Abstract
Under Doi Moi (renovation) policies, the Tay-Nung minority people have migrated from their home region in the Northeastern mountains to the Central Highlands, and their migration has resulted in forest destruction and conflicts with other native minorities. The primary cause of their migration was lack of agricultural land, but there were many other factors: First, after the Chinese-Vietnamese War in 1979, many could no longer cultivate land because of mines. Also after that war, they got back their “ancestral” lands and stopped doing collaborative work for collectives. As a result, some households ended up having no or little land. Third, during Vietnam’s war with the United States, they became familiar with the Central Highland areas where many fought as soldiers. Fourth, they have home-region networks in the Central Highlands because some relatives had moved there after the Geneva Agreement of 1954. Their experiences during the war with China made them keenly conscious of the Chinese border; as a result, they did not try to utilize their ethnic network inside China for migration. Compared with other ethnic minorities, who easily move beyond the border, the Tay-Nung people have become part of the nation, and migration is one of their strategies for becoming affluent within the nationstate of Vietnam.
