Sino-Vietnamese Borderlands

In rural Vietnam, drawing from his expertise on the highlands in the Sino Vietnamese borderlands, Jean Michaud intends to analyze how Hmong relate to, subvert, and resist the productive workforce ideals and imagery typical of the socialist agenda relying on infrastructure projects aiming to integrate upland margins into the Nation and the market. A recently completed new highway from Hanoi, greater internet coverage, increasing access to cellphones, and new social media platforms promote stronger material ties with the country's core via intensified agricultural production, greater market integration and a rapidly expanding tourism industry. Michaud will ask if such new infrastructure is altering how ethnic groups engage with these projects, also present in India's Zanskar valley and its minority population.

Selected Publications

Michaud J. (2022). Ethnography in the Northern Vietnamese Highlands. Pp. 430-50. In J. Wouters & N. Heneise (eds) Routledge Handbook of Highland Asia. London : Routledge.

J.Y.T. Po , J.C. Langill , S. Turner & J. Michaud (2020). Distilling Culture into Commodity? The Emergent Homemade Alcohol Trade and Gendered Livelihoods in Upland Northern Vietnam. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 21(5): 397-415.

Michaud J. & S. Turner (2017). Reaching New Heights. State Legibility in Sa Pa, a Vietnam Hill Station. Annals of Tourism Research 66: 37-48.

Smyer Yü, Dan & J. Michaud (2017). Trans-Himalayan Borderlands: Livelihoods, Territorialities, Modernities. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Turner S.,Bonnin C., Michaud J. (2015). Frontier Livelihoods: Hmong in the Sino-Vietnamese Borderlands. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Messier P., Michaud J. (2012) ‘The nice culture and the good behaviour’. State Media and Ethnic Minorities in Lào Cai Province, Vietnam. Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 19(3):339-359.