Rodolphe De Koninck

The Peasantry as the Territorial Spearhead of the State in Southeast Asia: The Case of Vietnam

Throughout history, peasant communities have been involved in forms of land pioneering which have contributed to the territorial formation and consolidation of states. This has been facilitated by a compromise between the builder-administrators of the states and the peasants themselves in their capacity as guardian-prisoners of the territory. This compromise, through which the state gains territorial legitimacy by protecting and administering newly established peasant domains, has been and remains exceptionally dynamic in Southeast Asia. Examples are provided concerning Burma, Thaifand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and, particularly, Vietnam. Between the historical southward drive of the Viet people, from the Red River delta to that of the Mekong, which began as early as the tenth century and lasted through the eighteenth, and the contemporary westward drive to the Central Highlands, there is a thread. From Nam Tien to Tay Tien, this thread is drawn by the Vietnamese peasantry which acts as the territorial spearhead of the Vietnamese state. It implies the integration of peripheral and marginal lands and their inhabitants, particularly minority people.

The theory and practice of frontier development: Vietnam's contribution

This paper presents examples of agricultural expansion and frontier development throughout world history. Following a preliminary appraisal of the immense literature devoted to the topic, some key ideas and interpretations concerning the foundations, processes and consequences of frontier development are presented. These are drawn from a broad spectrum of European, American and Asian experiences and refer to geopolitical, demographic and ethnic issues. A brief survey of Vietnams own historical and contemporary experience both confirms and enriches these interpretations while raising questions about the intensity of the process and the countrys capacity to maintain it in high gear.

The return of the plantation? Historical and contemporary trends in the relation between plantations and smallholdings in Southeast Asia

Following the 2007–2008 surge in international land deals, many analysts have portrayed this moment of agrarian history as a manifestation of the re-emergence of large-scale capitalist farming. However, official national-scale figures concerning key cash crops in Malaysia and Indonesia rather show the growing importance of smallholders. Although these figures must be read with caution, they nevertheless point to a contradiction. This incites us to revisit the debate on the relation between large and small farms using two important sectors, rubber and palm oil, two major plantation crops increasingly cultivated by smallholders. Then, with regard to the cultivation of rubber in Malaysia and Indonesia, we provide a historical perspective on the institutional and economic contexts in which smallholders have managed to cultivate a growing share of plantation crops. For comparative purposes, we attend to the more recent expansion of oil palm in the region, and to how it has led to the emergence of an important population of smallholders, despite policies biased in favor of large-scale plantations. For both crops, we are paying particular attention to national agricultural policies and their impact on the development of smallholder plantation crop production, and to how they influence the respective weight of large and small farms.

Borneo Log: The Struggle for Sarawak's Forests

After a year as exchange professor at a Tokyo university, William Bevis spent part of the next year traveling in Sarawak, a Malaysian state located on the northern part of the island of Borneo. About the size of New York, it has a population of 1.7 million people living, outside of a few towns, in a world of jungle and brown rivers. There the rainforest is being cut rapidly, local corruption and greed siphon off most of the profit, native rights and land uses are being obliterated, and much of the fine timber is shipped to Japan to become plywood forms for concrete that are thrown away after two uses. This book is a travel narrative and also a serious environmental study of exploitation of third-world resources. During his stay in Sarawak, the author lived with both native activists and timber camp managers, seeking to understand the motives and actions of Japanese companies, Chinese entrepreneurs, and the native population most affected by the timber trade. Interspersed with chapters narrating the authors journey are chapters dealing with the history, economy, and political life of the region. Fascinating profiles of major figures who have influenced the course of events include James Wong, Minister of Environment for Sarawak and owner of one of the largest timber concessions, and Bruno Manser, a Swiss adventurer who was adopted by the nomadic Penan tribe and hunted by the police for organizing opposition to the timber trade. Borneo Log is not simply a book about environmental politics in a far-away place. The power of the book lies in the authors extraordinary ability to bring home the related global disasters of the destruction of the worlds rainforests and its indigenous peoples. This is a personal and passionate account of how ordinary men and women are fighting to defend a way of life that is rapidly disappearing along with their countrys resources, and how the problems of their lives echo in our own.