Research submitted to School of Social Science, University of Queensland 

This study examines ways in which top-down development programs supporting economic diversification have been re-shaped at the village level by women in an ethnic minority village in Vietnam.  It reveals that women in the village have experienced positive changes in their life and their status within village programs has been driven by central and local government development projects.  Yet the changes for women have been limited.  The most significant changes in economic participation and empowerment are observed for a small group of better-off and more influential women, rather than for all women in the village.

This study shows that the development projects are enabled and limited via kinship, ethnicity and settlement patterns/livelihoods and that women have worked together to negotiate the adverse impacts of development and to improve their livelihoods and well-being in ways that are important to them.  The research indicates the relevance and importance of intersections of gender, kinship, socio-economic (financial) status, location, and ethnicity in structuring women’s empowerment in an ethnic minority village.  Accordingly, to ensure empowerment and equality for women and girls in the village, development initiatives must be gender-focused and localized to genuinely facilitate women’s capacities to influence and change the current power system, while ensuring that values and traditions which women value as essential for a ‘good’ life (such as family happiness and harmony) are preserved.

Integrative processes are important and women’s empowerment must be genuinely recognized as a diverse experience involving both change and stability (modernization and tradition), and shaped by local relations, practices of power, and local understandings of the ‘good life’ that women are striving for.

Research presented at Tropentag 2011 (Conference on International Research on Food Security, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development), Bonn 5-7 October 2011.

In countries where the majority of the population is comprised of one ethnic group, the remaining minority communities can remain or become further marginalised when the benefits of development projects accrue to the elite of the dominant ethnic group. This paper examines Vietnam’s ethnic minority communities who live in such marginal situations. Since doi moi (renovation) in 1986, an array of policies, programmes and projects have been implemented to empower people, in particular ethnic minorities. Despite applausive achievements especially in poverty reduction, ethnic minorities continue to be poorer and more disadvantaged than the majority Kinh community, elucidated by the lack/lower return of endowments and/or community characteristics (cf. Baulch et al. 2007).

This paper focuses on the relation between internal community structure and power relations, and development outcomes on ethnic minority villagers. Three case studies covering two of Central and Southern Vietnam’s most underprivileged ethnic communities – the Pahy and the Khmer – are examined. Ethnographic field research was conducted in August 2010 in Thua Thien Hue Province and March 2011 in the Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. In Rum Soc Village the case of the agricultural club illustrates how Kinh managers prominently represent and make decisions for the majority of Khmer farmers. The development story in Tri Ton District presents a contrasting picture of two neighbouring Khmer villages: while one village became a regional “model” of development through a disproportionately large receipt of knowledge, technology and financial transfer, the neighbouring “normal” village continues to confront harsh modern-day challenges with their backward farming techniques. Finally, Khe Tran Village provides a good example of the momentous changes brought about by 20 years of governmental projects, yet close investigation reveals that the beneficiaries are just a few powerful Pahy-Kinh households with the majority lagging behind.

The paper substantiates that the benefits of development projects, in the name of the common good, are reaped by just a few powerful elites. Poorly designed and monitored development interventions that ignore power relations and are biased in their beneficiary selection vigorously back up and strengthen the local-level structural power inequity. This pushes ethnic minorities to the second layer of marginalisation.

Research presented at the Conference “Responses of religious communities to environment protection and climate change – Plans and solutions to 2020”, 15 September 2017, Hue City.

This study is grounded in an analysis of new challenges as we move towards climate change and argues that we can apply Buddhist teachings and the leadership of the Buddhist community to our climate response, and through this grow dialogue and action for all of us – as a community, and between Humans and Nature.

“Climate change is a global phenomenon that humans might never suspend, but only better manage.  Climate change is more of a problem because of anthropocentric causes, but climate change would happen even if there were no such causes.  Our goals must be more limited to reducing effects and improving adaptability, but avoid higher ambitions to “end” future change’’ (Brooks 2013, 11).