Hong Anh Vu
| Hong Anh Vu is an anthropologist with a doctorate degree from the Syracuse University in New York. Her research interests include rural livelihoods, natural resources management, climate change adaptation, and the role of local skills and knowledge in sustainable development. She has extensive experience in the development field, having worked on anti-landmines and environmental advocacy, food security and gender disparity issues for Oxfam, the UN and the World Bank on various assignments. Email: honganhvu@gmail.com |
Research on Land-grabbing:
Moral Economy Meets Global Economy: Shrimp farming, land concentration and landlessness in Vietnam
Some things don’t change. Land grabbing is almost always done under the guise of public good. This paper illustrates the process of global land grabbing by the logic of a market-led land reform. In Vietnam, this path was facilitated by a series of policy changes, including the 1993 Land Law that endorsed individualized property rights, the 2000 resolution on the farm economy that promotes commercial farming on large-scale, and trade liberalization, all of which are seen as essential ingredients for economic growth. In the effort to foster greater flexibility for land transactions at the local level, these policies have in effect modified local patterns of production, land ownership, and social relations. Commercial shrimp farming in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta is a case in point to demonstrate the complex and intertwined environmental, economic, and social processes of global land grapping based on neoliberal economic principles.
