Search

What are the characteristics of peasants in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam? This question is largely indebted to the seminal work of Pierre Gourou in the Red River Delta or Tonkin Delta. However, land management practices in the southern part of the country remain a kind of terra incognita for researchers. This paper examines some main features of southern peasants’ behaviors concerning land ownership, labor use, and market-driven behaviors in the socio-historical context of “open community” villages by comparing them with those of northern peasants. The paper’s main argument is that Mekong Delta villages constitute an evident example of the “farmer society” type, different from the “peasant society” type—a distinction devised by Eric Wolf.

Land accumulation in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam is a reality that has been observed and debated for more than two decades. This article re-explores features of this phenomenon today by analysing data of a rural household survey conducted in September 2014 in Trần Giang and An Giang provinces. The article argues that the process of land accumulation during the post-reform transition in the Mekong Delta is determined by both land- and non-land-productive assets, and has effectively led to an increasing differentiation within the peasant class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]