What is a Village?
From jmdelane@yahoo.ca Thu Apr 15 10:49:30 2004
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 14:21:33 +0700
From: Jim Delaney <jmdelane@yahoo.ca>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: Village leaders and can bos
Dear all,
The question of "what is a village leader" these days is at the heart of what I am asking. It is in some ways a translation issue and in some ways a political issue. The word can bo is used in many contexts and does not uniquely refer to state employees.
In most uplands rural communes where I work, the word can bo would be reserved for commune officials, officials of large enterprises such as state forest enterprises (now management boards) and the official representatives of mass organizations. I have never heard a village level mass organization leader referred to as a can bo. And, increasingly, I hear the village leaders referred to as can bo. My own understanding of the term is that it refers to somebody with an official job. University lecturers are called can bo, as are researchers in research institutes (both of which are usually government jobs). Market sellers are not can bo. I would therefore translate it as being closer to `personnel' or those who work in lager, often hierarchical organizations.
Young business people like to laugh at times and refer to each other can bo and call their friends dong chi. When I refer to myself as a can bo of an NGO in front of an educated Hanoi or HCMC professional, I am certain to get a laugh. In the countryside, I am called a can bo by default.
What does this mean, then, when elected village leaders are now referred to as can bo and increasingly delivering social services such as agricultural extension and access to benefits under the HEPR program? Villages are increasingly acting as units of the state. Village boundaries are now at times changed by District level geographic cadres, and I have seen cases where villages have been split in two to deal with population growth.
It could be that the reservation of the term can bo for village leader would be simply to indicate that they are more than a farmer, and do have other knowledge and/or responsibilities. It could also mean that the village leader is increasingly seen as an agent of the state.
Best,
Jim
Jim Delaney
Technical Coordinator, Viet Nam
CHF - partners in rural development
www.chf-partners.ca
From jhannah@u.washington.edu Thu Apr 15 10:49:35 2004
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 00:22:16 -0800 (PST)
From: Joe Hannah <jhannah@u.washington.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: Village leaders and can bos
Jim and all,
This is an interesting thread. I agree with Jim's assessment that this is only partly a translation issue. Understanding the term gives us outsiders a better understanding of the system and the power dynamics within it.
However, Jim (to single you out), I am confused about the question, "What is a village leader?" because it doesn't sit well with my particular experience. Your other comments also seem to indicate a different experience to mine: "What does this mean, then, when elected village leaders are now referred to as can bo and increasingly delivering social services..." And: "Villages are increasingly acting as units of the state." And: "the village leader is increasingly seen as an agent of the state."
In my very limited and decidedly low-land experience in Vietnamese villages, the "leader" is always the People's Committee cadre. The village (xa~) is certainly an administrative division of teh Nha` Nu+o+'c . Everything I know about "village" (or perhaps the more common translation, especially in the north, "commune") is a state construct.
So, in regards to your question(s), are you juxtaposing some more "traditional" form of village against the state-imposed one? Are "elected village leaders" not elected through the state-controlled processes? Am I completely missing the boat, here?
(Isn't it wonderful how many "different Vietnams" there are out there -- nearly one for each researhcer!)
Cheers,
Joe Hannah
Department of Geogrpahy
University of Washington
From steve_leisz@yahoo.com Thu Apr 15 10:49:43 2004
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 16:17:25 +0700
From: Stephen Leisz <steve_leisz@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: what's a village?
Jim and Joe,
That's a good question re: what is a village. Joe, from your comment, if you are referring to xa, then to me, also, that most often seems to mean commune. However, Jim, working in the uplands, are you referring to a 'ban' as being a village? Also, what then are "xom" or "lang"? I've been working in Hoa Binh (Da Bac District), Thanh Hoa (Ngoc Lac District), and Nghe An (Con Cuong, Toung Duong, and Ky Son districts) for a while, and have also gotten confused by what "village" is when it is translated from Vietnamese into English. Sometimes, I've seen "xa" translated as village, then other times, 'ban' (in the uplands) and 'lang' (in the lowlands) have been translated as village (while at other times, they are translated as 'hamlet').
To keep it straight for myself (within my own note-taking, writing, etc.), I've been thinking of a 'xa' as a commune, and 'ban' or 'lang' as a village (sub-unit to the commune), if I have to translate them from the Vietnamese.
Cheers,
Stephen J. Leisz, Research Fellow
Institute of Geography, University of Copenhagen, and
Center for Agricultural Research and Ecological Studies,
Hanoi Agricultural University
Gia Lam, Hanoi
Vietnam
From jhannah@u.washington.edu Thu Apr 15 10:50:16 2004
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 02:32:54 -0800 (PST)
From: Joe Hannah <jhannah@u.washington.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: what's a village?
Dear all,
As my wife is fond of quoting, "To translate is to betray." [Ironically, this quote is a translation fromthe Italian!] Therefore, I think it may be best to keep the terms in Vietnamese. That said, I continue to translate, as, it seems, it is in my nature to do so...
Part of the confusion, I believe, is "translation history": In the north (and therefore in official parlance), xa~ became "commune," after the French administrative unit, with "village" as the sub-unit. In the south, lang and xa~ became village, after the American usage, with "hamlet" as the sub-unit. (Correct me if I am wrong, historians and linguists out there in VSG-land.) Therfore, "village" is particularly problematic, since it seems to refer to two different levels of
Here are some of the terms I am familiar with and my understanding of their usage:
xa~ - administrative unit under Huye^.n. Offically translated as "commune."
lang - non-administrative word for village, associated with the village as a community, not a governmental entity.
a^'p - an unofficial sub-unit of a xa~ I have encountered cases, however, where the UBND xa~ had "representatives" from each a^'p, so the a^'p had a semi-official status.
xo'm - "neighborhood" -- in an urban context, similar to the English word. In a rural context, more like a^'p or "hamlet." This may be a more northern usage.
ban (or buo^n) - used exclusively for minority settlements. I do not know the official status or usage of this term, but it seems to carry an "othering" connotation when used by Kinh. Also note the city name Ban Me Thuot.
Any additions or corrections to this mini-list?
Cheers,
Joe Hannah
From ProschanF@folklife.si.edu Thu Apr 15 10:49:57 2004
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 09:16:28 -0500
From: Frank Proschan <ProschanF@folklife.si.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: what's a village?
The question is whether "xa" has any psychological or experiential existence apart from the state. In my experience, "lang," "ban," "ap," etc. (varying with region) are the meaningful categories of day-to-day experience and consciousness, and thus I translate them all as "village." By contrast, "xa" is typically an artificial (if sometimes long-standing) agglomeration of villages that does not have the emotional resonance or connection to people's lives that "lang," "ban," "ap," etc. do, and thus it makes sense to use the officiously strange-sounding term, "commune" to render "xa" into English. If you go into a community as an anthropologist and want to know whether they marry within the village or outside the village, the unit of relevance is "lang," "ban," "ap," etc. rather than "xa."
A Vietnamese correspondent recently asked me I didn't follow the U.S. Army's style guide in this matter, where "strategic hamlet" was attached to what I am here calling villages. For those of us who are not historians or not writing about that program, its associations are enough to warrant the restriction of "hamlet" to secondary use (i.e., "xom," etc., the sub-division of the natural category "village") rather than elevating it to the primary unit of analysis.
BTW, has anyone ever done a cartography of place names in Vietnam to map out the complementary distribution of "lang," "ban," "buon," "ap," "phum," "sok," etc.?
Best wishes,
Frank Proschan
Save Our Sounds
From: Jean Michaud [mailto:michaudjean@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tue 2/17/2004 6:40 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group
Cc:
Subject: RE: what's a village?
Dear all,
Regarding the use of the word 'ban' for 'village' in Vietnam - and perhaps
someone has already made this remark and I missed it, I apologise if
such is the case -- it would seem reasonible to think that its association
with minority settlements, noted by Joe Hannah (below), might have to
do with the fact that in the northern highlands, where one form or another
or Tai language have been dominant for centuries, the Tai word 'ban'
(long 'a', falling tone), meaning either house or village depending
on the context, has become widespread. Much the same way as the term
'muang', also from Tai, or the Chinese term 'chau'. But this explanation
leaves unanswered the case of 'Buon/Ban Me Thuot', which perhaps is
nothing else than an unrelated euphony. Actually, Condominas has often
remarked, referring to Tai-Vietnamese authors, that before the 1959
reform, the term 'ba?n' was traditionally used among the Tai speaking
populations of the north-western highlands as an important geographical
and administrative concept regulating village level land tenure. It
appears to have been a subdivision of the 'muong', all this in a coherent
ancient Tai administrative system. Successive colonial and Vietnamese
administrative reforms have partly wiped these terms off and replaced
them by the national/lowland standards, but their use by locals in the
highlands is still solidly rooted.
Historians and linguists on this list certainly have more evidence to
confirm -- or infirm -- this hypothesis.
Best
Jean Michaud
From OJHM.Salemink@fsw.vu.nl Thu Apr 15 10:51:04 2004
Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 23:15:51 +0100
From: Oscar Salemink <OJHM.Salemink@fsw.vu.nl>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: what's a village?
The name for Banmethuot/Buon Ma Thuot is a piece of local history.
Many older villages in the Central Highlands are named after the founder,
in this case Ama (= father of) Thuot. In Ede language, village is 'buon'.
However, by the time the French started to set up an administrative
organization in the region in the early 20th Century, some of the villages
in what is now Dak Lak were dominated by traders of Lao descent. Still
some of the houses in Ban Don are Lao style. In Ban Don the 'big man'
was called 'khun' (=Siamese title!) Yonob, famous elephant hunter and
trader. During the late 19th Century that area was still contested between
France (for Vietnam) and Siam, which gave titles like 'khun' to their
allies in the local 'ban'. When the French administrator Sabatier consolidated
French colonial rule and moved his administrative post from Ban Don
to the village founded by Ama Thuot, he simply adopted the Lao/Siamese
term Ban to designate the village name. Hence Ban Me (=Ma) Thuot.
Oscar Salemink
From ben.kerkvliet@anu.edu.au Thu Apr 15 10:51:18 2004
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 12:45:44 +1100
From: Ben Kerkvliet <ben.kerkvliet@anu.edu.au>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: what's a village?
Dear colleagues,
The several recent messages re. village, leaders, etc., have been enlightening,
as often happens in VSG-list discussions. I'd like to toss into the
hopper a comment about rendering "xa" into English.
Some years ago a couple colleagues across the ocean gently reprimanded
me for translating xa as "village," for reasons similar to
ones noted in several recent VSG messages. The correct translation,
they said, is commune. Other colleagues, also specialists on Vietnam,
tell me that village is the preferred translation. Vietnamese colleagues
who know French say village is not the correct word; commune is the
proper translation. Younger Vietnamese colleagues who know English seem
to use commune, taken from French. Meanwhile, English-speaking scholars
and general readers who do not work on Vietnam quickly link "commune"
to "communal" and "communist," especially when they
read it articles and books about post 1954 Vietnam.
All this has contributed to my decision to use neither village nor commune
for "xa." I have been using "subdistrict." Its not
a perfect solution; and some Vietnam specialists don't like it. Others,
though, do. It also poses less problems for me when trying to communicate
to non-Vietnam specialists and general readers. And it fits fairly well
with how "xa" is defined in Vietnamese-Vietnamese dictionaries
- e.g., "don vi hanh chinh co so o nong thon, bao gom mot so thon"
( Tu Dien Tieng Viet Nxb Khoa Hoc Xa Hoi, 1988).
Cheers,
Ben
Ben Kerkvliet
Dept. of Political and Social Change
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
The Australian National University
Canberra, ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA
phone: (61 2) 6125-2677
fax: (61 2) 6125-5523
e-mail: ben@coombs.anu.edu.au
or ben.kerkvliet@anu.edu.au
From mchale@gwu.edu Thu Apr 15 10:51:31 2004
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 17:17:02 -0500
From: mchale <mchale@gwu.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: On and subdistricts and "villages" and "legibility"
Dear list,
While relatively ignorant on the topic of the "village," I find this disccussion of what terms to use for "xa" and so forth utterly intriguing. I am intrigued because there is obviously a state desire, when confronted with a multiplicity of terms for rural agglomerations, to --in Jim Scott's terms -- make reality "legible" by homogenizing and simplifying it. I personally see nothing wrong, a priori, with the desire of the state to simplify reality. What is the alternative? The only problem with such a desire for legibility would be if, to use the Vietnamese example, the Vietnamese state began imposing its own view of what a "xa" should be on these rural and highland agglomerations.
That being said, do social scientists, however, have to follow the lead of the state?
Vietnamese may chide foreign scholars when they "mistranslate" "xa" as "village." But I don't buy that argument. "Village" has a broad semantic range. It's a vague term. It's flexible. That's its problem and its strength. "Village" seems broad enough to encompass ethnic Cambodian agglomerations in the lowlands and Tai agglomerations in the highlands, as well as VIetnamese ones. It does not privilege a Vietnamese view of social structure.
Finally, a note on Ben Kerkvliet's use of "subdistrict." The term "commune" or "village" or "hamlet" suggests an *agglomeration* of residences. "Subdistrict" does not. Furthermore, "subdistrict" does not convey the experiential meaning that a term like "lang" does: that is, the village as a moral (if fractious) community. Does the fact that such "subdistrict" is a relatively cold and clinical term make it, ironically, a better translation?
Just some thoughts!
Shawn McHale
Associate Professor of History and International Affairs
Associate Director, Sigur Center for Asian Studies
Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University
e-mail address: mchale@gwu.edu
From OJHM.Salemink@fsw.vu.nl Thu Apr 15 10:52:18 2004
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 11:17:45 +0100
From: Oscar Salemink <OJHM.Salemink@fsw.vu.nl>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: On and subdistricts and "villages" and "legibility"
If xa~ has anything to do with the French word 'commune' as administrative
entity, then I would submit that the correct English translation would
be 'municipality' - which would clear up some of the confusion around
the question.
Oscar Salemink
From Kleinen@NIAS.KNAW.NL Thu Apr 15 10:52:26 2004
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 12:22:53 +0100
From: J.G.G.M. Kleinen <Kleinen@NIAS.KNAW.NL>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: On and subdistricts and "villages" and "legibility"
Let us translate "xa" with "administrative village"
unless it overlaps with the territory and is perceived by the inhabitants
as "lang ta".
Municipality has also the double connotation of "place", realm,
board.
Commune in French also means ""living community", but also the administrative realm. Village and community are not always identical: the "Commune de Paris" was not a village :).
John Kleinen
From rob@coombs.anu.edu.au Thu Apr 15 10:52:30 2004
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 22:43:24 +1100 (EST)
From: Rob Hurle <rob@coombs.anu.edu.au>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: On and subdistricts and "villages" and "legibility"
Sounds good:
> Let us translate "xa" with "administrative village"
unless it
> overlaps with the territory and is perceived by the inhabitants
as
> "lang ta". Municipality has also the double connotation
of "place",
> realm, board.
Phan Huy Le told us here (ANU), a few years ago, that "xa~" is better translated as "administrative unit/village", and is rarely perceived by people that live there as "la`ng ta". He was referring, as far as I know, to the Red River delta area, so things may be different elsewhere.
Rob Hurle
-----------------------------------------------------
Rob Hurle Tel: +61 2 6247 2397
Faculty of Asian Studies, ANU
PO Box 4013 Fax: +61 2 6247 2397
Ainslie Cell phone: 0417 293 603
Australia e-mail: rob@coombs.anu.edu.au
-----------------------------------------------------
From adam@aduki.com.au Thu Apr 15 10:52:35 2004
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 00:11:19 +1100
From: "Adam @ Aduki" <adam@aduki.com.au>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: FW: On and subdistricts and "villages" and "legibility"
To add my pennyworth on the sub-district issue, as language is both a private and a public thing.
What Ben seems to have done is seek for a term that expresses the Vietnamese definition of the word xa as being the lowest (base - co so) *administrative* (hanh chinh) unit in the formal system. To find an English term it is necessary to find one that has this sense of being *administrative*, and since in the English tradition that is really not what we do, having Lords, parishes, rural district councils and so on, it is a good idea to find something that reads actively as *not* part of the popular landscape. 'Commune' reads to me, in English, as something essentially French if viewed as the lowest administrative level, with mairie and so on ... This suggests that *sub district* is a useful term. IF the 'xa' also corresponds to a 'thon', as it sometimes can, then we have a village sub-district. And we are still left with hamlet for 'xom'.
I am not sure what Shawn is getting at when he remarks that " The term "commune" or "village" or "hamlet" suggests an *agglomeration* of residences. "Subdistrict" does not." A 'xa' in the Red River delta in my experience is *not* usually an agglomeration, unless it is also a 'thon'. Does this mean that sub-district is a better term? Also, he says that " Does the fact that such "subdistrict" is a relatively cold and clinical term make it, ironically, a better translation?" ? I would hazard yes, though of course one can learn to love one's barracks.
Regarding John Kleinen's remark, to me, 'municipality' refers to essentially urban things.
Adam
Website: www.aduki.com.au
Contact details:
PO Box 2096, Ivanhoe E,
Melbourne Vic 3079, AUSTRALIA
Tel 61 3 9497 3493; Fax 61 3 9497 4856
From ProschanF@folklife.si.edu Thu Apr 15 10:52:40 2004
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 09:40:46 -0500
From: Frank Proschan <ProschanF@folklife.si.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: FW: On and subdistricts and "villages" and "legibility"
I think it is precisely the strangemaking or disphony of either "commune" or "sub-district" that makes either/both suitable English terms for rendering "xa". So to Shawn's query and Adam's hazardous yes, I concur wholeheartedly in accepting Ben's usage. Not being francophobic, I have no hesitancy in the Vietnamese context to use "commune" (while happily calling the corresponding administrative level in Thailand "sub-district" [the Thai case being confused by the fact that a few years ago they set up some special administrative areas that were not-quite-districts--i.e., bigger than a tambon but not yet qualified to be an amphoe]). A few years ago Laos did away with its sub-districts "tasseng" (only a cynic would suggest that this was because nobody could agree on how to translate the term into English), despite the fact that these were an ancient and traditional part of the Lao-Tai sociopolitical landscape--probably at the suggestion of some efficiency expert from UNDP or World Bank.
It seems the important thing is that we NOT translate "xa" as village, reserving that venerable (francophone) word for lang, ap, thon, ban, buon, etc.--i.e., the natural category that resonates in people's day-to-day social relations and worldview. That then confirms "hamlet" as the suitable term for a circle of homes smaller than a village--it, too, peskily francophone in origin, for those bothered by such things...
Best,
Frank Proschan
Save Our Sounds
From sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca Thu Apr 15 10:52:45 2004
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 09:58:32 -0700
From: VINH Sinh <sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: On xa~, la`ng, and tho^n
Dear all:
(Note: I have added diacritical marks to Vietnamese words in VietNet (also called VIQR) format to save you from guessing. But if you do not like them for some reason -- like many of the Internet users in Vietnam -- don't feel too bad and please simply neglect them).
1) I also feel that "xa~" connotes something "formal/administrative". This sense is particularly clear when one takes into consideration the fact that when the Vietnamese live away from home, they would say that they miss their "la`ng", or they miss their "xo'm la`ng" (ra ddi nho+' xo'm nho+' la`ng, etc.) but never would they say they miss their "xa~"! FYI, there has been a number of fine (literary) writings on this subject of "nho+' la`ng".
Note that when la`ng is used together with xa~ (i.e. la`ng xa~), the term also carries a "formal/administrative" connotation. It might be a good idea to consider other compound terms of la`ng such as la`ng nu+o+'c, la`ng ma.c, etc.
Xa~, a Sino-Vietnamese (Ha'n - Vie^.t) term, means "the god of the soil". Though the compound word "Xa~ ta('c" literally means "gods of the soil and grain", the term is mostly used in Vietnamese in its nghi~a bo'ng (figurative meaning) : "one's/our country".
Also noteworthy is the fact that there is no Chinese character for "la`ng". In the old days, people had to use a chu+~ No^m (demotic script) for làng\. It should be noted that although the term "tho^n" is a Sino-Vietnamese term which literally means "la`ng", but when tho^n is used in a Vietnamese context, its meaning is, as you know, largely modified.
2) The following information about xa~ might be of some interest to some of us:
a) The dictionary _Da.i Nam quo^'c a^m tu+. vi._ (by Hui`nh [sic]-Ti.nh Paulus Cu?a; 1896):
Xa~ : Tha^`n dda^'t ddai (the god of the soil). La`ng lo+'n, la^'y theo le^. cu~, co' tu+` 200 da^n tro+? le^n [a large village, according to/following old practice, consists of more than 200 inhabitants].
b) The Vie^.t Nam Tu+. DDie^?n by Ho^.i Tin DDu+'c Thu+ xa~ (1931):
Xa~ : 1) Tha^`n dda^'t ... 2) Mo^.t khu vu+.c ha`nh chi'nh thuo^.c quye^`n cai tri. cu?a mo^.t ngu+o+`i ly' tru+o+?ng [an administrative area/district under the jurisdiction/control of a ly' tru+o+?ng]. Mo^.t xa~ ba tho^n [a xa~ consists of 3 tho^n]...
In the same dictionary:
Tho^n : Mo^.t pha^`n trong xa~ ; la`ng nho? [part of a xa~ ; a small
la`ng]
...
La`ng : Xa~, mo^.t khu vu+.c tu+. tri. cu?a da^n, co' ly' tru+o+?ng ddu+'ng dda^`u [Xa~, an self-governing/autonomous district/area] under a ly' tru+o+?ng]. Phe'p vua thua le^. la`ng [approximately, "imperial laws bend to suit la`ng's customs"].
(Some sources which I have read indicate that a la`ng, like a xa~, consists of 3 tho^n, but I think the number is not consistent. For example, the famed poet Nguye^~n Bi'nh wrote : " Hai tho^n chung la.i mo^.t la`ng/Co+' sao be^n a^'y cha(?ng dang be^n na`y ? ")
c) A more recent Vietnamese dictionary, i.e. Tu+` ddie^?n tie^'ng Vie^.t (Vie^.n Ngo^n ngu+~ ho.c, 1997) shows changes in the definition of these terms:
Xa~ : 1) ddo+n vi. ha`nh chi'nh co+ so+? o+? no^ng tho^n, bao go^`m 1 so^' tho^n [the lowest/smallest administrative unit in rural areas, consisting of a number of tho^n] ...
Tho^n : khu vu+.c da^n cu+ o+? no^ng tho^n, go^`m nhie^`u xo'm va` la` mo^.t pha^`n cu?a la`ng hoa(.c xa~ [residential district/area in rural areas, consists of several xo'm, and is part of a la`ng or a xa~].
La`ng : 1) Kho^'i da^n cu+ o+? no^ng tho^n la`m tha`nh mo^.t ddo+n vi. co' ddo+`i so^'ng rie^ng ve^` nhie^`u ma(.t, va` la` ddo+n vi. tha^'p nha^'t tho+`i phong kie^'n [a section/bloc of inhabitants in rural areas which constitutes/forms a unit, that possesses many distinctive aspects. It was the lowest/smallest administrative unit in feudal times].
Above is a few random information and ideas to share with you. The definitions of xa~, la`ng, tho^n, etc, as we know, really depend upon the time and the region; and even in the same given period of time, the definition and application of these terms might be different. Does it point to the fact that the power of the central government, or of the state (nha` nu+o+'c, or quo^'c gia) was/has been/is weak in VN -- as compared to other East Asian countries ?
Best,
VINH Sinh
From pamela.mcelwee@yale.edu Thu Apr 15 10:52:59 2004
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 14:54:43 -0800
From: Pamela McElwee <pamela.mcelwee@yale.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: On xa~, la`ng, and tho^n
Dear List -
Let me add a few cents worth to the very interesting discussion on-going about villages and their relations with the state in Vietnam. Given that the undergraduate SEA anthropology class I teach here at Cornell is doing readings this week from Scott's Moral Economy and others about "What is a traditional village in SEA, and did it ever truly exist?", this thread is most pertinent. My interest in contributing to this thread is also to bring a bit of a non-delta-centric focus to the discussion of the village and commune. Villages in less densely populated areas and highlands are, as others have noted, often very different from those in the Red River or Mekong deltas, and my own primary work has been on Vietnamese village life in highland Ha Tinh province, which may provide an interesting contrast with some of the other postings. I had some thoughts taken from my recently submitted dissertation, in which I spent a chapter discussing state-village relations in Ha Tinh, so please excuse the length of this post - it is all still fresh in my mind!
I would certainly agree with Ben, John, Adam, and others who note that xa in practice is primarily a reference to the lowest level of government administration, which I have in my own work glossed as 'commune' although sub-district seems quite appropriate as well. The difference I want to note is that in Ha Tinh, under the commune level, households are grouped into thons (although sometimes people would also refer to it as a 'lang', a term I found was generally more commonly used further north). Elsewhere in Vietnam I found that a thon was often called a "neighborhood" in English. But in Ha Tinh, each thon had its own headman, its own land area, and its own conceptions of who belonged and who didn't. The thons were not parts or neighborhoods of a larger village; they *were* the village to those who resided in them. Of course, these particular definitions of rural living arrangements do not necessarily reflect living patterns elsewhere - if nothing else this thread should remind us how incredibly diverse Vietnam is! In the South, it seems to me the word 'ap' is used more commonly than thon. And in Northern delta Vietnam, I would hazard a guess that one reason the word 'xa' is often glossed as 'village' is because of more compact living arrangements (i.e. more people in less space, so that one big lang could have as many people as a xa would in Ha Tinh ). But in Ha Tinh, thons in one xa could be 20 minutes bike ride from each other, and many people did not go to other thons very often because of this distance. There were also tensions between thons within the commune, with some thons complaining about the various activities going on in another one. There remain significant kin and marriage links between thons within a xa, to be sure, but the geographic and social space a thon occupies distinguished it clearly from its neighbors. The thon is very much an "emic" construct for most Ha Tinh villagers at this point, though it does not answer the question of what role the state has played over time in "creating" these constructs, either by administratively establishing new thons, naming/recognizing already existing ones, or otherwise, etc etc.
Beyond the thon, the xa was primarily seen as the level at which the previous cooperatives had been managed, and it remained the first stop of official government authority for most people. The xa level in Ha Tinh was always seen as something external to the village, and as part of the state administrative apparatus, rather than an organic grouping of people. The xa was associated with administrative work: it organized local branches of national organs, granted birth certificates and death certificates, etc. Although policy orders were usually promulgated at the district and province level, it was the xa that was seen as the locus of state administrative authority for most villagers, as it was the level with which most people had contact. This seems important and related to one of the original questions on this thread, which was the role of village leaders, and their relationships to the state. The commune administration (chinh quyen xa) played the most easily identifiable "state role" in everyday village life. The commune-level leaders would send directives to each village (usually issued in reams of paperwork to the overworked village heads), such as the yearly requirements to plant a specified amount of certain rice varieties, and which lands had to be planted with what crops. The level of detail of these directives was sometimes mind-boggling; for example, each year the commune would print out agricultural schedules for each village with the exact dates proposed for various activities. It was an attempt at "state legibility" at its extreme! Village leaders were supposed to pass this on to everyone in their village although it was usually quite clear that the village headman (truong thon) was simply passing on orders from on high without necessarily believing they needed to be followed exactly. Thus villagers saw the commune as the most direct example of "state administration" on a daily basis; the village head was the conduit for this administration, but not explicitly part of the policy-making apparatus. That was the distinction that was explained to me most clearly between village and commune leaders.
So did that mean the village leader (truong thon) was seen as an "agent" of the state or not? To some degree they were ^Ö as they had to pass on state information to villagers and in the reverse had to report back to the state in yearly reports (one headman told me he wrote his report addressed directly to the National Assembly in Hanoi!). I too have heard truong thon occasionally referred to as "can bo", as Jim's very first email noted, but my best interpretation of this is not that they were some sort of distinct "state agent", but that they received a fixed salary for their position. The same was true of the kindergarden teacher in the village she was hardly a "state employee" as can bo might have once officially meant, but she received a fixed allowance for her work which came from village taxes. This idea of a village or state-provided salary was an important social distinction in Ha Tinh, where self-sufficiency in rice was often not reached, and a fixed salary could push one's family into the ranks of middle farmers. I would guess this may be the phenomenon Jim has seen in neighboring Nghe An, also quite a poor area. I don't imagine these somewhat measly salaries are as important a social distinction in places like the Red River Delta were alternative trades and occupations besides farming are more the norm.
But I don't think we can entirely write off the truong thon as a state co-opted actor slavishly following the party, as some other posts have implied. One point important to mention is that in Ha Tinh at least, the truong thon was democratically elected by those in the thon and the job rotated fairly frequently; the Communist Party secretary (bi thu) was not elected and was usually more long-serving. As a result, I certainly saw the truong thon negotiating their role as elected representative versus state conduit very delicately. It was not an enviable position! They had to have enough support to get elected from fellow villagers, yet still be palatable to the party secretary. Many war veterans played the role of truong thon in places I have worked, and were highly respected for their prior service, which got them elected to the job. Other villages had elected quite young (late 20s) and energetic men to be truong thon, primarly, I was told, as they could "keep up" with the grunt work and red tape attached to the job. While these people might not have been the sorts of actors who would have been gia lang or on the Village Notables council in decades past in Vietnam, they were respected in their own way for their skills, whether in negotiating bureaucracy or settling inter-family disputes. In Ha Tinh they certainly did not play only second fiddle to the bi thu or have insignificant roles. (On a side note: Does anyone know of a woman taking the job of truong thon in Viet villages? I have never encountered one myself.) I don't think anyone was under the illusion that the truong thon could be an autonomous figure keeping the local village away from state dictates, but the truong thon could negotiate his role in small, yet not insignificant ways, to get around state policies the local villagers did not agree with. I think this has been an unsung role that they play in contemporary villages.
I would add in conclusion that this whole discussion has not even touched upon the parameters of state-village relations that are reflected in the new dictates on "grass roots democracy" (dan chu co so) at the village, or on the promotion of "cultural villages" (lang van hoa) , or new support for local huong uoc policies, etc. Jim has passed on one recent official decree about these, and these sorts of issues were being debated heavily in villages in Ha Tinh when I was finishing up there 2 years ago, with the commune and district authorities making much noise about these new village autonomy programs (although the "autonomy" is pretty clearly just another construct for more state authority in the village but that is another story). So the interest in support of "The Village" as some sort of organic, quasi-independent entity is not just something going on in an Western-development agency model as Oscar and others noted; it is very much a Party and state interest as well, for various discursive and strategic reasons. But again, that is another thread perhaps others will run with it!
Pam McElwee
Cornell University
Pamela McElwee
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
Cornell University
211 McGraw Hall
Ithaca NY 14853
From jsw7@columbia.edu Thu Apr 15 10:53:39 2004
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 20:18:03 -0500
From: Jayne Werner <jsw7@columbia.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: On xa~, la`ng, and tho^n
Dear List,
Just joined this discussion after a trip to Europe. I enjoyed the points
raised and would like to add some comments, as these are also matters
I have been thinking about. I worked in a xa in the RR delta south of
Hanoi in the mid l990s. With all due respect to Frank, it seems to me
that one can use the English term "village" for a xa for general
academic readers and non-Asia specialists. French scholars who work
on Vietnam have used the French term "village" for xas when
referring very generally to the "local" and I dont see why
scholars writing in English cant do the same. (Of course when they wish
to be more precise French scholars translate xa as commune). If one
wants to talk about "villages" in the delta (when one means
xa), why not use "village" for this purpose? In English/American,
a "village" brings to mind a political, social, and administrative
unit in a rural area whose size can range from a few hundred souls to
many thousands. In this general sense, an American village and a Vietnamese
xa (at least in the RR delta) are relatively on the same plane. If one
wishes to be more precise, then one can explain that a xa is actually
composed of units called thons, that thons subdivide into xoms, etc.
Also the residential/field spatial features of a US village and Vietnamese
xa are completely different. But a xa to my way of thinking is more
than an "administrative village" because it is where rural
political authority primarily lies at the lowest level. The Peoples
Committee, the Peoples Council, and the Party offices are housed in
the xa. The Party secretary of a xa is many times more powerful than
the truong thons. So a xa is a political center in addition to being
an administrative unit responsible for l'etat civil. One can translate
thon as a village but this is misleading because thons in the RR delta
do not have independent political authority and are not administratively
autonomous. Under doi moi xas have assumed more functions and greater
authority, having absorbed the political, administrative and economic
functions of defunct cooperatives.
The truong thon position was created in the village I worked in the
early l990s. They had no separate office, they worked out of their homes,
were paid virtually nothing, but were in effect "responsible"
for all the households in their thons, which essentially meant keeping
track of the economic activities of the households in the thon as well
as other political and administrative atters. One of the truong thons
was in fact a woman, highly respected in her thon and by the xa authorities.
She was childless, however, which gave her free time but she was also
quite competent. Rather than use the term sub-district (which is derivative),
I prefer to just use the term xa itself if referring to a specific xa.
From dnfox@u.washington.edu Thu Apr 15 10:54:05 2004
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:19:12 -0800 (PST)
From: dnfox@u.washington.edu
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Women as heads of xa~, and tho^n
I'm not sure about women heads of lang and thon, but I've met two women who were heads of xa. The first was in a 'water puppet village' north of Hanoi; when I expressed surprise, my hosts laughed at me and said it wasn't all that unusual--I've now forgotten the figure, but perhaps 25%? 10%? Not useful as anything but a prompt to more looking, this figure.) The other woman was head of a rice farming xa in Ha Nam, 8km from Chua Huong. At lunch she challenged me with rice wine, and then proceeded to drink all the men under the table.
Diane
From lg282@columbia.edu Thu Apr 15 10:54:11 2004
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 00:29:21 -0500
From: Le Minh Giang <lg282@columbia.edu>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: RE: Women as heads of xa~, and tho^n
Just to continue with Diane's note. As some of you know, the country
is moving closer to the election day for adminitrative units at all
three levels (commune, district and provinve) in April. In one commune
in northern central, I asked a group of men and women for their opinions
on several candidates, including two women, for the position of Chairperson
of People's Committee. The men said that it would be difficult for women
to hold that position this day and age since it means a lot of travel
to and from the district center (which takes one hour by motorbike)
and, more importantly, that position involves a lot of 'ngoai giao'
activities, including drinking with guests at both the commune and other
sites. The women were silent at the beginning. Then some older women
(in their 60s)guestured their agreement. Some younger women (in their
40s) rejected that idea, saying that the Chairwoman could delegate that
'ngoai giao' tasks to other men in the People's Committee. But they
also noted that it's not easy to do so.
My two-cent thought is that despite the goal of the government to include more women in all administrative units, the incresingly male oriented world of administration makes it more difficult for women to do what the government wants them to.
Giang
Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 07:28:00 -0600
From: VINH Sinh <sinh.vinh@ualberta.ca>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Xa~, la`ng, etc.
Dear List:
A few months ago, there was a discussion on xa~, la`ng, etc. The following article in Vietnamese by Nguye^~n Tu`ng, a Paris-based scholar, in _Tho+`i ba'o kinh te^' Saigon_ (Saigon Economic Times) provides insights on this subject:
http://www.saigontimes.com.vn/tbktsg/detail.asp?muc=50&Sobao=699&SoTT=22
Cheers,
VINH Sinh
Date: Fri, 7 May 2004 16:56:59 +0200
From: Nguyen The Anh <nguyen.theanh@wanadoo.fr>
Reply-To: vsg@u.washington.edu
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Xa~, la`ng, etc.
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Than gui anh Vinh Sinh,
Lau ngay khong co tin, mong anh chi van duoc an khang.
Nhan anh nhac den chuyen lang xa, xin gui anh bai kem theo day, ma chac anh chua thay.
Than men,
Nguyen The Anh