Lab Research Foci

Yunnan-Vietnam border dynamics
A recent project that members of the lab have started to work on incorporates research into cross-border trade and livelihood dynamics across the Southwest Yunnan-northern Vietnam border. We are currently focused on the Vietnam provinces of Lào Cai, Lai Châu, Điện Biên, and Hà Giang, and the Yunnan prefectures of Hónghé and Wénshān. The team aims to better understand how transnational ethnic minority residents achieve cross-border trading livelihoods, while negotiating the political implications of an international border. Drawing on conceptual literature from livelihood studies, marketplace investigations, commodity flow analyses, and borderland debates, we focus on the importance of the place-based knowledge of border residents, recognizing that their local wisdom and experiences often reflect very down-to-earth ways of negotiating borders and state policies.

Vietnam Highland Livelihood Dynamics
Some of the members of the lab concentrate on highland livelihoods in northern Vietnam. We are trying to better comprehend the activities, interactions and power relations that occur among highland minorities such as Hmong and Yao, and the Kinh (lowland Vietnamese) and Chinese. Our work is currently situated in a number of different rural locations in the north-western highland province of Lào Cai, Vietnam, located on the border with China. This research is creating a foundation of longitudinal research regarding northern Vietnam highland marketplaces, achieved by combining information found in French colonial archives, with that from in-depth interviews with Kinh, Chinese and minority traders in the highlands. It provides an understanding of how highlanders have coped over time in making a living by adapting their exchange and trade patterns during what are often highly antagonistic political circumstances, from imperial rule, through colonial and socialist rule, and finally to post-socialist market conditions today.

Environmental Decision Making Amongst Highland Minorities
A group of us are undertaking research examining environmental decision making in the northern highlands amongst a number of ethnic minorities including the Hmong, Yao, Nung and Tày. This research attempts to advance our understandings of culturally based conceptualisations and practices towards the use and protection of the environment in northern Vietnam by these minority groups. This is a region whose natural environment profoundly impacts on the lowland delta plains where millions of people live. This research is working to develop our understanding of the traditional knowledges and practices of these highlanders and how these can be put to use in the protection of the environment, and to help the Vietnam State design appropriate, sustainable upland policies.

(to top)

Members

	Jean Michaud Associate Professor Minorities and globalisation; highland societies of Southeast Asia and Southwest China; anthropology of the Hmong; agrarian transition and marketplaces; critique of development; local impacts of tourism; historical anthropology.
	Sarah Turner Associate Professor Livelihood studies; marketplace livelihoods; commodity chains; Southeast Asian development geography; development critiques; highland minorities; Northern Vietnam and Yunnan highlands; Hanoi small-scale traders; Eastern Indonesia.
Current lab members:
	Christine Bonnin (PhD, McGill) Thesis: 'Markets in the Mountains: Market Exchange, Trade Practices and Trader Livelihoods in Highland Northern Vietnam' (provisional title). Interests: Gender, informal livelihoods, micro-finance, small enterprises, tourism, Vietnam, Philippines.
	Bernard Huber (PhD McGill) Thesis: 'How non-timber forest products sustain the livelihoods of ethnic minorities in Northern Vietnam' (provisional title). Interests: Political Ecology; minority livelihoods; borderland politics; Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP); conservation/livelihood balance; post-socialist transformations; Vietnam
	Candice Cornet (PhD, Laval) Thesis: 'Impact local du tourisme ethnique sur l’organisation spatiale d'un village Dong du Guizhou, Sud-est de la Chine'. Interests: Dong culture, tourism development, ethnography, development.
	Steeve Daviau (PhD, Laval) Thesis: 'Développement, modernité et intégration à la nation d’une minorité bahnarique dans le Laos postsocialiste'. Interests: social change, resistance, Mon-Khmer, territoriality, ethnography, market integration, governementality, development.
	Candice Gartner (PhD, McGill) Thesis: 'Governmental infrastructure development and ethic minorities in Northern Vietnam' (provisional title). Interests:development process, poverty reduction, tourism impacts, micro-finance, tourist philanthropy, governance.
	Jean-François Rousseau (PhD, McGill) Thesis: 'International River Management in the Southeast Asian Massif: understanding and sustaining the Red River’s functions' (provisional title). Interests: environmental globalization, political ecology, security studies, hydropolitics, Red River watershed.
	Lindsay Long (MA, McGill). Thesis: 'Unravelling the Threads: The Evolving Complexities of the Highland Textile Trade in Northern Vietnam and Beyond' Interests: Development Studies, ethnic minority and indigenous populations, alternative trade, livelihoods, Vietnam.
	Annie Dubé (MA, Laval) Thesis: "Redéfinition du rapport à l’environnement des peuples minoritaires dans un contexte globalisé : cas des Hmong vivants aux abords du parc national Hoang Lien au Vietnam." Interests: environment, political ecology, ethnic minorities, globalization, resistance.
	Jonathan Gerber (MA, McGill). Thesis: 'Agrarian Change and its impacts on Urban Food Systems, Hanoi' (provisional title). Interests: urban change, markets, social capital debates, food security.
	Vincent Landry (MA, Laval). Thesis: ' Stratégies de développement, écogouvernance et particularismes locaux: le cas de trois initiatives de développement par l'écotourisme au N-O Laos'. Interests: development processes, graduated sovereignty, eco-governmentality, ecotourism projects, ethnic minorities.
	Philippe Messier (MA, Laval). Thesis: 'L’intégration à la majorité par l’image : dynamiques et stratégies de représentations des groupes minoritaires du district de Sa Pa du Vietnam postsocialiste.'
	Patrick Milochevitch (MA, Laval) Thesis: Processus de transformations sociales et culturelles et stratégie de résistance identitaire chez les nomades marins Moken de Ko Surin (Thaïlande) Intérêt: southeast asian marine ethnic minorities, Moken, social and cultural transformation, identity building, resistance strategy, development and tourism impacts, Thailand.
	Mathieu Poulin-Lamarre (MA, Laval). Thesis: Folklorisation et développement des minorités dans la Chine du sud-ouest: la construction de la nation chinoise contemporaine dans les marges. Intérêt: développement, ethnicité, politiques minoritaires, résistance, gouvernementalité
Lab alumni:
	François Fortin-Deschêne (MA, U de M). Thesis: 'Domination, résistance et espace de dialogue; les dynamiques de transformation de l'hégémonie au Viêtnam'. 'Domination, resistance and dialogue; the dynamics of hegemony in Vietnam'. Interests: hegemony, resistance, Vîetnam, doi moi,  political-economy, anthropology, social change
	Caroline Goulet (MA, 2005; U de M). Thesis: 'Rhétorique égalitariste contre pragmatisme autoritaire: les politiques d’État vietnamiennes et leurs implications pour les Hmong/Dao'.
	Laura Schoenberger (MA, 2006; McGill). Thesis: 'Crossing the Line: The Changing Nature of Highlander Cross-Border Trade in Northern Vietnam'. Interests: Development studies, livelihoods, borders, access, ethnic minority and indigenous peoples, upland Southeast Asia. Current position: Non-Government Organisation consultant, Laos and Vietnam.
	Claire Tugault-Lafleur (MA, 2007; McGill) Thesis: 'Diversifying Livelihoods: Hmong Use and Trade of Forest Products in Northern Vietnam' Interests: Vietnam, livelihoods, non-timber forest product trade, commodity chains, Hmong, cardamom.

(to top)

Gradute Opportunities

Prof Jean Michaud (Laval): I am interested in supervising graduate students linked to my broad research interests regarding understanding the rapport minorities have with the Nation and the State. This includes social change and the long-term processes of cultural and economic adaptation of minority/indigenous populations in response to national and international pressures linked to globalization. The theoretical perspectives I adhere to bridge a wide range of interest and contest both the neo-liberal growth agenda and the nihilism of post-modernism. See my own website for more information about graduate work at Département d'anthropologie, Université Laval.

Prof Sarah Turner (McGill): I am interested in supervising graduate students undertaking studies similar to my research foci outlined on my website at McGill, regarding small scale entrepreneurs, street-vendors, and market traders in Indonesia, Vietnam, or elsewhere in Southeast Asia; and highland minority livelihoods in upland Southeast Asia. I'm also open to considering a range of other potential human geography topics in Indonesia, Malaysia or Vietnam.

(to top)

Publications

Selected relevant SEA Massif publications from the lab include:

Books:

Caoutte, Dominique and Sarah Turner (Eds), 2009: Agrarian Angst and Rural Resistance in Contemporary Southeast Asia. Routledge: London.

Michaud, Jean and Tim Forsyth (Eds), 2009: Moving Mountains: Livelihoods and Ethnicity in upland China, Vietnam and Laos. UBC Press: Vacnouver (in preparation)

Michaud, Jean 2007: 'Incidental' Ethnographers. French Catholic Missions on the Tonkin-Yunnan Frontier, 1880-1930. Leiden & Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 279 p. More details from author here

Michaud, Jean 2006: Historical Dictionary of the Peoples of the South-East Asian Massif. Lanham (MD): Scarecrow Press, 356 p.

Michaud, Jean (Ed.) 2000: Turbulent Times and Enduring Peoples. The Mountain Minorities of the South-East Asian Massif. London: Curzon Press, 255p.

Tapp, Nicholas; Michaud, Jean; Culas, Christian and Gary Yia Lee (Eds) 2004: Hmong/Miao in Asia . Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 500p.

Turner, Sarah 2003: Indonesia’s Small Entrepreneurs: Trading on the Margins. London, RoutledgeCurzon 288pp.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters:

2009:

Bouté, Vanina and Steeve Daviau (in press), International agencies and national policies: What development for rural societies? A case study in two Tibetan-Burmese communities in Phongsaly district, Northern Laos, in P. Bourdier (Ed.), Indigenous People Under Command. White Lotus.

Daviau, Steeve (in press) Integration of a lineage society on the Laos-Vietnam border, Foucaldian analysis of State integrationist pressures, resettlement and local agency in Tarieng communities, in Michaud, J. and T. Forsyth (eds) Moving Mountains: Livelihoods and Ethnicity in upland China, Vietnam and Laos.

Daviau, Steeve (in press) Organisations à but non lucratif : timide émergence de la société civile en République démocratique populaire lao, Canadian Journal of Development Studies.

Michaud Jean. 2009: Handling Mountain Minorities in China, Vietnam and Laos: From History to Current Issues. Asian Ethnicity 10(1): 25-49.

Tugault-Lafleur, C. and S. Turner (2009) 'The Price of Spice: Ethnic Minority Livelihoods and Cardamom Commodity Chains in Upland Northern Vietnam'. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography. 30, 388-403.

Tugault-Lafleur, Claire and Sarah Turner (in press) Supple Strategies: Hmong Livelihood Diversification in the Northern Vietnam Uplands, in Michaud, J. and T. Forsyth (eds) Moving Mountains: Livelihoods and Ethnicity in upland China, Vietnam and Laos.

Turner, Sarah and Dominique Caouette 2009: Agrarian Angst: Rural Resistance in Southeast Asia. Geography Compass. 3, 950-975.

2008:

Daviau, Steeve 2008. Kehitysen aiheuttaman uudelleenasuttamisen ongelmat Laosin kansantasavallasa (in Finnish), Ethnia: 1/2008:23-29.

Michaud, Jean 2008: Flexibilité de l'économie chez les Hmong de la haute région du Viêt-nam septentrional. Aséanie 22:151-83.

Schoenberger, Laura and Sarah Turner 2008: Negotiating Remote Borderland Access: Small-Scale Trade on the Vietnam - China Border. Development and Change. 39 (4): 667–696.

Turner Sarah and Jean Michaud 2008: Imaginative and Adaptive Economic Strategies for Hmong Livelihoods in Lào Cai Province, Northern Vietnam. In Special issue 'Minorities at Large: New Approaches to Minority Ethnicity in Vietnam.' Journal of Vietnamese Studies 3(3):154-186.

2007:

DaCosta, Elsa and Sarah Turner 2007: Negotiating Changing Livelihoods: the Sampan Dwellers of Tam Giang Lagoon, Viet Nam. Geoforum. 38, pp 190-206.

Daviau, Steeve 2007: Development Induced Resettlement and social suffering in Lao PDR, Indigenous Affairs, IWGIA, 4, 07:22-29.

Turner, Sarah 2007: Trading Old Textiles: the Selective Diversification of Highland Livelihoods in Northern Vietnam. Human Organization. 66 (4), 389-404.

2006:

Michaud, Jean and Sarah Turner 2006: Contending Visions of Sa Pa, A Hill-Station in Viet Nam. Annals of Tourism Research. Vol 33, no 3, 785-808.

Before 2006:

Michaud, Jean 2004: French Missionary Expansion in Colonial Upper-Tonkin Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 35(2):287-310.

Michaud, Jean 2004: Missionary Ethnographers in Upper-Tonkin: The Early Years. Asian Ethnicity 5(2):179-194.

Michaud, Jean and Sarah Turner 2003: Tribulations d’un marché de montagne. Sapa, province de Lao Cai, Vietnam. Études rurales. n° 165-166, janvier-juin. 53-80.

Michaud, Jean; Sarah Turner and Yann Roche (2002 –published in 2004) Mapping ethnic diversity in highland Northern Vietnam. GeoJournal. 57 (4), 281-299. Mapping Ethnic Diversity in Highland Northern Vietnam link for maps.

Michaud, Jean. 2000: The Montagnards in Northern Vietnam from 1802 to 1975. A Historical Overview from Exogenous Sources. Ethnohistory 47(2):333-68.

Michaud, Jean and Sarah Turner 2000: The Sa Pa Marketplace, Lao Cai Province, Vietnam. Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 41 (1), 85-100.

Turner, Sarah; Andrew Hardy and Jean Michaud (Guest Editors) 2000: Special Issue. Migration, Markets and Social Change in the Highlands of Vietnam, Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 41 (1).

Commissioned Reports:

Daviau, Steeve 2008. Baseline Study for the Reducing UXO Risk and Improving Livelihoods of Ethnic Communities in Sekong Province project, CARE Australia, Vientiane.

Daviau, Steeve 2007. Ethnic Minorities in the Nam Ngum 3 area and in the Nam Ngum River Bassin, Inventory and impact assessment. TA 4921-Lao: Preparing the Cumulative Impact Assessment for the Nam Ngum 3 Hydropower Project. Rambol Natura and Wattenfall, Sweden, Asian Development Bank-Japan-Agence Française de Développement funded.

Daviau, Steeve 2007. Lao PDR: Fact-finding Mission in Dakcheung district, Sekong province “GPAR-Sekong Project”. Project Formulation Mission GPAR-Sekong Project, for the United Nation Volunteer – United Nation Development  Program, Vientiane, Lao PDR.

Daviau, Steeve 2006. The People and Their Forest, Ethnographic Study on Katuic groups in five PFAs (Production Forest Areas) in Saravane, Savannakhet and Khammouane Province, Lao PDR. In cooperation with the Lao Front for National Construction (LFNC). Co-operation between Governments of Lao PDR, Finland and World Bank in the framework of the Sustainable Forestry and Rural Development Project - Lao PDR (SUFORD).

Blog entries:

Milochevitch, Patrick 2008. Les Mokens de Ko Surin : entre développement durable et ethnocide

Milochevitch, Patrick 2008 Khwam Pen Thaï et Chon Klum Noï : Dialectique de la diversité ethnique et de l’identité nationale en Thaïlande

(to top)