Paper short abstract:

Focusing on informal practices employed by Vietnamese small-scale traders in order to circumvent official trade regulations, this paper pursues the question of whether these may be interpreted as a strategy to construct a new "moral economy" based on the right to subsistence and the norm of reciprocity.

Paper long abstract:

In the late 1980s, when post-war relations between Vietnam and China were normalized, people from either side of the frontier started flocking to the emerging "border economic zones" in anticipation of new entrepreneurial or livelihood opportunities. Since then, a plethora of laws and decrees have been issued and implemented by the Vietnamese state in order to regulate cross border trade and market-place activities. Alongside and despite these formal regulations, small traders engage in "informal exchange relationships" with state officials in order to benefit from the modern, rules-based market economy on their own terms.

Based on ethnographic data collected during six months of fieldwork at the Lào Cai-Hekou international border gate, this paper explores the practical and conceptual dimensions of petty bribery against the background of Vietnam's transition from a centrally planned to a market oriented economy. In particular, I shall pursue the question of whether the practice of "negotiating trade regulations" with customs officers, market control agencies and tax inspectors may be seen as a strategy of small traders to construct their own localized version of a "moral economy" based on the right to subsistence and the norm of reciprocity.