Charles Howie  

B.Sc. (London 1969), M.Sc. (Stirling 1982), M.Sc.(Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester 2000)

Cooperation and contestation: farmer-state relations in agricultural transformation, An Giang Province, Vietnam

Postgraduate award October 2002: Economic and Social Research Council and Natural Environmental Research Council.
Supervisor: Professor Tim Unwin (Geography, RHUL)
Advisor: Professor Katie Willis (Geography, RHUL)
Email: C.A.Howie@rhul.ac.uk

This thesis analyses farmer‑state, and farmer‑farmer relations in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam, focusing on agricultural transformations in An Giang Province.  It does so at three levels: first, at the largest scale, farmer‑state relations are explored through the building of common dikes of different heights; second, farmer‑farmer relations are examined through farmers’ management of flood water within common August dikes; and third, at the smallest scale, it studies the scope for interhousehold diversification in the face of common environmental and economic constraints.  Case study fieldwork took place between 2002 and 2007 in four communes using a mixture of inductive and deductive methods.  Political ecology at the micro level provides the overarching conceptual framework, and cooperative water management is analysed using Olson’s (1965) and Ostrom’s (1990) ‘collective action’ and ‘common pool resources’ frameworks.  The research aims to contribute to a better understanding of farmer-state relations in the south of Vietnam.

Since a period of national food insecurity in the 1980s, related largely to the failure of state-initiated cooperatives in this delta, farmers retain and exercise leverage against the state by, for example, resisting proposals to raise the height of the dikes.  Within common August dikes, farmers act collectively in ‘pumping clubs’ to manage flood water.  August dikes raise production, but reduce the scope for individual decision-making.  Common high dikes allow farmers to act more individualistically and this accentuates differences in success between households.  Paradoxically however, high dikes have also enabled the state to gain control of water management, although it is not clear if this has been done in order to regain political control from farmers or to protect the poor and the landless.

See also:

• High dykes in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam bring social gains and environmental pains
• Pioneering degree programme developed by PhD student benefits Vietnamese students
• Geographer develops curriculum for Vietnamese integrated rural development course
• Vietnam: Higher Education Link, British Council