<p>This dissertation challenges dominant food security
discourses and practices that seek to address food insecurity through
technoscientific approaches to agricultural production. Situated in Vietnam’s
An Giang province in the Mekong River Delta, this work ethnographically
explores and historically grounds global, national, and household scalar
implications of these same discourses and practices on rice farmers’
livelihoods. The central research question that guided this project asks: if
farmers are producing security for the nation, then why do they remain food
insecure? Through a 16-month ethnographic study utilizing a mixed-methods
approach I combined participant observation, household surveys, semi-structured
interviews, and participatory mapping with rice farmers, farm laborers, and
local and national government officials in order to address this question from
a historically and ethnographically ground perspective. I show how Vietnam’s
history of hunger and famine, experienced most recently in the late 1970’s,
colors the nation’s current and future agricultural development. Focused on a
future of rural development, economic growth, and values of modernity, new
models of agricultural production are implemented across the Mekong River Delta
to ensure the nation’s self-sufficiency in producing “enough” rice and food.
Amongst these strategies, intensive triple cropping rice practices, food safety
certifications and practices, and an increased reliance on agro-chemicals has
resulted in differing farming practices and mixed impacts on farming
livelihoods. I leverage a feminist political ecology and science and technology
studies framework to foreground the rice farmers’ perspectives and differed
experiences, while tracking the rooted inequalities within government policies,
market logics, and social relationships. In three articles, I (1) examine
differential experiences of state-based agricultural models and their impact on
farmers’ livelihood security (2) trace how dominant discourses raise questions
about individual and state responsibility; and (3) explore emergent farming
livelihood opportunities and challenges within late socialist agricultural
development. Drawing on ethnographic accounts and experiences,
particularly from farmers, results showed that these dominant discourses that
narrows food security to only be governable through techno-scientific
approaches and agricultural practices are insufficient to address farmers’
insecurity.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:purdue.edu/oai:figshare.com:article/13335752 |
| Date | 15 December 2020 |
| Creators | Sarah D Huang (9733271) |
| Source Sets | Purdue University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis |
| Rights | CC BY 4.0 |
| Relation | https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/_If_we_can_t_grow_rice_then_what_Farming_Livelihoods_in_the_Production_of_Vietnam_s_Rice_Farming_Landscapes/13335752 |
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