Vietnamese Discursive Spaces

La pauvreté extrême au niveau global persiste malgré toute une panoplie d’efforts à différents niveaux administratifs (international, national, régional, local) pour éliminer le problème. L’une des stratégies, l’intensification agricole (augmentation des rendements agricoles), était supposée contribuer à assurer la sécurité alimentaire pour tous. Toutefois, de nombreuses études ont montré à quel point l’agriculture mondialisée produit des effets néfastes à plusieurs égards, dans un contexte obnubilé par la croissance, la compétitivité et le productivisme. Pour les petits exploitants agricoles ou paysans, assurer la continuité de leurs productions présente ainsi plusieurs défis. Au Việt Nam, l’intégration récente et accélérée de son économie au marché mondial a poussé ses paysans à orienter leurs moyens de subsistance vers des activités agricoles commerciales et, plus récemment, vers des activités économiques non agricoles afin d’assurer la pérennité du foncier rural. Cet objectif demeure toutefois plus difficile à atteindre pour les paysans aux marges du réseau rural-urbain, en particulier les groupes ethniques minoritaires. Cette communication est exploratoire et, à l’aide d’une revue de littérature et de statistiques officielles, dresse un portrait de l’intégration des régions rurales au sud du Việt Nam entre 1995 et 2020, en analysant spécifiquement les formes de stratégies paysannes d’adaptation face à ce processus dans les provinces de de Tây Ninh et de Tiền Giang, en particulier la diversification des moyens de subsistance, ce qui inclut les activités agricoles et non agricoles.

Since the Habitat II conference in 1996, the women and cities approach has become part of the discourse of several international organizations. This approach, consisting of a set of ideas and practices that aim to intervene in urban settings by taking into account the differences between men and women, has been present in Vietnam for several years. Contributing to scholarship on the international circulation of urban policies, this paper examines how the international discourse on the women and cities approach is translated into the Vietnamese context. The analysis of this translation takes the form of a case study of the women and cities practices found in Vietnam. The analysis is based on interviews conducted with international and Vietnamese organizations, a literature review, and a press review. The results show that the international discourse on women and cities is based on certain conceptions of cities, gender equality, and how to intervene in the city. In Vietnam, these ideas are translated into practice in different ways. The results highlight the structuring influence of the political and social context in the process of adoption and local adaptation of the women and cities approach. Ultimately, based on the case of Vietnam, this paper sheds light on the importance of the role of the state in the circulation of urban policies.

Promoting inclusiveness in climate change adaptation are of the utmost importance to ensure that the lives of the many who are traditionally excluded or marginalized and disadvantaged in society, those being most vulnerable to climate change adverse, are protected and further improved. Vietnamese government recognizes the importance of and targets at adaptation with the diversified stakeholder engagement, meaningful participatory processes, and just outcomes. However, the adaptation in Vietnam revealed to be unsuccessful attempt for meaningful stakeholders’ engagement found in official reports of international developmental organizations as well as in academic research. In the paper, I assessed how inclusiveness has been embedded into climate change adaptation policy, identifying the gaps as well as opportunities of inclusive approach in climate change adaptation in Vietnam. There are totally 56 policy documents consisting of national adaptation plans and sectoral adaptation action plans have been collected and analyzed. I limit myself to content analysis of policy documents and the results presented demonstrate a high level of variation in how inclusiveness perspectives are integrated and planned for implementation in adaptation policies in Vietnam across different governance levels and throughout a time periods 15 years from 2008 up to present. The analysis also reveals four main kinds of inclusive gaps, including moral gap, knowledge gap, management gap, and learning gap. My paper also brings the new concept of “inclusive climate change adaptation” to the current debate of adaptation, testing the appropriateness and applications of this concept in adaptation policy making and practices.