Trading Old Textiles: the Selective Diversification of Highland Livelihoods in Northern Vietnam

Abstract

This paper aims to advance our understandings of rural Hmong livelihoods in Northern Vietnam. It investigates the local production and trade dynamics that link the livelihoods of a number of highland Hmong minority women in the province of Lao Cai to local, national, and global trade networks. Anchored in ethnographic research, the paper focuses on the actors, exchange systems, and locations implicated in the trade of embroidered fabrics, and how these have been shaped through time. Drawing on commodity chain analyses of three textile products—one chain fairly localized, another cross-border, and a third increasingly globalized—the paper examines the processes whereby new relationships, hierarchies, and values have been produced, manipulated, and challenged among the many actors involved. These include not only Hmong women, but also lowland Vietnamese, the State, and tourists. The study concludes that this textile trade has resulted in the selective diversification of Hmong rural livelihoods, the women no...