Trung Dang

National University of Singapore | NUS · Asia Research Institute (ARI)

This article examines factors and root causes of dilemma and environmental governance challenges in the Red River Delta of Vietnam. Since the Renovation (Đổi Mới) period, there has been an accelerating growth of craft villages and industrial clusters in rural areas. While these processes contribute to creating jobs, increasing rural income, and ass...

Mythbusting Vietnam: facts, fictions and fantasies

This book investigates why collectivised farming failed in south Vietnam after 1975. Despite the strong will of the new regime to implement collectivisation, the effort was uneven, misapplied and subverted. After only 10 years of trying, the regime annulled the policy. Focusing on two case studies—Quảng Nam province in the Central Coast region and...

Maintaining a liveable environment in Vietnam's polluted craft villages is a daily challenge for state authorities and residents. Neighbouring urban populations demand that the state effectively curtails and manages pollution, while local residents prioritise their livelihoods and routinely flout regulations. The commune official, tasked with the s...

Does seeing water quality as a ‘complex commons’ create new windows for environmental management? Vietnam’s craft villages are rural villages with many small family-based workshops, specializing in the production of ‘traditional’ handicrafts as well as newer activities such as solid waste recycling. Recent growth in the number and size of craft vil...

Vietnam's rural provinces are home to thousands of craft villages; communities engaged in small- and medium-scale manufacturing of a range of goods, from recycled paper products to processed food. Since the liberalization of the Vietnamese economy in 1986, craft villages have played a significant role in poverty reduction and livelihood diversifica...

Despite a raft of government initiatives, Vietnam's rapidly growing craft villages—rural hubs for small-scale industry—produce alarming levels of water pollution that seriously affects human health and the environment. Framing water quality as a commons dilemma creates the scope for appropriately designed, collaborative institutions that better add...

The spontaneous growth of Vietnam’s 2,790 rural craft villages has been a mixed blessing. Specialising in ‘traditional’ crafts such as processed foods, textiles and furniture, as well as newer commodities, such as recycled products, craft businesses have expanded rapidly since Vietnam adopted the ’Doi Moi’ (economic renovation policy) in the mid-19...

This paper seeks to understand the patterns and experiences of migration from a subsistence rice-farming village in Quảng Nam Province. Emigration from Bình Yên ranges from circular and seasonal migration to the cities and central highlands for construction, forestry and plantation work; semi-permanent migration to Đà Nẵng and the south for work in...

Vietnam's craft villages contain many family-based workshops that specialize in 'traditional' handicrafts as well as newer commodities such as recycled products. The economic benefits brought by recent and rapid growth in the number and size of craft villages are, however, diminished by water pollution and risks to health, agriculture, and other li...

After 1975, the Vietnamese Communist Party struggled to carry out the socialist transformation of agriculture in the south of Vietnam. Party leaders considered land redistribution to be a temporary measure toward collectivization, but it turned out be a source of long-term struggle and conflict between the party and southern society. The land refor...

From 1975 to mid-1980s the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) had struggled to establish collective farming in the south. The Party leaders believed that collective farming would increase agricultural productivity and production, and improve people's living standards. However, the result was different from the Party leaders' expectations. By examinin...

From 1975 to mid-1980s the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) had struggled to establish collective farming in the south. The Party leaders believed that collective farming would increase agricultural productivity and production, and improve people's living standards. However, the result was different from the Party leaders' expectations. By examinin...

Soon after reunification, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) government in Hanoi launched full scale social, economic and political reforms in southern Vietnam in line with the socialist model of the north. Of these initiatives, agrarian reform was a key component, consisting of post war economic restoration, land redistribution and collective...

In the Vietnamese Central Highlands, the Ede economy, previously based on subsistence production, has increasingly shifted to coffee. Over the past two decades, coffee has come to dominate Ede agriculture. Meanwhile, land shortages due to various factors plus exhaustion of the forest from extensive internal migration have caused the level of Ede su...

In the Vietnamese Central Highlands, the Ede economy, previously based on subsistence production, has increasingly shifted to coffee. Over the past two decades, coffee has come to dominate Ede agriculture. Meanwhile, land shortages due to various factors plus exhaustion of the forest from extensive internal migration have caused the level of Ede su...

Vietnam's craft villages contain many family-based workshops that specialize in 'traditional' handicrafts as well as newer commodities such as recycled products. The economic benefits brought by recent and rapid growth in the number and size of craft villages are, however, diminished by water pollution and risks to health, agriculture, and other li...

"Does seeing water quality as a ‘complex commons’ create new windows for environmental management? Vietnam’s craft villages are rural villages with many small family-based workshops, specializing in the production of ‘traditional’ handicrafts as well as newer activities such as solid waste recycling. Recent growth in the number and size of craft vi...