Preferential treatment in a transition economy: the case of state‐owned enterprises in the textile and garment industry in Vietnam

The article examines the role and contribution of preferential treatment of state enterprises to growth in the textile and garment industry. State enterprises are still the largest single sector in the textile and garment industry in Vietnam, but are losing market shares to private Vietnamese enterprises and foreign‐owned enterprises despite the benefits that they enjoy. However, in the present context of economic transition and keen competition in the global market, well‐managed state enterprises are attractive to foreign buyers of their products and have a role to play in market access abroad. This contrasts with the neoliberal notion that privatization is essential to competitiveness in the global market.     

基于户籍比较的特大城市住宅价格时空分异研究——以长沙市为例

为揭示中国特大城市住房市场中,不同购房群体在住房价格空间特征上的差异,论文对购房人群的户籍归属地进行划分,以“本地—外来”的视角分别刻画了长沙本地与外来(长沙户籍与非长沙户籍)2类购房者房价格局的时空演进。采取动态空间滞后特征模型(STAR-Hedonic)分析了区位、景观、邻里等因素对2类购房者房价的影响。研究发现：(1)长沙外来购房者房价梯度下降更快,空间更平滑。(2)长沙房价空间一江两岸双中心的总体格局逐步成型。传统CBD五一广场对城市房价的重要性在下降,但是对本地人房价梯度和价格弹性程度维持较高水平,副中心梅溪湖新城对外来人群房价的影响因子的提升幅度更大。(3)外来购房者对住宅品质和邻近配套有更高的支付倾向。(4)楼市的繁荣期和调控期,周边交易价格对2类购房者的影响程度不同。论文从功能需求、主观因素、政策区别和经济动机4个方面探究了2类购房者房价空间分异的成因。在“房住不炒”背景下,关注不同人群房价空间演进和影响因素的变化趋势,有助于特大城市房地产市场“精准调控”的实施。     

Governing through mobilities and the expansion of spatial capability of Vietnamese marriage migrant activist women in South Korea

This paper revisits the debate on marriage migration by highlighting the role of governing power and individual response in the process of migration decision‐making and post‐settlement of Vietnamese marriage migrant activist women in South Korea. It contributes to current marriage migration debates by employing the lens of ‘governmobility’ and ‘spatial capability’. The research looks at how female migrant activists maneuver coercion, resistance, and activism, both governed by nation‐state politics, but also actively deciding their fate amidst pressures of the global marriage market. Based on in‐depth interviews with 21 Vietnamese marriage migrant women who have worked in mentoring, counselling and translating for other Vietnamese migrants, our findings demonstrate that marriage migrants are positioned in between two nation‐states whose perspectival focus is on relieving the tensions of their own domestic job and marital markets. At the same time, these women have broken free from the inertia of socio‐familial status quo and state intervention to become self‐governing agents of mobility in various stages of their migration and adaptation. Fueled on by their position as activists, the marriage migrants then expand their spatial capability to place‐making—shifting the notion of freedom from simply taking part in mobility to reshaping their locale.     

Land grabs and labour: Vietnamese workers on rubber plantations in southern Laos

Since the early 2000s the Lao government has dramatically increased the number of large‐scale land concessions issued for agribusinesses. While studies have documented the social and environmental impacts of land dispossession, the role of Vietnamese labour on these Vietnamese‐owned rubber plantations has not previously been investigated. Taking a political ecology approach, we situate this study at the intersection between ‘land grabbing’ studies and work on ‘labour geographies’. Most of the remittances generated from Vietnamese working in Laos are used for non‐agricultural purposes, with people purposely choosing to not invest in agriculture in Vietnam. Vietnamese labour on Lao plantations still has significant spatial implications, both in Laos and in Vietnam, including through the norms, formal rules and practices introduced at rubber plantations by Vietnamese workers and management, but also through labour regime changes in Vietnam. In Laos, one of the most significant results has been to make certain spaces less welcoming to Lao labour. This study particularly points to the importance of geopolitics, as the close political relationship between Laos and Vietnam, and the fact that Vietnamese companies and managers are involved, is crucial for understanding the particular nature of the labour geographies associated with Vietnamese rubber plantations in Laos.     

TROPICALITY AND TOPICALITY: PIERRE GOUROU AND THE GENEALOGY OF FRENCH COLONIAL SCHOLARSHIP ON RURAL VIETNAM

This article discusses the relevance of the work of Pierre Gourou for Vietnamese and non‐Vietnamese scholarship on colonial and postcolonial rural society in Vietnam. The term “tropicality” is used to situate Gourou's work within the framework of both French and Vietnamese regimes of truth. It is argued that Gourou was aware of the complex human geographies of the tropics and monsoon Asia and the challenges this posed to both Western and “tropical” peoples. Gourou and the issue of tropicality is used to show that Vietnamese scholars did not completely reject French colonial systems of knowledge, and that decolonisation did not herald a complete shift in knowledge about rural Vietnam. Rather, since the 1940s there has been antagonism and accommodation between colonial and postcolonial, French and Vietnamese modes of knowledge production. While Gourou underscored the otherness of the tropics, and there are colonial overtones in his work, he had an immense influence on indigenous ethnography and geography in Vietnam and elsewhere in the formerly colonised world. The article traces this important influence and how it has been both questioned and affirmed since independence in the Vietnamese context. It is suggested that the humanistic approach that Gourou pioneered in his 1936 study of the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam has outlived and been able to overcome the setbacks and drawbacks of both colonial and revolutionary/Vietnamese politico‐intellectual projects.     

Market intermediaries and rural people in Bolivia's forest products sector: Are trusting partnerships possible?

Decentralization in access to and control of Bolivia's forest resources, coupled with a rising global demand for tropical hardwoods, raises important questions about whether increased trade and community forest management (CFM) initiatives can enable forms of market integration that have more favourable outcomes for rural communities. This paper assesses the prospects for such a transition through an examination of the relationships linking wood product market intermediaries (brokers and buyers) to rural suppliers and forest communities in Bolivia. The analysis centres on whether trust – conceptualized as a power‐laden sociospatial process driven by multiscalar factors – can evolve between buyers and suppliers such that more progressive (sustainable and mutually beneficial) partnerships devolop. Focusing on three types of buyer–supplier relationships in Bolivia – direct ties between wood brokers/buyers and suppliers, nongovernmental organization (NGO) mediated exchange relationships and Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification of suppliers – our findings show how trust building initiatives that focus on one scale may fail if factors at other scales create obstacles to collaboration, Given these relational constraints, CFM strategies in Bolivia currently face limitation on their viability as economic development strategies.     

Land wealth generation and distribution in the process of land expropriation and development in Beijing,China

Based on transaction data at the parcel level in Beijing, this paper itemizes the costs incurred in the process of transferring rural land to urban development, quantifies the exact magnitude of land appreciation generated in this process and examines how the land wealth is distributed among involved parties. The main findings include the following: first, the land appreciation and the costs incurred in the process of land expropriation and primary development both differ from case to case; second, conventional comparison of the compensation for expropriated land with land granting price substantially overestimates the magnitude of land appreciation; the average and the median land appreciations account for 44.8% and 44.0% of the mean and median prices of granted serviced land, respectively; last, the compensation paid to affected farmers has improved in absolute terms during our study period from 2003 to 2014; however, because the land granting price has been escalating at a faster pace, the land wealth received by local governments has trended up.     

AUSTRALIAN BACKYARD GARDENS AND THE JOURNEY OF MIGRATION*

ABSTRACT. Gardens have been an important site of environmental engagement in Australia since the British colonization. They are places where immigrant people and plants have carried on traditions from their homelands and have worked out an accommodation with new social and biophysical environments. We examined the backyard gardens of three contemporary migrant groups—Macedonian, Vietnamese, and British born—in suburban Australia and a group of first‐generation Australians with both parents born overseas. In Macedonian backyards, emphasis was strong on the production of vegetables; in Vietnamese backyards, on herbs and fruit. British backyards were more diverse, some focusing on non‐native ornamental flowers and others favoring native plants. The cohesiveness of the respective groups was partly an artifact of our sampling strategy. The Macedonian and Vietnamese migrants shared an affinity for productive, humanized landscapes that reflected their rural, subsistence backgrounds and crossed over into their attitudes toward the broader environment and national parks. The rural and village backgrounds help explain why intensive backyard food production has broken down among the next generation in (sub)urban Australia, becoming part of heritage rather than everyday practice.     

扬州市住宅价格的空间分异与模式演变

以2001-2012 年扬州中心城区各居住小区的住宅平均单价为基本数据,通过建立住宅价格总体分异测度指数(GDI) 计算其总体分异趋势及各住宅类型内部的分异趋势;采用核密度函数等方法探索住宅价格的分布形态和分异格局的演变规律;利用趋势面分析不同住宅类型价格的空间分异趋势;基于上述结果总结空间分异的演变模式,并分别探索空间分异与格局演变的驱动力。结果表明：① 2001 年以来扬州市住宅价格差距显著增大,分异趋势在波动中增强,与城市住宅均价的年增长率耦合;住宅价格呈现西高东低的空间分异格局,同档次价格小区由空间集聚转为相对分散,高、低价格住宅区分别沿固定扇面由中心向外围扩散。②不同住宅类型内的价格分异走势差别显著,各类型住宅间的价格趋势面差距明显,但其空间形态类似。③ 空间分异模式由2001 年西高东低的扇形同档次价格集聚式分异转变为2012 年扇形与圈层相结合的多档次价格混合式分异。④ 2001 年以来住宅价格总体分异的核心驱动力是城市居住空间的迅速扩展、居民收入差距的增大、房地产市场的繁荣和住宅类型的多元化,其住宅价格空间格局演变的驱动力为城市发展方向的确立与变化、特定住宅类型建设的区位指向和古城保护、旧城改造与新区建设。     

Under the state's gaze: Upland trading‐scapes on the Sino‐Vietnamese border

Within the politically‐defined Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), the borderlands of southeast Yunnan, China and Lào Cai province, northern Vietnam, have been categorized as being part of the GMS North‐South Economic Corridor. I argue that the creation of this subregion and corridor have been an opportunity for the governments in these locales to extend their territorialization and create new state spaces. For centuries, relatively isolated and ignored by lowland rulers, ethnic minority residents in these borderlands maintained their own culturally appropriate livelihoods, trade networks and societies. Nowadays, an increasing state presence in the uplands presents both challenges and opportunities for local populations on either side of the border, be they ethnic minorities, or Kinh (lowland Vietnamese) and Han Chinese. Contemporary border narratives gathered from local traders managing important upland commodities shed light on the means by which these borderland spaces are shaping both attractive prospects as well as restrictive constraints. Local residents fashion new trading‐scapes by drawing on kin ties, historical linkages, local indigenous knowledges and transnational societies that reach deep inside each country. As inhabitants carefully avoid or manipulate the state's gaze, I conclude that those living in the Sino‐Vietnamese borderlands possess the agency to ‘do things differently’ from hegemonic development approaches supported by GMS sponsors, and can create, maintain, support and refashion culturally appropriate trade livelihoods.     

An Investigation of the Role of Social Dynamics in Conversion to Sustainable Integrated Mangrove‐Shrimp Farming in Ben Tre Province,Vietnam

In the coastal area of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, much of the mangrove forest has been cut to make space for expansion of industry and aquaculture. Export‐oriented shrimp farming is a particularly fast‐growing business. Nonetheless, the importance of tropical mangrove forest ecosystems for coastal protection and marine biodiversity is widely recognized. The Vietnamese government, supported by non‐governmental organizations and donors, has sought to restore mangrove forest. To this end, the government has promoted mixed or integrated mangrove‐shrimp systems in which farmers maintain at least 40 per cent of their area under mangrove cover. Since 2012, mangrove reforestation, care and protection has benefited from local authority stimulus as well. Multiple studies have examined the condition of the mangrove forest in Ben Tre and other coastal provinces of the Mekong Delta. However, no research has investigated the role of social dynamics in farmers’ willingness to shift to, or maintain, integrated mangrove‐shrimp systems. Specifically, the influence of information, group dynamics and social learning on farmer decision‐making is poorly understood and, indeed, hardly investigated in Vietnam. This article reports on a study of social processes in three communes in Binh Dai District, Ben Tre Province, Vietnam. We conducted 42 semi‐structured interviews (with 34 farmers and eight local officials) and used secondary data. Our preliminary findings indicate that social dynamics in these communes were issue‐driven and played an important role in farmers’ decisions to adopt, or convert to, the integrated mangrove‐shrimp farming system. Television, radio, the internet, books, neighbours and training courses all had some influence in farmer decision‐making processes. However, our findings suggest that the accessibility, usefulness, relevance and approach of these communication methods must be improved if they are to adequately inform and support local farmers.     

‘I want to take risks,like my mother’: Memory,affect, and Vietnamese masculinities – the legacy of gendered variations in socio-economic mobility during Ðổi mới

Young Vietnamese men who witnessed their mother's changing economic and labour market situations through the early years of Ð?i m?i (the policy of economic liberalization in Vietnam after 1986) have developed conceptions of masculinity that are ambivalent to notions of male power and authority within what is often termed the ‘traditional’ neo-Confucian family. On the basis of the life narratives of a small group of men in their early twenties, the author suggests that the value young men place on their mother's work and familial influence during Ð?i m?i contrasts with the findings of much gender scholarship on women's social and economic (im) mobility in the 1990s in Vietnam and on young men's own masculinist narratives. Most gender-sensitive research in this area has suggested that Vietnamese women remained curtailed in the early 1990s by a resurgence of male-oriented kinship systems and patriarchal structures at household level. However, the author discusses the young men as being equivocal. While invoking broad Confucian tropes, these men remember their mothers as economically dynamic relative to their fathers. This led to the informants citing their mother's histories of economic risk-taking as exemplifying free-market capability. Further, the finding suggests that Vietnamese women's social and economic mobility in the 1990s strongly affected young men's contemporary ideas and practices related to masculinity.     

基于结构方程模型的北京居住用地价格影响因素评价

从20世纪80年代以来,中国的城市土地使用制度经历了深刻变革,土地无偿划拨使用逐渐向基于市场竞租的土地出让制度转型。近年来,学者开始关注在市场化背景下的中国城市土地出让价格的决定因素,特别是基于特征价格模型(Hedonic Model)验证城市空间结构、地方公共产品提供等要素的影响,但由于缺乏系统性的土地出让及其相关空间数据信息,该领域的研究尚处在起步阶段。本文关注市场化改革背景下的中国城市居住用地价格的影响因素,选取了北京市2004-2008年土地交易的微观数据,基于结构方程模型构建了地价估计模型,定量分析了生活、交通、环境设施便利性和工作便利性这4类外生潜变量对居住用地出让价格的影响程度,从而测度出房地产开发商对它们的偏好差异度。研究结论显示：生活、交通、环境设施便利性和工作便利性这4类外生潜变量对于居住用地价格有显著的影响力,且对于居住用地价格的影响程度大小存在差异性。工作便利性、交通设施便利性、生活设施便利性、环境设施便利性对居住用地价格的影响程度依次减弱。     

Who Is “Forest‐Dependent”? Capturing Local Variation in Forest‐Product Sale,Eastern Honduras

How researchers describe groups living within or near the world's tropical rain forests has important implications for how and why these groups are targeted for assistance by conservation and development organizations. This article explores how data about market behavior can be used to assess one aspect of forest peoples’ livelihoods: their “dependence” on forest resources as a source of market income. With the intent of revealing the importance of methodology to how we describe forest peoples’ livelihoods, I draw from a multiyear survey of market activity among the Tawahka Sumu of Honduras and distinguish nested measures of the Tawahkas’ engagement in forest‐product sale. Results indicate that whether or not the Tawahka —or any forest group — can be considered financially “dependent” on forest resources depends on the spatial and temporal scales at which data are aggregated. As a group, the Tawahka earned 18 percent of total market income from forest‐product sale, but their group profile masked a high degree of heterogeneity at the village and household level. Similarly, multiyear data indicated that while group‐level generalizations adhere from year to year, they belie considerable change in households’ market behavior across years. I discuss three ways in which the findings are relevant to the theory and practice of conservation and development in the humid tropics. I emphasize the importance of spatial scale in interventions, how market‐oriented conservation schemes can benefit from a broader conceptualization of the economic context in which forest‐product sale occurs, and how longitudinal analysis can reveal the dynamism of forest peoples’ livelihoods.     

THE ENVIRONMENTAL DIMENSIONS OF STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMMES: MISSING LINKS TO SUSTAINING DEVELOPMENT

The implementation of structural adjustment programmes has not paid sufficient attention to the environmental effects of prescribed reforms. Agriculture is often the largest sector contributing significantly to the generation of export revenue and the gross domestic product in many adjusting countries, including Ghana. Structural adjustments in this sector aim at removing constraints to productivity. In Ghana, these reforms include producer price increases, market liberalisation and exchange rate reforms. This paper examines the environmental effects of raised farmgate prices for cocoa and cotton cultivation. It argues that these policies have encouraged agricultural extensification, particularly given the main type of farming (slash and burn agriculture) practised in Ghana. Environmental degradation is occurring in many areas. Furthermore, cuts in public expenditure and the institution of cost-recovery schemes for previously subsidised services such as rural water supply may reduce farmers’ disposable incomes and their ability to pay for these services. Consumption of unsafe water exposes farmers to preventable water and hygiene related diseases which, given the high cost of medical services, may worsen poverty and further encourage agricultural extensification.     

Neil Smith, 1954–2012: “The Future is Indeed Radically Open”

Investors in single-family residential properties have played a crucial role in the United States foreclosure crisis. In this paper, we analyze investor behavior in the diverse urban housing market of Fulton County, Georgia. We examine the composition of buyers of lender-owned properties at two different stages of the foreclosure crisis, and analyze the intrametropolitan geography of investment. Results indicate that large-scale investors are most active in low-value housing submarkets with high poverty and vacancy rates.     

The Changing Geography of Export Trade in Ghana under Structural Adjustment Programs: Some Socioeconomic and Spatial Implications

Like many other countries in Africa, Ghana has traditionally depended on a few export products—namely, cocoa, timber, and mineral resources—as the mainstays of its economy. The often‐volatile nature of the world market price of these products made the economy very vulnerable to fluctuations in the prices of export commodities. Moreover, the geographical distribution of these resources meant that only a few regions could participate in their production and export. This resulted in wide spatial and socioeconomic disparities between the producing and nonproducing regions. Within the past eighteen years, however, a shift seems to have taken place. Under the auspices of the ongoing structural adjustment programs, emphasis is being placed on nontraditional export goods. This is not only helping to reduce the vulnerability of the economy by diversifying the sources of export earnings, but also engendering participation in the export trade by regions that have been traditionally left behind. This study analyses the changing geography of the export trade of Ghana using data from the International Monetary Fund/World Bank, the Ghanaian government, the World Trade Organization, and field observation. The study argues that while these new trends and efforts are laudable, they cannot bridge the gap between the export producing and nonproducing areas and cushion the economy against the vagaries of the export market unless deliberate attempts are made to improve transportation and other basic infrastructure in the less‐endowed areas.     

The price ripple effect in the Vancouver housing market

Attempts to model the dynamic characteristics of a housing market include examining the spatial diffusion of price changes from an epicenter through a regional or national network of geographic units. Less common has been the study of a ripple effect of price changes within a single metropolitan area, with implications for the erosion of residential affordability. Such trends have particular salience within the Vancouver metropolitan area, the least affordable housing market in North America. Using quarterly price data from local real estate boards, we examine price changes through municipal regions from 2005–2017, a period including several externally-induced price shocks. Several techniques test for a ripple effect in price movements. A time lag of three months consistently exists in the communication of price shocks from an originating epicenter to other parts of the metropolitan region, with longer lags with several more distant municipalities, confirming the presence of an intra-metropolitan ripple effect.     

Incidental Aquaculture in California's Rice Paddies: Red Swamp Crawfish

Introduction of the red swamp crawfish, Procambarus clarkii, into California and its diffusion throughout northern California's rice paddies created the conditions for an incidental aquaculture economy in a landscape devoted to irrigated grain production. For more than three decades, fishermen have harvested this prolific invader and sold their catch to Europe and the Gulf Coast. Since 2004, the diffusion of Vietnamese‐American seafood restaurants to California and nationally has created additional markets for red swamp crawfish.