Rethinking Approaches to the Study of the Central Highlands of Vietnam: A Review of Oscar Salemink's The Ethnography of the Central Highlanders of Vietnam and Gerald Hickey's Window on a War

SOJOURN Vol. 19, No. 2 (2004), pp. 288-303ISSN 0217-9520 Rethinking Approaches to the Study of the Central Highlands of Vietnam: A Review of Oscar Salemink's The Ethnography of the Central Highlanders of Vietnam and Gerald Hickey's Window on a War Stan B.H. TAN The Ethnography ofthe Central Highhnders ofVietnam: A Historical Contextualization, 1850—1990. By Oscar Salemink. Honolulu: University ofHawaii Press; London: RoutledgeCutzon, 2003. Window on a War: An Anthropologist in the Vietnam Conflict. By Gerald C. Hickey. Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 2002. Despite the compendium ofmaterial available on the histories ofVietnam , the Indochina wars, and developments in post-doi moiYietnam, writings in the English language about the Central Highlands ofVietnam remain limited.1 Yet, two developments in post-doi moiVietnam have rekindled the interests ofVietnam observers on the Central Highlands . First is the rapid expansion ofcoffee production in the highlands which led to Vietnam becoming the most important robusta coffee exporter in the world market (Tan 2000). The precedent ofthis development is the phenomenal migration ofpeople from other parts ofthe country up to the "red hills" (for a detailed account, see Hardy 2003). The second is surfacing public outcry over political rights, religious issues , and land claims by old inhabitants ofthe highlands, referred to as Montagnards by some and Highlanders by others. Most notable is the wave ofprotest demonstrations against state policies that took place in Rethinking Approaches to the Study of the Central Highlands of Vietnam289 early 2001 (Human Rights Watch 2002).2 Oscar Salemink's book is timely as it provokes critical discussions concerning our understanding ofthe highlanders and calls for a rethinking ofapproaches in studying the Central Highlands. Gerald Hickey's new book, while mainly a memoir ofhis days ofconducting research in Vietnam, provides us with an in-depth view ofwhy and how he came to see the Central Highlanders as he did but more importantly, urges us to approach the study ofthe Central Highlands and its inhabitants from a different angle. Studies on the Central Highlands Published studies on the Central Highlands and the highland people are plentiful in non-English languages, particularly French and Vietnamese. Early French explorers, French missionaries, French colonial officials, and later professional anthropologists published numerous ethnographies and histories of the Central Highlanders. Perhaps the two most notable French writers about the Central Highlands in the last century areJacques Dournes and Georges Condominas. The formerwrote most extensively about the highlanders, including the definitive Potao: Une théorie dupouvoir chez les Lndochinoiforai (Potao: A theory ofpower of the IndochineseJarai) published in 1977, and the latter renown for Nous avons mange Uforetde U Pierre-Genie Goo (We have eaten the forest of the Stone Spirit Goo)3 published in 1957. In the English language, Gerald Hickey's two-volume ethno-history ofthe Central Highlanders (Hickey 1982a, 1982b) and a later volume on ten particular ethnic groups ofthe highlanders (Hickey 1993) remain the authoritative references concerning the Central Highlands ofVietnam. In Vietnamese, we find early mention ofthe hill people, or "barbarian tribes" ofthe northern highlands or the southern (central) highlands in official geographic chronicles such as The Descriptive Geography of Emperor Dong Khanh (Nguyen Due Tho, Nguyen Van Nguyen, Philippe Papin, and Andrew Hardy 2003), and memoirs by officials such as the often-cited Frontier Chronicles (Phu Bien Tap Luc), written by the mandarin Le Quy Don (1972-73). There is also die very important and excellent piece ofwork, MoiKontum (The savages ofKontum), 290Stan B. H. TAN written byNguyen Kinh Chi and Nguyen Dong Chi (1934) during the French colonial rule. Since then, ethnologists in various southern and communist north regimes have been publishing a large number ofstudies about the Central Highlands (see, for example, Nhieu Tac Già 1968; Nguyen HuuThau 1964; Cuu Long Giang andToan Anh 1974; LaVan Lo 1973). With the reunification ofVietnam in 1975, the socialist regime immediately initiated two consecutive large-scale state-sponsored research programmes — the Tay Nguyen Research Programme I: 4809 and II: 48C. The results ofdiese two projects are published in various special issues ofVietnamese journals such as Tap Chi Dan ToeHoc (Journal of ethnology) and Nghien Cuu Kinh Te (Economic research). In addition to these two research programmes, there are...