State territorialization of Upland Forests in Post-socialist Vietnam

The paper examines substantive transition in forest spaces and governance over the last three decades in one district of Upland Central, Vietnam. Using the well-known notion of state territorialization* (Vandeergest and Peluso, 1995) and political ecology analytical framework, the paper reveals that 30 years reform toward a socialist market-oriented economy model, the territorialization of forest spaces in Vietnam, has also transformed from a mono state-dominant to new “state” polycentric process. On the one hand, from above, the state has continued using different new tools, strategies and new regulations to avoid the impacts of marketization and devolution to maintain control over forests and people. While, from below, the peasants have emerged as one important actor that engages actively in state territorial practices, using the state regulations and incentives but with their own motivation, imagines and multiple strategies to expand or re-claim the rights over resources and set out their own territories. Thus, different from traditional resistance, the “from below” process is not independent with the from above but it is a new layer being added into the state territorialization process in the new context. The findings of the paper are expected to update the notion of state territorialization under the new context of neoliberal environmentalism but in one very unique case of one post-socialist country like Vietnam, that includes: the expansion of intensive commodity production and market-oriented conservation initiatives and the shift from management to governance - plays in reorienting assemblages actors engaged in forest governance.  On the ground, these new dynamics are gradually dissolving or altering existing social relations related to forests and distorting the current state forest territories and even creating new ones. Consequently, when the old setting gives away to struggles over new ones, it then turns these spaces into a laboratory for new post-conflict practices. It is definitely one new type of forest transition that the paper would like to highlight and call for more attention from both academics and policymakers.

This is one of the result chapter of Van’s doctoral thesis. She will present it at the international workshop on Imaginaries of Development in the Highlands: the constitution of mountain areas as spaces for international development cooperation since 1945, February 27-28, 2020, in Bern, Switzerland.

* Vandergeest and Peluso, 1995. Territorialization and state power in Thailand. Theory and Society, 24, 385-426. http://doi.org/10.1007/BF00993352. State territorialization by Vandeergest and Peluso (1995) as a state-controlled process to disposition people and their relation to resources.

Le «Bouillon d'idées» est un séminaire proposé par le groupe de recherche «Développement, Sociétés, Environnements», dans lequel les chercheuses et les chercheurs sont invité·e·s à présenter une recherche en cours.

L'entrée est libre. N'hésitez pas à amener votre repas.