The Red River Project
The Effect of Public/Private Water Resources Projects on the Hồng River and Hồng River Delta Areas
Project Participants:
Dr. Wynn Wilcox, Assistant Professor of History, WCSU
Dr. Christopher Kukk, Associate Professor of Political Science, WCSU
John Sikora, Lecturer in Social Science, WCSU
Jane Hamilton-Merritt, Professor Emerita of Journalism, SCSU
Matthew Alesi
Stephanie
Bascom
Amy DiFrancesco
Schuyler Merritt
Rob Poprocki
Sean Swanson
Vũ Huy Hoàng
This project a collaborative, student-faculty, multidisciplinary project investigating the impact of economic development and globalization on water resources in Northern Vietnam. The project involves three faculty members and nine advanced students from five different disciplines (History, Political Science, Economics, Anthropology, and Ecology). Researchers from these disciplines will be looking at the impact of several public-private water along the Red River and in the Red River delta to determine the impact such projects have on the local economies, the well being of people, and biodiversity. We will be in Vietnam from approximately July 11 to August 17, 2007.
The project is broken up into five sections, which correspond to the four disciplines of the faculty and students participating in the project. These subsections of the project are described below.
I. History
The History subsection of the project will examine the deep cultural and historical significance of the management of water resources in Northern Vietnam. We will begin with a consideration of the importance of water in Vietnamese historical linguistics, exploring the connection between water and national identity. We will then go on to explore the importance of water in the Lạc Long Quân-Âu Cơ origin myth and in popular folk tales. We will then go on to discuss the importance of water management, flood control, and canal building from the Lý Dynasty through the Nguyễn dynasty, focusing on the importance of controlling water resources on maintaining the mandate of heaven (thiên mạng). We will then consider the French invasion of bắc kỳ as a quest for control over water resources through an investigation of the Jean Dupuis expedition and the Francis Garnier incident of 1873, and will explain how control over the Hồng river facilitated French control over the Indochinese economy. After 1945, our focus will shift to industrial and military sites along the river and delta as key targets in the French (1946-1954) and American (1965-1973) wars, and how the DRV was able to rebuild damaged infrastructure targets that were bombed during the war. We will also examine the development of state-run socialist water projects in Northern Vietnam between 1954 and 1986, looking at the Bắc Hưng Hải projects as a model of socialist development. Finally, we will examine the selective privatization of water resources development after the implementation of the policy of renovation (chính sách đổi mới) in 1986. The history subsection will be led by Wynn Wilcox, Assistant Professor of History at Western Connecticut State University, assisted by advanced students Matt Alesi and Amy DiFrancesco.
II. Political Science
The political science subsection forms the core of our project. The political science section will begin where the history subsection leaves off, tracing the transition in Vietnam from state-run, publicly owned dams and water treatment and purification plants to the current model of public-private partnerships involving long-term leases of facilities to private multinational corporations. The subsection will compare Vietnamese policies in this realm to the water resources models adopted by other countries such as Colombia, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, and will discuss how International Organizations such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the International Monetary Fund have affected Vietnam’s policy choices. We will discuss the benefits and consequences of the Build-Operate-Transfer model for Water Infrastructure Projects. Then we will examine specific sites as case studies, conducting fieldwork to determine the impacts of public private water projects, working with the ecology and anthropology sections to examine the extent of water pollution and other problems. Finally, we hope to examine current policies in the context of the possible solutions to the difficulties involved with the globalization of Vietnamese water resources. This subsection will be led by Christopher Kukk, Associate Professor of Political Science at Western Connecticut State University, along with Sean Swanson.
III. Economics
The economics subsection will work closely with the Political Scientists and participate in their case study fieldwork. The economists, however, will focus on the economic viability of the current Build-Operate-Transfer model of water infrastructure development in Vietnam in the context of the current Vietnamese emphasis on privatization in economic development. It will look at the current status of negotiations (perhaps finished by the summer of 2007) for Vietnamese entry into the World Trade Organization and will examine how pressures to liberalize has effected Vietnamese policy toward its water infrastructure. Finally, it will analyze the long term prognosis for Vietnamese economic development. This section includes advanced students Hoàng Huy Vũ and Robert Poprocki and will be supervised by Christopher Kukk in Vietnam. The project will be supervised by Professor of Economics at Western Connecticut State University Zuohong Pan (not attending trip).
IV. Anthropology
The anthropology subsection will conduct fieldwork in local villages and communities around the major water projects being investigated by the political scientists. We will examine local customs and beliefs with particular emphasis on the extrahuman elements of local belief. We will then analyze how globalization and economic development in the areas near major Hồng River water projects have effected or changed local practices and belief systems. This subsection will be led by John Sikora, Lecturer in Social Sciences at Western Connecticut State University, and will also include advanced students Schuyler Merritt and Stephanie Bascom. Pre-trip advising assistance will be provided by Jean Hatcherson, Lecturer in Social Sciences, Western Connecticut State University (not attending trip).