Industrialization and Urbanization in Vietnam: How Appropriation of Agricultural Land Use Rights Transformed Farmers’ Livelihoods in a Peri-Urban Hanoi Village

ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: Since đổi mới, Vietnam witnesses a rapid urbanization and industrialization, which leads to conversions of a large area of agricultural land and other types of land, and this has forced thousands of farmer households to change their traditional livelihoods and even their lives. Using the lens of a sustainable livelihoods framework, this study analyzes and explains the questions of how, in what ways and to what extent agricultural land conversions have been affecting farmer livelihoods in one peri-urban Hanoi village. I argue that the state’s appropriation of agricultural land use rights have created essential socio-economic impacts on the farmers whose agricultural land have been appropriated for purposes of industrialization and urbanization. In coping with the new situation, while the party-state’s policy on vocational training and job creation shows limited impacts, many farmers in my case study rely on their natural capital in the form of residential land use rights to not only escape poverty but also to shift to new strategies of livelihoods. However, this transformation process consists of social differentiation and diversification of livelihood strategies among farmer households in the community, and more importantly, although having temporarily attained higher living standards, many farmers still feel their livelihoods are not sustainable because they lack work.

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