Nông dân being wronged: fighting for the world in a place

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I attend to the politics of world making in subaltern struggles against agrarian displacement by listening closely to Vietnamese villagers’ refusal to be displaced. I argue that rendering these struggles intelligible through the prevalent framework of rights obscures the ontological violence and stakes involved. It is crucial to be vigilant of not only the limitations of rights’ (in)capacity to address wrongs, but also the implication of the rights discourse in unequal power relations and global hegemony. To contemplate politics and ethics ‘after rights’ is to explore globally diverse languages and desires for just relations that have long existed before and alongside rights. It requires us to be mindful of the complex layers of subaltern speeches and actions beyond the dominant lexicon. Here I examine carefully the hermeneutic and ontological layers of peasants’ claims of being wronged (‘nông dân oan’) in their battle against displacement in Việt Nam. I suggest that their articulations of violation, dialogue, and revolt open us up to conceptions of being human and being just alternative to those contained within rights discourse.