Presentation short abstract

Mining in Vietnam’s northwest uplands has seized land and degraded water, eroding rural livelihoods. Rather than open protest, villagers practice “everyday politics" to negotiate outcomes. This paper explores adaptation, agency, and resistance beyond formal politics.

Presentation long abstract

Over the past three decades, resource extraction and commodification in Vietnam’s northwest uplands have deeply reshaped rural life, normalizing livelihood dispossession. In this region, losing access to land and water—whether through direct seizure or pollution—means losing the basis of subsistence. Mining has degraded forests and farmland, while compensation offered to affected households is rarely enough to sustain them. Yet, responses in mine-affected communities seldom take the form of organized protest. Instead, villagers engage in what Kerkvliet (2009) calls everyday politics: quiet, subtle acts of “embracing, complying with, adjusting, and contesting norms and rules regarding authority over, production of, or allocation of resources” (232). Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in upland communities over the past more than two decades, this paper examines how villagers negotiate and collaborate, often reluctantly, with officials across multiple levels of government to shape outcomes. By foregrounding everyday politics, this paper offers a nuanced understanding of how people respond to mining beyond formal politics or visible resistance, highlighting the complex interplay between dispossession, adaptation, and agency in upland Vietnam.