Criterios de exclusión:

In this sub-section, I attempt to trace why there is a mismatch in what local ethnic minor- ity people think they should do and what national actors expect them to follow in order to promote gender equality. This leads me to the co-existence of two systems of social organisation, namely matrilineal and patrilineal, which is embraced and accommodated by both local ethnic minorities and outsiders. This co-existence, however, has its own historical context and is linked to broader debates in Vietnam regarding ethnic minorities and their ‘traditional’ social structures. Matrilineal societies are often seen as a less ad- vanced form of social organisation and it is assumed by many that they will eventually be replaced by patrilineal ones in the modern (socialist) society. As Salemink (2003: 33) points out,

Following ethnologists of the 19th century, including Bachofen, Tylor, Frazer, Mor- gan and Engels, matriarchy was opposed to the notion of patriarchy, taken to be the normal state of affairs in civilised society. Friedrich Engels and many of his Marxist followers even considered the historical victory of men over women a condition of social progress. Hence, matrilineal societies that by extension are consistently la- belled ‘matriarchal’ are considered ‘primitive’ and ‘backward’, two notions that are often used in relation to Montagnard societies.

Driven by this ideology, the post-socialist state invested a great deal of effort in eradicat- ing the matrilineal systems. This effort was realised through the nationwide propaganda campaign to remove the ‘long house’ which comprised of several families of female sib- lings mothered by the same woman and sharing a house, because they were seen as ‘key elements of backwardness’ (Rambo and Jamieson, 2003: 154). This campaign was backed up by a number of state policies aiming to reduce poverty and develop alternative means of livelihood for rural farmers, such as Program 135 which was partially success- ful.60 _{In the Central Highlands and in Kala Tongu village particularly, ‘long houses’ of}

60 _{Research about why long houses among matrilineal groups in the Central Highlands have been disap-}

pearing was not readily available when I conducted fieldwork in Vietnam. Therefore, I relied more on newspaper articles to collect data about the transition of matrilineal societies, for example, Nguyen, P. L. (2013) Liệu có còn nhà dài như tiếng chiêng ngân, Nhan Dan online, 2 August 2013, available online at http://www.nhandan.com.vn/phongsu/item/20907802-liệu-có-còn-nhà-dài-như-tiếng-chiêng-ngân.html

matrilineal clans almost do not exist anymore. However, the traditional matrilineal de- scent and inheritance, post-marriage residential patterns and groom price systems still play a central role in the community. Kala Tongu village seems to fit in with the ideas of REDD+ and its implementing agencies and donors about gender equality in resource ac- cess as both women and men have their own land to cultivate before and after marriage. However, as the following paragraphs show, certain efforts to ensure gender equality might not work for matrilineal communities as they have been produced by patriarchal- influenced policy-makers and based on the presumptions and contexts of patrilineal- based communities (i.e. Kinh villages in the lowland).

In matrilineal societies particularly, land and other productive resources belong customarily to women, although this arrangement is not considered legally binding. In other words, women’s control over clan-owned land such as wet rice fields is recognised by the community rather than by the state. While patrilineal structures protect the rights of men as heads of households throughout Vietnam, women’s names have been added as co-registrars on the family LUCs according to the Marriage and Family Law 2014 and the Land Law 2013. Therefore, the official titling is primarily under men’s names, which goes against the core principle of matrilineal societies. The official titling does not only recognise the rights of men over land that might customarily belong to women, but it is also tied to other state benefits such as access to loans and other forms of agricultural development funds.

As matrilineal communities move into environmental projects like REDD+, the need to secure their land tenure through official titling will become more crucial. This is because the forest will be placed under special protection and conversion from forestland to coffee plantation will be strictly banned. Those who own, use and sell original for- estland for coffee plantation may no longer be able to do so without a proper land title. There are three groups in the village. The first group tries to maintain its traditional ways of governance, but its land is increasingly vulnerable to dispossession. This group nor- mally consists of poor households or newlyweds who have no land passed on from their parents. The second group partially adopts LUCs/land titling systems to make use of state resources. These are households that are well aware of the legal systems of land owner- ship and more importantly can afford to pay to apply for LUCs. The last group is com- prised of those who choose to keep their traditionally occupied land and convert their land to be officially registered. For this last group, it is not surprising that many of them can do so thanks to their position in mass grassroots organisations or personal networks. Some villagers occasionally referred to Kinh people who are rich and know the right

people in the local government to facilitate their application for LUCs. They also com- mented on how convenient it is to have official LUCs. Seemingly, for matrilineal villag- ers, patrilineal institutions and associated bureaucracies are seen as unfair and inconven- ient. As explained in Chapter 5, local responses to household and individual land titling are also highly gendered. Women, especially old women who enjoyed advantageous sta- tus in the past, tend to be more concerned about their lack of legal rights over the wet rice fields and keener on getting either both husbands’ and wives’ names in the LUCs, or only wives’ names, as these customarily belong to them. The Chairwoman of the Women’s Union at commune level and her sister are strongly in support of women’s rights to have individual titling over wet rice fields. However, both men and women in Kala Tongu village confirmed that there is no case of men taking away their wives’ wet rice fields in this village. According to them, this is because everyone respects matrilineal traditions of land inheritance. Since it is often costly and time-consuming for K’ho households to ap- ply for land titling and there are rarely any land disputes regarding customarily-owned land in the village, the co-existence of two systems seems to work well here at present. In short, the Kala Tongu case illustrates how the co-existence of both matrilineal and patriarchal systems in this village might create tension between local access claims and national policies and enforcement acts. This tension is not just about resource access, but also about the state’s ideas of matrilineal societies as backward and primitive. This tension leads to state efforts to better regulate land and forest and supposedly better pro- tect the forest through land titling. However, as land titling is carried out in such commu- nities where different land and forest claims are in place, it is also adapted to better align with local contexts and especially local practices of using and managing land and forest. In the Kala Tongu case, as shown above, not all land customarily used by local villagers is registered under one or several LUCs, as even without these LUCs, local villagers still manage to access their land as long as the agreement between themselves and other actors (neighbouring land owners and forest officers) is intact.

Section 7.1 identified the involved actors, the claims they attempt to put forward and how this interaction is played out on the ground, from the perspective of Kinh officers and local villagers (both ethnic K’ho and Kinh). Local actors seem to be more interested in maximising their access to land and forest as well as project benefits, maintaining cer- tain aspects of their own culture and getting more involved politically (through more meaningful participation in project design and implementation of far and transparent gov- ernance of forest projects at local level). National actors, meanwhile, attempt to enlist local labour for conservation purposes and extend their control over local access. At the

same time, they seek to demonstrate their commitment to ensuring social safeguards to international donors and environment agencies. The UN-REDD Vietnam Programme’s recommendations about engaging women in forestry activities and involving Women's Unions in implementing REDD+ at the local level are two examples. The mismatch of claims, interests and motivations of different actors and at different levels, in one way or another, are gendered. My findings suggest that at the local level, gendered access to land is somewhat independent from the state’s efforts to impose and standardise land titling, and that local perceptions of gendered forest rights and responsibilities do not necessarily overlap with the assumptions of national actors. As a result, in communities such as Kala Tongu village, traditional and matrilineal-based practices regarding land and forest access still exist and they are respected by the community as well as by local authorities, alt- hough tensions might emerge when the two systems interact. In the next section, I will explore how actors mobilise their resources and develop their mechanisms to deal with tensions and somehow transform their tensions in accordance with their initial claims, interests and motivations. I will also reveal why it is possible for particular actors to mo- bilise certain resources and employ certain strategies, or in other words, how their de- ployment of resources and strategies in fact reflects the (gendered) power relations among them.

7.2. How to mobilise resources? Conflicting, negotiating and cooperating interac-