Country: Vietnam
Group: Nung
Date Finalized: 4/12/2020
Team: Vianney Mancilla (lead), Erika Walker, Colleen Clauss
The Nung of Vietnam primarily inhabit the northern highlands, along with other indigenous populations (Minority Rights, n.d.). During the colonial period, the French established missionary education and commercial activities (Minority Rights, n.d.). The French set up the highland groups against one another; they sometimes supported the Kinh and at other times supported the other highlanders (Minority Rights, n.d.). To win the support of the northern highlands, in 1954, the French established autonomous zones for the indigenous population and promised their autonomy. However, the French’s promise was not fulfilled (Minority Rights, n.d.).
The Vietnam government views its indigenous population as ‘primitive’ and “in need of more civilized practices” (Minority Rights, n.d.). Bilingual education, access to health care and other programs have been implemented but are not culturally appropriate (Minority Rights, n.d.). Vietnam’s tourism industry also poses threats to the cultural rights of the indigenous communities, “including government control and interference in practices to maintain the interest of tourists” (Minority Rights, ,n.d.). The Vietnamese government interferes with the practices of the indigenous communities by enacting policies against ‘superstition, the tradition of votive papers and social evils’ (Minority Rights, n.d.). The Vietnamese government does not recognize the indigenous populations’ right to their land and natural sources (Minority Rights, n.d.). As a result, the indigenous populations are continuously displaced from their land. In the northern highlands, the Son La Hydropower Project-a dam project completed in 2012-displaced 91,000 indigenous peoples (Minority Rights, n.d.). There was little information about the Nung explicitly. However, in a report titled ‘Refugees at risk (1992),’ the Asia Watch condemned the UK-Hong Kong government’s failure to protect the ‘Nung minorities’ in Vietnam, which is indicative of the maltreatment of the Nung (Thomas, 2018).
The data quality would barely be a 2 for the lack of details on the Nung specifically.
References
- Minority Rights Watch (n.d.). Highlanders. Retrieved from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/highland-minorities/
- Thomas, J. (2018). Ethnocide: A cultural narrative of refugee detention in Hong Kong. Routledge. https://books.google.com/books?id=SIVHDwAAQBAJ&pg