenin 1977 in Scott 1998)

This line of thinking has been employed by the Vietnamese State in its policy making During both the collectivization and economic liberalization periods, the State has attempted to separate peasants from non-peasants by specializing a part of the rural labor in farming, and the other part in craft making Nonetheless, as mentioned in the previous section, in the Red River Delta, it is extremely difficult to identify whether farming or craft making came first The farming and craft making

sectors have operated side by side, and people have run these economic activities together, for a long time Therefore, it cannot be asserted that off-farm strategies have only developed when peasants have not been able to access farmland, or when off-farm job opportunities have been introduced Similarly, craft making is not an advanced stage of farming, therefore the two activities have been articulated along side each other as part of peasant livelihoods, for over a century

1.2.3 Unfixed Meanings of Farmland

Most classical theorists such as Marx, Lenin and Wolf, have viewed farmland as the most important means of production of the peasant economy, so that when peasants lose their land for any reason, they are forced to become farm wage workers, working

in the fields of landowners For these theorists, peasants have no other choice than to make a living from farmland In other words, farmland plays a critical part in securing peasants’ livelihoods Later scholars like Anan (1989) and Fegan (1989), have gone beyond such a classical line of thinking, by showing that landless people have not only made their living by working as tenants for landowners, but have also developed multiple livelihood strategies for the sake of their own survival Despite this, these scholars have still considered farmland as the most important livelihood resource

Unlike previous theorists, the more recent scholar’s works have shown that the perception of farmland in the peasants’ lives has been changed According to them, there is a process in which on the one hand, there is the formation of a true class of consolidated modern farmers; specialists in agriculture whose productive behavior is shaped by the demands of the market at the national, regional and international levels

On the other hand, there is a labor force which maintains a fragile and tenuous connection with the land, while creating new productive relations with the world outside the village (Elson 1997) Rigg (2005) asserts that no longer are the land rich necessarily the prosperous, and no longer are the land poor necessarily the income-poor, in rural areas As a result Rigg concludes that “land is no longer a strategic resource in rural Southeast Asia” (Rigg, 2002: 385) Rigg (2002, 2005) and Elson (1997) oppose previous theorists when arguing that, over time, farmland becomes less important in rural livelihoods, because rural income is increasingly generated from off-farm activities

Nonetheless, farmland is not only seen as a means of rural livelihoods, but in the era of commoditization, it is also considered as a commodity which can be sold and bought according to the demand of self-regulating markets For this reason, farmland which can produce a high economic return, will be invested in In other words, it will be accumulated by those who have sufficient financial, social and human capital to expand the agricultural sector, while those who need capital to devote to other economic activities can sell their farmland Under such a process, both farmland and rural labor will be economically utilized

It can be observed that in conventional thinking, the meaning of farmland has moved from a means of peasants’ survival in a subsistence economy, to a commodity which can be exchanged in the context of the market Based on research in central Thailand, Rigg et al (2008) show that in the 1960s, farmland played a key role in rural livelihood, such that villagers were not willing to sell their land People “could not comprehend any alternative to the life of the rice farmer No land meant, to most villages, no livelihood” (Rigg et al 2008: 363) But, in the era of industrialization and commoditization, the role of farmland in rural livelihoods has changed Rigg et al (2008) also indicate that the high demand for land from industrial factories, has caused the escalation of land prices in rural area, so that a number of villagers have sold their farmland, and of which “a few villagers sold all their land; others kept some

in reverse to continue to farm and perhaps sell in the future” (p.371) The appearance

of a market for farmland has allowed people to move in or out of the agricultural sector with ease By arguing this, the market advocates have trusted and romanticized the role of markets in driving the rural transformation process, through re-distribution

of resources However, as Polanyi (2001) argued, the economy was always

‘embedded’ in society - in other words, it was ‘submerged in’ social relations, politics and religion Thus, markets did not shape all the principles determining the production and distribution of resources For this reason, although farmland is viewed as commodity, it continues to be shaped by social relations and culture, because it has a social life that is inevitably intertwined with non-economic meanings and types of value (Polanyi 2001, in Nevins and Peluso 2008)

The reality in the Red River Delta indicates that rural livelihoods have shifted significantly to off-farm orientation, especially in the traditional craft villages

Additionally, the Vietnamese State has facilitated the market mechanisms for farmland, through its policies on de-fragmentation and consolidation, and with the expectation that farmland will be efficiently exploited However, almost all peasants

in the craft villages have retained their farmland, whether to cultivate, or to lend or rent, though their income has mainly come from, and their labors devoted to, the craft making industry Thus, land consolidation has only rarely occurred in the traditional craft villages Unlike in the arguments of Rigg (2001, 2005) and Steward (2007), rural people in northern Vietnam have not always detached themselves from their farmland, even when working as cottage industrial workers People have kept their farmland in order to maintain their property rights, and to secure their livelihoods, rather than to cultivate The meanings of farmland and farming have not sat side by side in such cases therefore Moreover, despite the fact that farming activities have become less important, farmland still occupies a critical position within rural livelihoods, because

of the special land tenure history of northern Vietnam

1.2.4 Changing Meaning of Farm-work

According to Rigg (2001), the trend in the transition in household livelihood strategies in the rural south, has been from rice-based to non-farm activities Rural people in some rural areas no longer care about agricultural production The transition

in rural livelihoods has made farming a low status occupation, to be avoided by a large proportion of the rural population, especially the younger generation Increasing numbers of rural residents have made a living on the land of others or, more importantly, found waged employment outside the sphere of rural production (Elson 1997) Agricultural production only persists therefore, if it is transferred from meeting subsistence needs only, to producing for market demands at the national, regional and global levels Small-scale farms are then only able to exist as part of a sub-livelihood strategy, with the direct or indirect assistance of off-farm income Additionally, farming may only continue thanks to contract or migrant labor from very poor areas, those who are still willing to work as wage laborers These latest theorists have gone beyond classical theory, by showing that peasants’ livelihoods are no longer dependant upon farmland and farm-work, because they can generate income from different sources, both outside of farming and outside the village However, in

arguing this, scholars like Rigg and Elson have overlooked the continuing role of farming in peasants’ lives and have overvalued the contribution of off-farm activities For this reason, farm-work has become inferior to off-farm work under the process of rural transformation By differentiating the off-farm contributions to peasants’ income from farming, these theorists have become trapped in the evolutionary theory, in which farm work is considered to be at a lower stage of economic development than off-farm activities, which are seen as being at a higher stage As a consequence, the former needs to be transferred to the latter within the process of agrarian transition Moreover, in their discussion of the changing roles of farm and off-farm activities in rural livelihoods, these scholars have concentrated only on the economic aspects, while the social and cultural factors have been ignored

Unlike Rigg and Elson, Eder (1999) advocates the persistence of small-scale farming According to Eder (1999), the community he studies, San Jose, has not become increasingly ‘proletarianised’ and he does not expect it will do in the near future Instead, family farming has remained prevalent because people have adjusted by farming different crops and combining agriculture with other ways of making a living While Eder’s argument seems to oppose Rigg’s and Elson’s, Kitahara (2004) stands somewhere in-between On the one hand, he supports Elson’s and Rigg’s arguments of agrarian change He shows that in several local communities, most households have changed from professional to part-time farming Among household members, there has developed a division of labor between non-farm work, carried out by younger members, and farm work carried out by older members This division has changed the whole household into a part-time farm He adds that at the individual level, people have been inclined to diversify their job from uniform professional farm-work into non-farm work

of diversified kinds Further to this, and widely across regions, a number of peasants have preferred to become proletarian, not because of their landlessness, but because of the rising expectations and stresses of the modern lifestyle On the other hand, Kitahara (2004) is similar to Eder (1999) in saying that: “such alternative ideals as subsistence farming and community autonomy should be persuasive for the feelings and consciousness of the concerned agencies and the local people themselves Any ideal may have its own proper value, but it does not work well unless the local people and the community members themselves agree with and support it.” (Kitahara 2004:18) By so

arguing, Kitahara demonstrates that there are different answers to the question; why does family farming persist or not persist, depending upon the specific historical, social, cultural and even political contexts?

Kitahara’s (2004) argument on the persistence of small-scale farming in parallel with the emergence of off-farm activities, is relevant to what is happening in the traditional craft villages in the Red River Delta It is a fact that on-farm and off-farm activities in the rural households and communities are not separated from one another On the contrary, they are closely articulated in terms of labor utilization, production processes and cultural values, in an agrarian-based society As a result, it

is very difficult to determine whether off-farm activities play a more or less important

or valuable role in peasants’ lives than farming, and also when, where and why small farming does or does not persist

1.2.5 Determinant Forces of the Peasant’s Fate

In the discussion on the categories of peasantry, and the meanings of farming and farmland presented so far, peasants seem to be seen as ‘rational’ people who are able to make all the required decisions on their lives Indeed, a number of contemporary theorists have attempted to claim that peasants are active agents who have the capacity to determine and drive the process of agrarian transformation (Long

1992, Kerkvliet 2005, Sikor 2001) Nonetheless, there is no denying the fact that all peasants’ fate has been heavily influenced by external forces, not only through state intervention, but also by market forces and culture

A variety of scholars have looked at the process of agrarian transformation as an outcome of marketization, and through the process of the commercialization of agriculture (Moerman 1968, Gudman 1978, Anan 1984) According to them, agricultural commercialization has turned peasants into commercial farmers Although most scholars contend that peasants have not been dominated by market forces through agricultural commoditization, in such a process, they indicate that the production relations, land tenure and income distribution, have changed in a way that has advantaged the large scale producers, while disadvantaging the small ones As a consequence, a number of peasants in Thailand, the Philippines and other developing countries, have been forced to become landless, and after that, farm wage labor

Rigg (2001), Elson (1997) and Steward (2007) view the market as a crucial factor determining the peasant’s fate Unlike their predecessors, they pay attention to the changes in the market for labor, rather than for agricultural products They claim that the availability of off-farm job opportunities in urban areas has pulled a number

of rural laborers out, to work as industrial workers As a result, agricultural production has been squeezed, and land, as well as crop productivity, has reduced significantly due to labor shortages In addition, large areas of farmland in Thailand, Malaysia and Bangladesh, have become idle or been transferred to non-agricultural purposes, those which can bring a higher economic return than agricultural production

Although almost all the current agrarian theorists admit the influence of market forces and peasants’ rationality in shaping their livelihoods, they also see state intervention as a key element which drives peasants’ fate Case studies conducted in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines in the late 1980s, illustrated that although the forms of intervention differed from one another, all four states shared an intense strategic concern with ensuring plentiful and cheap rice supplies, and all had intensively intervened in the rice sector since the widespread availability of modern rice technology after the late 1960s Moreover, the case studies also showed that the states’ policies had been heavily influenced by agrarian transition at the macro- and micro-levels, though all these states were characterized by a degree of ‘relative autonomy’ (Hart et al 1989)

Unlike in the above studies, Vietnamese rural residents have experienced radical changes at the macro-level, changes which have strongly affected them As discussed in the first section, the process of agrarian transformation in Vietnam has been led by state policies In the 1960s and 1970s, these policies mandated the formation of agricultural cooperatives and subjected the allocation of agricultural products, inputs and consumer goods, to administrative decisions Beginning in the early 1980s, agricultural reforms handed control over production back to the households The State programs of de-collectivization and marketization had the potential to transform agrarian relations Similar to other socialist countries, the fate

of Vietnamese peasants was originally determined in the cooperative regime, then strongly influenced during the time of economic liberalization, by state projects

Apart from market forces and state intervention, cultural values help to explain why villagers want to keep their identity, both as peasants and as craftsmen, in the case

of traditional craft villages in the Red River Delta Many villagers, who have invested almost all their capital and time in craft making, still define themselves as peasants The

reason for this is derived from the Vietnamese ideology of farming preference (trọng

nông) or farming-based economy (dĩ nông vi bản) This means that if the craft making

industry generates a large proportion of the households’ income, there are a number of villagers who still consider it a secondary job, or a sideline Besides, like Oki’s (1984) findings in West Sumatra, Indonesia, the northern Vietnam villagers will lose the respect of others if they have to live on the ‘purchased rice’ every day because of their landlessness For this reason, being a peasant farmer makes a villager self-confident about his or her subsistence security, while being a craftsman makes him or her wealthier By becoming a craft-peasant, a villager can maintain the traditional ideologies of the farm-based economy and of trade dignification, or as the saying goes,

‘one cannot get rich without engaging in trade’ (phi thương bất phú) Together with the

special meanings attached to farm-work and self-produced rice, Vietnamese people keep cultivating rice from the fear of hunger Most elders and middle-aged people in the Red River Delta experienced a severe starvation in the mid-1940s, and also food shortages in the late 1970s, events they have never forgotten

It has been witnessed that culture is a critical element governing peasants’ ways of making a living, as well as their lifestyle This argument does not though appear in Rigg’s debates on agrarian transition in the Southeast Asian region On the one hand, he believes that the labor market has reorganized the rural workforce, through a movement in which rural labor has moved out of the agricultural sector On the other hand, he emphasizes states’ roles in maintaining small subsistence farming,

in the context of commercialization and industrialization According to Rigg (2002) small subsistence farming has persisted in Europe, because rural residents have been subsidized by their respective states The countries of Southeast Asia do not have a state-funded social system, one that guarantees the lifestyles of those who choose to maintain small-scale farming activities

It can be asserted that state policies, market forces and culture, have been intertwined in shaping the fate of the peasantry, as well as the process of agrarian transition However, peasants have not simply been driven by external factors They

have also known how to situate their ways of living within specific contexts Local negotiation may lead to local-level trajectories of agrarian change that differ significantly from the national-level changes (Sikor 2001)

In summary, conventional thinking on the peasantry, the peasant economy and agrarian transition should all be questioned for the following reasons First, the classical theory of agrarian transition and the peasant economy defined peasants as a group of rural residents whose lives might be stuck in the farming sector and are bounded in rural areas In doing this, classical theorists attributed peasants to a monolithic livelihood strategy which was land-based only It has since been a fact, that peasants all over the world have been able to make their living from diverse livelihood sources, for a long time Secondly, both classical and some current theorists have been trapped in dichotomous thinking regarding the relationships between peasants and non-peasants, as well as between farming and off-farming activities These theorists seem to follow the evolutionary theory by showing that in the process of transformation, peasants should turn into non-peasants and farm-based livelihood strategies gradually replaced by non-farm-based ones, because the former activities are less developed than the latter Thirdly, farmland which used to be perceived as an important means of a peasant’s survival in the subsistence economy, has since been considered a commodity under the market-oriented economy Thus, people have been able to sell their farmland when their livelihoods have no longer depended on farming, or when they have needed financial capital to invest in production, even in consumption By arguing in this way, these scholars see farmland

as synonymous with farming In addition, they only consider farmland from the economic perspective, ignoring its social and cultural meanings Fourthly, similar to farmland, farming is also referred to as a survival strategy of rural residents For this reason, farming will one day disappear when rural livelihoods shift into non-farm-based activities But, it is a fact that small farming still exists in rural areas, thanks to its cultural values Finally, while a number of scholars overemphasize the role of both market forces and state intervention in governing the fate of the peasantry, others overvalue the peasants’ capacity to determine their own lives Both lines of thinking are not relevant when explaining what is happening in reality In fact, peasants are not passive under any infrastructure, whether it be state policy, the market or traditional customs, but know how to create space for their own maneuvers

1.3 The Assumptions and Research Objectives

This study examines the process of agrarian transition in a traditional craft

village, Kim Thieu, which is located in the Red River Delta in Vietnam To examine the argument that agrarian transformation is an alternative process, one which is determined by both peasants as active agents and other forces including the state, market and culture, three assumptions need to be tested in this study These are:

(1) Villagers opt for modes of livelihood articulation which are built upon subsistence farming and the craft making industry, in order to cope with changes in state policies, and with the fluctuations in the market for woodcarvings Additionally, these modes of livelihood articulation are maintained among several villagers, because of the local meanings attached to both craftwork and farm-work

(2) Changes in the division of labor at the community and household levels are considered as the main factors allowing villagers to maintain their modes of livelihood articulation, in the context of labor scarcity

(3) Within the process of the re-organization of rural labor, the inward movement of migrants and the gender re-division of labor, both in the farming and craft making sectors, play a key role

The questions I decided to pose and investigate in this research are:

1 In response to economic changes, how have villagers negotiated within the agricultural transition? Why and how have they developed their modes of livelihood articulation, by integrating farming with the craft industry?

2 How have the gender relations of production been reorganized under these changing modes of livelihood articulation? How have women and men dealt with the conflicts which have appeared during the process of reorganizing the gender division

of labor?

3 How has the trans-border commodity chain for woodcarvings connected the local craft industry to multiple levels of the economy? How has the instability of the market shaped local forms of livelihood?

The overall objective of the study is to identify the ways in which villagers negotiate for various modes of livelihood articulation in the context of rural industrialization and commoditization In doing this, I will examine the different debates on agrarian transformation from the perspective of a traditional craft village,

where the peasant economy has both integrated into the commoditized economic system, and kept in touch with its traditions, through its social and cultural practices

The specific objectives of the study are:

First, to explore the ways in which villagers have negotiated with the agricultural transition, then to find out the different modes of livelihood articulation which the villagers have conducted and the reasons for which the villagers have developed their diverse modes of livelihood articulation, chiefly based upon integrating rice farming with the craft making industry For this reason, the research will be carried out in order to grasp the local meanings and values upon which villagers make decisions regarding their modes of livelihood articulation

The second objective is to understand the ways in which gender relations have been reorganized in order to correspond with the changing modes of livelihood articulation In other words, this paper aims to point out that reorganizing the gender relations of production can make livelihood articulation possible In addition, the key conflicts which have appeared within the process of labor reorganization, will also be highlighted

The last objective is to map out the operational processes of the local craft making industry, in the context of trans-border trade Additionally, the research will point out the influence of market fluctuations on the craft-peasants’ livelihood, and as

a reason for them to reshape their modes of livelihood

1.4 Research Methodology

1.4.1 Locating the Field Site

The field site was selected in order to answer the research questions and to meet the objectives of the dissertation The main focus of this study was to understand why and how rural people could make so much money from the craft making industry, but maintain farming simultaneously Thus, the field site had to be a location where people had built up a livelihood strategy based on a traditional craft making industry, together with small-scale subsistence farming activity

To meet such a requirement, I decided to select Kim Thieu village as my field site The woodcarving industry in Kim Thieu is production-based rather than trade-based Indeed, there is strong evidence which suggests that Kim Thieu was one of the

earliest woodcarving villages in the region The proof of this which attracted me was that the village had three senior craftsmen who had been awarded the title of ‘golden hands’ by the Vietnamese Government during the time of economic liberalization In addition, through a discussion with San I referred to in a previous section, I learnt that about 70 percent of total households still carried out farming together with woodcarving as a livelihood strategy There were no abandoned plots due to insufficient labor or unprofitability

My first field trip in the village lasted almost two weeks However, during this two week period, I found out that the peasant’s livelihood strategy had been determined, not only by physical demands, but also by cultural and spiritual needs Therefore, the reasons for which people had kept their small-scale farming within the context of large-scale commercialization, needed to be examined through different lenses

1.4.2 Entering the Village

My research was carried out based upon a two-period ethnography The first trip began in October 2006 and lasted two months, the purpose of which was to collect the necessary data for developing my thesis proposal The second visit started

in May 2007 and lasted until December the same year, except during August and September when I stayed in Chiang Mai for a comprehensive examination Like other researchers and students, I had to obtain an introductory letter from my university, stating that I was a PhD student wishing to carry out research in the village The letter had to be sealed by a ‘red stamp’ of the institution where I was working This was just

a formality, but all researchers and students who wish to conduct their studies at the local level, must meet this requirement to declare who they are Furthermore, this visit was less political and reflective of top-down control than that described by Scott, Miller and Lloyd in their paper (2006), because I am a Vietnamese who was born in a village not so far from the field site

In fact, San, one of the villagers, already knew me from when I had been introduced by one of my former students On the day I brought him my introductory letter from the university, San took me to meet the Chairman of the People’s

Committee at the commune level, in order to get his formal permission to stay San had already announced my presence to all the staff at the commune office San kindly invited me to stay with his family during my fieldwork I also thought that staying at his house might be more convenient for doing my research, because his family managed a small woodcarving workshop and also did farming Further, as I had not had any acquaintances in Kim Thieu before, his kindness helped me to become more confident during the early stages after entering the village

During the first few days, San helped me to get acquainted with some of the villagers, especially with the woodcarving producers surrounding his house He spent three days taking me to meet senior villagers, artisans and former local leaders, all of whom would be key informants during my research I felt lucky, because San would become a valuable research assistant However, after we had been together a few days, I recognized that it would not be easy for me to interview the villagers if I was with him Firstly, I would have to cope with politic problems, because San worked in the local government, responsible for collecting data, especially that relating to the taxation of off-farm activities For this reason, a number of producers, particularly the large-scale ones, tended to refuse to talk with me Secondly, going around with him in the village brought me face with the local traditional attitudes towards gender relations I developed this feeling through his wife’s attitude She seemed to be unhappy when I went with him, as well as when I stayed in their house, though it was very big with different floors and several rooms She did not even respond when I greeted her with a smile I had learnt from other villagers that, as a married woman, I should not go around together with a man who was not my relative or colleague, as it might present the image

of an unfaithful man and woman I also learnt that my presence there was very strange for village women, not because I was a stranger, but because I was a researcher at a high level (according to their understanding) My identity as a researcher distinguished

me from the other village women, even if my appearance and gestures were quite similar to them, except for my glasses Furthermore, it was very strange for an outside/strange woman to walk in the village with a man on a regular basis Thus, from the beginning I had to deal with the villagers’ perceptions of gender relations, as well as the outsider and insider distinction

Although I could not tell him directly how I felt, I asked San to introduce me

to a village woman who could work as my research assistant He introduced me to Toan, a forty-six year old woman who was the Headman’s wife Fortunately, Toan and her two daughters (Tuyet, twenty-one years old and Tam, twenty years old) sympathized with me, as well as my work After that Toan became my host She and her daughters helped me to make friends with many villagers, especially with the village women Additionally, Toan was one of the leaders of Women Union at the village level, so I could easily communicate with other women, in order to find out the nature of gender relations in both the production activities, and in everyday life However, doing research there, I discovered that even if I gained support from several villagers, I would still face many difficulties when I wanted to interview the woodcarving producers, and visit their factories as well as their houses

1.4.3 The Analytical Approach

As qualitative methods of data analysis were mainly used in my research, I tried

to include the insider’s meaning or “emic view” in order to interpret their behavior towards their livelihood articulation options Of course, the emic view (insider’s perception) should be examined alongside the etic view (researcher’s knowledge)

Within the research, the modes of livelihood articulation were understood at both the ideological and practical levels At an ideological level, the meanings of craftwork and farm-work were identified, in order to answer the question: why do people opt for their modes of livelihood articulation rather than livelihood diversification or specialization? At a practical level, the function and role of each activity in the livelihood articulation strategy was identified with the aim of identifying its contribution to household income Moreover, the empirical information

I gathered, helped to explore how people ran their modes of livelihood articulation, based on the reorganization of labor, particularly the gender re-division of labor in both the farming and craft making sectors The study does not stop at the descriptive stage, but goes on to understand in depth why and in what ways the gender differentiation of labor, or the gender roles in production, had changed

In addition, as a multi-level analysis approach was applied, the local level research was not divorced from changes at the global level Geertz (1983) and

Clifford (1988) stressed the importance of the local knowledge of culture, and emphasized that this makes sense only with reference to wider processes Local and global processes cannot be kept distinct from one another, since local processes are shaped by global processes, and likewise, macro-level processes can only be understood by the examination of local processes (Long 1992)

The idea for my analysis approach was generated from ‘grounded theory’, which is a widely used approach in qualitative research (Neuman 1994) For this thesis, I analyzed a specific process of agrarian transition in a very small village, in order to gain an insight into the wider dynamics of the agrarian transformation process as a whole By doing this, I placed my analysis on a macro level, within the historical context of globalization and national policy changes

1.4.4 Research Design and Procedure

Case Study Approach

I applied “the case study approach” at different stages of carrying out the research - from area selection to data collection, and at different levels; the community, household and individual I selected Kim Thieu village as my case study site, because the ways in which the villagers managed their resources strategy for livelihood articulation, had created an alternative trajectory of agrarian transition that differed from other locations, as well as from the State’s predictions and expectations Moreover, although 70 percent of the households in the village had been running these modes of livelihood articulation, the differences in their available resources made these modes turn out very different It could be asserted that there were five modes of livelihood articulation which had been built, based on the different scales of farming and craft making industry in the village, so I used five case studies which were drawn from these groups at the household level Even though, the ways in which people ran their livelihood strategies differed from one another and among each group

The individuals selected as my case studies, were not based on the criteria which have generally been used at the household level Instead, the gender, age, education level, marital status, woodcarving skill level and resident location of the householders, were the criteria My emphasis on the individual case study, was based on an understanding of how they contributed to the household’s livelihood;