DOCTORAL THESIS INFORMATION
1. Full name of the researcher:Trinh Thi Hanh
2. Gender: Female
3. Date of birth: July 16, 1983
4. Place of birth: Nam Dinh
5. Decision to recognize PhD student No. 2213/2011/QD-XHNV-SDH dated November 21, 2011 of the Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities - VNU.
6. Changes in training process: No
7. Thesis topic name:Livelihood changes of Muong people in Hoa Binh hydropower reservoir area in resettlement area.
8. Major: Ethnology Code: 62.22.70.01
9. Scientific instructor:Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Van Chinh, Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Van Binh
10. Summary of new results of the thesis:
- Resettlement policy is extremely important for reorganizing people's lives after resettlement, and is derived from the perspective of managing and stabilizing the population in the area rather than using reasonable development strategies.
- The Hoa Binh hydropower resettlement has a number of people who actually have to be relocated, nearly double the number of people expected to be relocated, but there is no complete resettlement policy and plan. Decisions are more about coping with the situation than a long-term strategy. The two main forms of resettlement used are relocation and establishing new villages. In this process, all sources of livelihood of the people are seriously reduced, especially social capital.
- In the migration model, people's social capital is still preserved to a certain extent because the community has not been completely broken. This helps the lives of households that have to move have a social support to overcome the shock and crisis period faster, and their lives can be stabilized sooner.
- In the “new village” model, resettled people lose almost all of their traditional social networks and have to start from scratch. This characteristic makes the post-resettlement crisis period long, and people need a lot of time to adapt to new conditions and lifestyles.
- There are many development support activities for people after resettlement by the State and non-governmental organizations, but due to the failure to promote social capital, the results are not as expected.
11. Practical application:
The research of this thesis contributes to clarifying resettlement models, types of adaptation to new society and environment of communities forced to leave their old places to adapt to completely new living conditions after resettlement. The research results show that previous studies often focus on analyzing the importance of material capital while ignoring social capital. This study shows that social capital (mainly family, clan, village, friend and supernatural relationships) also plays an important role in restoring livelihoods for people after resettlement and are important factors to achieve sustainable livelihoods. Social capital must be considered together with physical capital, because it determines the ability to access and how people use physical capital to achieve sustainable livelihoods.
In practice, research has shown that there are many development support activities for people who are forced to resettle in general and for ethnic minorities in particular to achieve the goal of "hunger eradication and poverty reduction". However, these development support activities have not brought about the desired results. We believe that to be successful, development support activities in resettlement areas must respect ethnic cultural diversity, respect and know how to use indigenous knowledge and listen to the voices of people affected by the projects.
12. Further research directions:
- The role of social capital in restoring livelihoods for people forced to resettle in 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 thesis:
Trinh Thi Hanh (2016) “Transformation of community worship rituals of Muong people in resettlement areas (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 forced resettlement - an overview of some theoretical issues and recent studies”, Central Journal of Social Sciences (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 21th2011 by Rector of University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU, Hanoi.
6. Changes in academic process: No
7. Official thesis title: Changes in the 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.
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