TTLA: Changes in the livelihoods of the Muong people in the Hoa Binh hydroelectric reservoir area at the resettlement site.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE DOCTORAL THESIS

1. Full name of the doctoral candidate:Trinh Thi Hanh                 

2. Gender: Female

3. Date of birth: July 16, 1983

4. Place of birth: Nam Dinh

5. Decision on the Recognition of Doctoral Candidate No. 2213/2011/QD-XHNV-SDH dated November 21, 2011, by the Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities - VNU Hanoi.

6. Changes in the training process: None

7. Thesis title:Changes in the livelihoods of the Muong people in the Hoa Binh hydroelectric reservoir area at the resettlement site.

8. Major: Ethnology Code: 62.22.70.01

9. Scientific supervisor:Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Chinh, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tran Van Binh

10. Summary of the new findings of the thesis:

- Resettlement policies are extremely important for reorganizing the lives of people after resettlement, and are rooted in the perspective of managing and stabilizing the population in the area rather than using rational development strategies.

- The Hoa Binh hydroelectric project's resettlement involved nearly double the projected number of displaced people, yet lacked a comprehensive resettlement policy and plan. Decisions were more reactive than long-term strategic. The two main resettlement methods employed were relocation and the establishment of new villages. During this process, people's livelihoods were severely depleted, particularly their social capital.

- In the relocation model, the social capital of the people is preserved to a certain extent because the community has not been completely broken up. This helps displaced households have a social support system to overcome the shock and crisis more quickly, and to stabilize their lives sooner.

- In the "new village" model, resettled people lose almost all of their traditional social networks and have to start from scratch. This characteristic prolongs the post-resettlement crisis period, requiring people a great deal of time to adapt to new conditions and lifestyles.

- The government and non-governmental organizations have provided numerous development support activities for people after resettlement, but due to the failure to leverage social capital, the results have not been as desired.

11. Practical applications:

This thesis contributes to clarifying resettlement models and the types of adaptation to new societies and environments by communities forced to leave their old homes to adapt to completely new living conditions after resettlement. The research results show that previous studies often focused on analyzing the importance of physical capital while neglecting social capital. This study indicates that social capital (primarily family, kinship, village, friendship, and relationships with the supernatural world) also plays a crucial role in restoring livelihoods for people after resettlement and is an important factor in achieving sustainable livelihoods. Social capital must be considered alongside physical capital, as it determines the accessibility and how people use physical capital to achieve sustainable livelihoods.

In practice, research has shown that there are many development support activities for people in forced resettlement in general, and for ethnic minorities in particular, aimed at achieving the goal of "poverty reduction." However, these development support activities have not yielded the desired results. We believe that for success, development support activities in forced resettlement areas must respect cultural diversity, respect and utilize indigenous knowledge, and listen to the voices of people affected by the projects.

12. Future research directions:

- The role of social capital in restoring livelihoods for people forced to relocate in the resettlement of hydropower projects in particular and development projects in Vietnam in general.

- Some issues in the development and implementation of resettlement policies in Vietnam.

13. Published works related to the dissertation:

Trinh Thi Hanh (2016) “Changes in community worship rituals of the Muong people in resettlement area (Hien Luong commune, Da Bac district, Hoa Binh province)”, Museum and Anthropology Journal (2), pp. 45-52

Trinh Thi Hanh (2016) “Access to social capital of people in compulsory resettlement - overview of some theoretical issues and recent studies”, Central Vietnam Social Science Journal (4), pp. 24 - 33

Trinh Thi Hanh (2016) “Forced resettlement: theoretical models and approaches in the world”, Journal of Theoretical Education (253), pp. 84-88

INFORMATION ON DOCTORAL THESIS

1. Full name: Trinh Thi Hanh 2. Sex: Female

3. Date of birth: July 16, 1983 4. Place of birth: Nam Dinh

5. Admission decision number: 2213/2011/QD-XHNV-SDH Date November 21^th2011 by Rector of University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU, Hanoi.

6. Changes in academic process: No

7. Official thesis title: Changes in livelihood of the Muong in Hoa Binh hydropower resettlement

8. Major: Ethnology Code: 62.22.70.01

9. Supervisors: Assoc. Prof. Nguyen Van Chinh, Assoc. Prof. Tran Van Binh

10. Summary of new findings of the thesis:

- Resettlement policies, which play a crucial role in arranging the resettlers' lives in the new sites, are based on the perspective of managing and stabilizing the relocated people's lives in the region rather than using reasonable development strategies.

- In fact, Hoa Binh hydropower project requires a large number of resettled people, which was about 2 times higher than the expected one. However, there were not any policies and fully detailed plans for their relocation. Numerous decisions were made formally for temporarily resolving the obstacles, not for a long-term schedule. Two principal resettlement models applied are “moving” and ‘establishing new villages”, which seriously affected all of the resettled people's livelihood sources, especially their social capital.

- In the model of “relocation”, the displaced people's social capital was mostly preserved due to a little change of their community that provided the displaced household strong social support for overcoming their shock and crisis situations so that they could quickly stabilize their lives.

- Concerning “establishing a new village”, the resettlers lost most of their social network and had to restart their lives from the beginning. As a result, it took them a long time to overcome their crisis and adapt a new lifestyle in the new sites.

- There have been a large quantity of performances/projects assisting the affected people after their resettlement from the State and NGOs. However, these projects have not been successful as expected because of not making the best of the people's social capital.

11. Practical applicability:

The study will make a significant contribution to clarify the resettlement models, the displaced people's adaptation to a new social environment/context in the resettlement sites. The thesis's results indicate that previous studies were focused on analyzing their material capital's role and bypassed their social one. Besides that, the study proves that their social capital (namely the relations in their families, clans, with their neighborhood and friends, with the supernatural world) plays an important role in restoring their resettled people's livelihood as well as maintaining it sustainable. Therefore, the social capital should be considered in parallel with the material one since the former determines the possibilities and methods of using the later to achieve the sustainable livelihood.

In practical terms, the thesis illustrates that there has been a large number of supporting projects for the displaced people in general and ethnics in particular towards the target “hunger eradication and poverty alleviation”; however, they are not successful as expected. It is recommended that these types of projects should pay more attention to the ethnic and cultural diversity, respect and be able to make the best of the local knowledge as well as listen to the affected people's voices/ideas.

12. Further research directions:

- The role of social capital in restoring the livelihoods of the unvoluntarily resettled people in the ressettlement of hydropower projects in particular and development projects in Vietnam in general

- Some issues in the development and implementation of the resettlement policy in Vietnam

13. Thesis - related publications:

Trinh Thi Hanh (2016), “Changes in worship of Muong People in their resettlement: Hien Luong Commune, Da Bac District, Hoa Binh province”, Museum of Ethnology review (2), pp. 45 – 52.

Trinh Thi Hanh (2016), “Accessing forced migrants' social capital in resettlement zones – some theories and recent studies”, Social Sciences of the central region review (4), pp. 24 – 32.

Trinh Thi Hanh (2016), “Involuntary resettlement: theoritical models and methods”, Journal of Theoretical Education(253), pp. 84 – 88.