Grand Designs? State Agendas and the Lived Realities of Market Redevelopment in Upland Northern Vietnam

Abstract

As part of its ambition to accelerate market integration in the northern uplands, the Vietnamese government has embarked on a scheme to expand and modernize marketplace infrastructure based on standard, state-approved models. Yet, the lived realities of these schemes reveal a clear disconnect whereby the kinds of markets being imagined and promoted by the state often poorly reflect the livelihood needs of the diverse groups of upland traders in this multi-ethnic space. This chapter explores the complex gradations of traders’ contentions to marketplace redevelopment and the reasons behind why so many of these expensive new markets have not taken off. It is suggested that these grand designs as a symbol of state officials’ progress overrides their on-the-ground failure as development projects.