The Political Economy of Market Reform and the Formation of Socio-Spatial Identities in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam

Abstract

This article attempts to place the concept of indigeneity in the context of contemporary conflicts and claims to resources in the face of increasing global integration. Rather than treating indigenous politics as primarily a product of historical and (European) colonial conflict of culture and race/ethnicity, I use the example of recent land conflicts in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam as a starting point toward understanding contemporary debates on indigeneity. Based on fieldwork in 1994, the article describes one community's conflict over resource-use that demonstrates how land law, local rules of access, and the evolution of competing claims to land can create politicized socio-spatial localities overnight. Such communities, though sharing a similar culture, language, and history with the dominant nation, maintain local meanings and rules of access that define a distinct socio-spatial community. This example from Vietnam suggests that contemporary globalization and market integration is creating new indigenous communities that need to be better understood.