Changing rules of the game: local responses to decollectivisation in Thai Nguyen, Vietnam 1 Steffanie Scott Abstract: This paper documents the uneven experiences of decollectivisation, using Thai Nguyen province as a setting for an exploration of divergent outcomes of, and local responses to, land allocation. Ethnicity, blood relations and settlement history are identified as emerging axes of differentiation in new patterns of vulnerability regarding access to land. This trend is evidenced by the phenomenon of farmers who migrated to the region during the collectivisation period and were subsequently left landless as longer term residents from other ethnic groups reclaimed their ancestral lands. Keywords: Vietnam, decollectivisation, collectivisation, land policy, ethnicity, settlement history, local responses Land tenure and property rights issues have been long debated in Vietnam in determining appropriate rural development strategies for meeting both equity and efficiency objectives. Land is a central element of welfare provisions and poverty reduction efforts, as well as a basis for accumulation and growth. Recent land policy reforms in Vietnam suggest a new orientation in the roles of the State, markets, and agricultural households in land management and production organisation. While between 1954 and 1986, most agricultural land had been managed through collective production, especially in northern Vietnam, 2 certain production tasks were gradually contracted out following Decree 100 in 1981. This accelerated with Resolution 10 in 1988, which called for the allocation of agricultural land directly to households, and the abolishment of the work point system. In many cases, such policy reforms merely legitimised what was already occurring in practice. Finally, under the 1993 Land Law, land allocation was finalised with households being issued a certificate verifying their long-term land use rights, and further granting them the rights to transfer, exchange, mortgage, lease and inherit their plots to others. Such land reforms in the agricultural sector constitute some of the most Asia Pacific Viewpoint, Vol. 41, No. 1, April 2000 ISSN: 1360-7456, pp69–84 ß Victoria University of Wellington, 2000. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. Author: Steffanie Scott is a PhD candidate, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2. E-mail: stscott@interchange.ubc.ca