Devaluation without Dispossession

State-Initiated Land Acquisition and its Discontents in Vietnam

Dados Bibliográficos

ID19216638
AutoresL M Chau (0000-0002-4108-3514, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City, autor correspondente)
Ano2026
Páginas1-22
Data de publicação2026-05-12
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Contemporary Asia (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0047-2336 • E-ISSN: 1752-7554
EditoraRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00472336.2026.2664009
OpenAlexW7160916186
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas33

Building on ethnographic materials from a state-led land acquisition scheme for the revetment of Cần Thơ River in southern Vietnam, this article examines a phenomenon termed “devaluation without dispossession,” an economic loss to landholders that remains inadequately addressed in not only national legal frameworks but also internationally accepted guidelines on how best to compensate for land acquisition. When the value of landholders' assets such as skills, equipment, and co-ordination of labour is enabled by their connection to land, land acquisition engenders substantial devaluation of those assets although they are intact and remain in landholders' possession. Compared with other major land acquisitions in Asia, notably India and China, the political landscape of late-socialist Vietnam may increase the likelihood of “devaluation without dispossession” becoming a source of discontent for landholders. Local authorities face less pressure to increase compensation to cover the loss of devaluation as a vote-winning strategy than local officials in parts of India. At the same time, they are incapable of trialling their own models of compensation to ease landholders' sense of injustice, in ways local officials in wealthy regions of China have

Devaluation · Land use · Southeast asia · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Land Rights and Reforms · Medical and Agricultural Research Studies