Craft villages in the Red River Delta (Vietnam): Periodization, Spatialization, Specializations - Fanchette, Sylvie (Local agri-food systems in a global world. Market, social and environmental challenges)
In the densely populated countryside of the Red River Delta (1,000 inhabitants per square kilometre), an original, local production system is in the process of being modernized and expanded. Founded on the bedrock of craft and industrial villages connected within commercial and family networks, clusters of craft villages seek their way in the context of the ongoing transition to a market economy of a system long administered by the communist State. A pre-capitalist system of industrial production, craft industries, organized into clusters in Vietnam, have not yet been swept away by capitalism, unlike in other East and Southeast Asian countries, dominated by the market economy and large-scale industrial complexes that employ a numerous, low-paid workforce. In the shadow of China, whose companies are difficult to compete with, Vietnam manages to carve out a niche and continues to produce artisans. But for how long? Drawing on a diachronic study, we will present the methods of economic restructuring and spatial reform of various cluster types (textiles, woodwork, food processing, wickerwork and metallurgy), the technical transformations of various crafts and their workforce capacity, according to policies implemented and local, national and international economic circumstances.
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