(October 24) Presentation on Market in Mountainous Areas

Topic: Markets in the Mountainous Region: Exploring the Geography of Market Exchange, Trade and Livelihoods in the Northern Mountains of Vietnam

Presenter: Christine Bonnin (Ph.D. Candidate, Geography Department, McGill University, Montreal, Canada)

Time: 9:00 a.m., October 24, 2008 (Friday).

Location: Multimedia Room, Museum of Anthropology, 3rd Floor, Building D, 336 Nguyen Trai - Thanh Xuan - Hanoi.

Summary: In the mountainous regions of northern Vietnam, markets remain an important place for local residents to exchange and buy and sell goods and other necessities. They are also places for remote ethnic minority communities to build and maintain their social networks. However, to date, the literature shows that informal exchange systems in rural areas have been understudied. Meanwhile, rural markets and small-scale commercial activities often play an important role in local development, and trading networks are considered a valuable analytical point for understanding the processes of market integration at the micro level and how livelihoods are constrained by structural constraints while taking due account of local actors in resisting, negotiating, and even shaping forces at the meso and macro levels. The author’s research aims to explore the complex relationships, dynamics and transformations of markets and livelihood activities in Lao Cai Province in northern Vietnam. In this presentation, the author will first outline her research background, then discuss her experiences as a female foreign PhD student conducting fieldwork in mountainous Vietnam over the past two years. In particular, the author will analyze recent discussions in the research literature on methodological issues, especially the concepts of subjectivity, reflexivity, and personality, and explore what role these issues play and how they are negotiated in the author’s research.