Breaking from the colonial mold: Water engineering and the failure of nation-building in the plain of reeds, vietnam

Technology and Culture

Volumn 49, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 599-623

  Biggs, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; HISTORY; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; POLITICAL SYSTEM; SANITATION; UNITED STATES; VIET NAM; WAR;

COLONIALISM; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION; SANITARY ENGINEERING; UNITED STATES; VIETNAM; VIETNAM CONFLICT;

EID: 50849138823     PISSN: 0040165X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/tech.0.0089     Document Type: Article

References (72)

1. Tòa Dai Biêu Chính Phu Nam Viêt (TDBCPNV) (Records of the delegate of South Vietnam), File H62-7, "Administrateur de la Province de Chau Doc à Mr le Gouverneur de la Cochinchine. 1 Oct 1943," Vietnam National Archives Center No. 2 (VNA2), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
2. For recent works on American modernization programs in Vietnam, see Jefferson P. Marquis, "The Other Warriors: American Social Science and Nation Building in Vietnam," Diplomatic History 24 (2000): 79-105;
3. Michael E. Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and "Nation Building" in the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2000);
4. and Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961 (Berkeley, Calif., 2003). More recent scholarship drawing on Vietnamese records has produced new studies on Vietnamese perspectives; see Philip Catton, Diem's Final Failure: Prelude to America's War in Vietnam (Lawrence, Kans., 2002).
5. William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick, The Ugly American (New York, 1958).
6. Rudolf Mrázek, especially in his first chapter, "Language as Asphalt," expands on the role that colonial infrastructure projects in Indonesia played in the development of modern life, especially Indonesian language and the aesthetics of nationalism there; see Mrázek, Engineers of Happy Land: Technology and Nationalism in a Colony (Princeton, N.J., 2002).
7. Michael Adas, Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and America's Civilizing Mission (Cambridge, Mass., 2006).
8. Scott defines this as "the self-confidence about scientific and technical progress, the expansion of production, the growing satisfaction of human needs, the mastery of nature (including human nature), and, above all, the rational design of social order commensurate with the scientific understanding of natural laws" (James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed [New Haven, Conn., 1998], 4). Scott attributes failure in nation-building and similar state-centered schemes to this ideology, combined with state-initiated simplifications of nature (i.e., mapping), authoritarian regimes, and powerless electorates. For an excellent critical retrospective of Scott's work, see James C. Scott, "Afterword to 'Moral Economies, State Spaces, and Categorical Violence,'" American Anthropologist 107 (2005): 395-402.
9. Mikhail M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, ed. Michael Holquist and trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin, Tex., 1981), 324.
10. Anne Whiston Spirn, The Language of Landscape (New Haven, Conn., 1998).
11. Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1988);
12. John Law, "Technology and Heterogeneous Engineering: The Case of Portuguese Expansion," in The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology, ed. W. E. Bijker, T. P. Hughes, and T. J. Pinch (Cambridge, Mass., 1987);
13. Michel Callon, "Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St. Brieuc Bay," in Power, Action, and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge, ed. John Law (London, 1986).
14. Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory (Oxford, 2005), 39.
15. David P. Elliott, The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta, 1930-1975, abridged ed. (Armonk, N.Y., 2007), 200.
16. Go Tháp (Tower Hill) was the site of a Vietnamese fort built under King Thiêu Tri (reigned 1840-47) located north of the present-day town of Tháp Muoi (Mỹ An) along 4 Bis Canal. In April 1866, provincial mandarin Võ Duy Duodng defended it with over 1,000 loyalist soldiers against 4,500 colonial and allied Vietnamese troops. After incurring heavy casualties on both sides, the French forces eventually won the battle and took the fort. A local-born Vietnamese, Tran Ba Lôc, led colonial Vietnamese troops and eventually chased Duong down and captured the other commanders. In return for his service, the colonial government awarded him the honorific position "Tong Doc" (provincial governor) and gave him over 10,000 hectares of land in the area. Few accounts of the battle exist in Vietnamese sources, although one recent article in the newspaper Nhân Dan describes it in detail: "Landscapes: Go Thap," Nhân Vân (English version), 16 October 1999. See also Nguyen Hie'n Lê, Bay Ngày Trong Dong Tháp Muoi (Long An, 1989), 43-51, and Société des Études Indo-Chinoises, Monographic de la Province de Sa-Déc (Saigon, 1903), 26. With assistance from UNICEF, Vietnam's Ministry of Culture and Information has recently designated the battleground site at Dong Tháp a national historic site.
17. Giáo Thông Công Chánh (GTCC) (Transportation and public works) RG, File 312, "Machefaux and Walthert, Rapport de Mission d'Études d'Aménagement Hydro-Agricole au Viet-Nam 4 Juillet-6 Septembre 1955," VNA2.
18. A. Normandin, Travaux d' Hydraulique Agricole à Étudier et à Entreprendre en Cochinchine (Saigon, 1913), 31.
19. TDBCPNV, File 23897/M1-11, "Social Reform in Cochinchina," VNA2. Governor-General Brévié served the pro-Left French Popular Front from 1936 to 1938.
20. Pierre Gourou, Les Paysans du Delta Tonkinois: Étude de Géographie Humaine (Paris, 1936);
21. see also J. Y. Claeys, "La géographie humaine des pays Annamites basée sur des observations aéiennes," Cahiers de l' École Française d'Extrême-Orient 22 (1940): 45.
22. TDBCPNV, File 23897/M1-11, "Social Reform in Cochinchina," VNA2.
23. Goucoch Divers RG, File 2129, "Fonctionnement du Sce. Hydraulique Agricole 22 July 1938," VNA2.
24. TDBCPNV RG, File 14068/H61-12, "Casier Tonkinoise I-1943," VNA2.
25. Ibid., 207.
26. David P. Elliott, The Vietnamese War: Revolution and Social Change in the Mekong Delta, 1930-1975, vol. 1 (Armonk, N.Y., 2003), 34.
27. Hoài Anh, "Truyen Thong Tranh Chong Thu'c Dân Pháp d Dong Tháp Muoi (1859-1945)" (The tradition of anti-French colonial uprisings among the people of the Plain of Reeds), in Ljch Su Dong Tháp Miidi: Gdi Nguoi Dang Song (To the living: A history of the Plain of Reeds), ed. Võ Tran Nhã (Ho Chi Minh City, 1993). These projects began after the failed 1940 Nam Kỳ Uprising on 23 November. Party members in My Tho seized government offices and hunted down police and officials who had abused their authority in the past. However, the revolutionaries had failed to block the passage of militia reinforcements from Saigon, and within a few days the uprising was crushed. Hoài Anh reports that several nearby villages involved in the uprising were bombed and many party members summarily executed. Those who survived hid out in the Plain of Reeds, where they commenced development of workshops and bunkers.
28. Eric T. Jennings, Vichy in the Tropics: Pétain's National Revolution in Madagascar, Guadeloupe, and Indochina, 1940-1944 (Stanford, Calif., 2001), 170.
29. TDBCPNV RG, File 25093/N21-119, "Feb 1943 GG Decoux to GouvCoch," VNA2. For an appraisal of the Popular Front's "colonisation altruiste," see Panivong Norindr, "The Popular Front's Colonial Policies in Indochina: Reassessing the Popular Front's 'Colonisation Altruiste,'" in French Colonial Empire and the Popular Front: Hope and Disillusion, ed. Tony Chafer and Amanda Sackur (New York, 1999), 236.
30. Records from the Fonds Goucoch, 1940-45, indicate that the government was intent on settling people along the boundaries of the major forest base areas in U Minh and the Plain of Reeds, while encircling the remaining forest centers with canals and roads and turning them into state-run reserves; see Goucoch Divers RG, Files 14104/H61-48, "Nam Can Dredging," and H62-7, "Adm of Chau Doc to Gov of Cochinchine. 1 Oct 1943," VNA2.
31. TDBCPNV RG, File H62/7, "Jammé, Aménagement de la Plaine des Joncs: Avant-Projet Note Descriptive et Justificative," VNA2.
32. For Scott's definition of high-modernist constructions, see his Seeing Like a State (n. 6 above), 90. Scott repeatedly refers to "villagization" schemes such as "strategic hamlets" in Vietnam as examples of high-modernist re-orderings of rural landscapes and rural life, but the more appropriate example in the Mekong Delta for such projects was the earlier, failed agroville program initiated in 1958-59 and abandoned in favor of fortifying existing villages (strategic hamlets) during the 1960s.
33. TDBCPNV RG, Files 14042-14068/H61, VNA2.
34. TDBCPNV RG, File BO /3904, "L'administrateur, chef de la province de Rachgia à Monsieur le Gouverneur de la Cochinchine, 22 January 1945," VNA2.
35. TDBCPNV RG, File BO/3904, "Budget Générate: Aménagement de la Region Rach-Gia-Ha-Tien, 25 January 1945," VNA2.
36. "Mot Trung Tâm Kháng Chien O Nam Bo (1945-1949)" (A center of the resistance in the south [1945-1949])," in Lich Su Dong Tháp Muoi: Gui Nguoi Dang Song (n. 22 above), 61.
37. Elliott, The Vietnamese War (n. 11 above), 70-80.
38. Carlyle A. Thayer, War by Other Means: National Liberation and Revolution in Viet-Nam, 1954-1960 (Sydney, 1989), 18. See also "I.ansdale Team's Report on Covert Saigon Mission in '54 and '55," in The Pentagon Papers, as Published by the New York Times, ed. Neil Sheehan et al. (New York, 1971), 55.
39. Jammé joined a private French consulting firm (SOGREAH) and was then hired with American funds through a UN agency. American agencies gradually replaced these individuals and firms with American individuals and firms. Rostow first published what is called the "take-off theory" in a 1958 article;
40. see W. W. Rostow, "The Take-Off into Self-Sustained Growth," Economic Journal 66, no. 261 (1956): 25-48. He later expanded on this idea in W. W. Rostow, "Stages of Economic Growth," Economic History Review 12, no. 1 (1959): 1-16, and in The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge, 1960).
41. Publication NL504, "DMJM, Preliminary Economic and Engineering Study: Dredging Program (US AID Contract No. 430-990, January 1966)," p. 12, VNA2. The International Cooperation Administration (ICA), a precursor to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), paid $ 2.5 million for the dredges with funds appropriated from Congress. These vessels, each powered by four General Motors 6-71 diesel engines, augmented the French fleet that had been in operation since 1913.
42. Ibid., 7.
43. Ibid., 38. A dredge foreman working for the Department of Navigation earned VN$2,379/month, while he made on average VN$9,500/month working for contractors.
44. R. Gentilini, Les Votes de Communication en Cochinchine (Paris, 1886).
45. Publications RG, File NL504,. 23, VNA2.
46. GTCC RG, File 312, p. 5, VNA2.
47. GTCC RG, File 312, pp. 13-20, VNA2.
48. Elliott (n. 21 above), 1:142.
49. Phu Tong Thong De I CH (PTTDICH) (First Presidential Cabinet, Republic of Vietnam) Record Group, File 10807, VNA2: "Song song vôi viec thành lap Nha Tong Quan Doc, các Công Truong Khuech-Truong Nông Nghiêp, Tong Thong cũng dā chi- thi cho Quân-Dôi Viêt-Nam Công-Hoà cùng Bao-An-Doàn dieu-dông mot so binh-sȳ sap den han giai-ngũ, den nhūng Trung-Tâm Du-Dinh lâp Nông-Truoing de tìm dia-diem thích ho'p, tu' to chuc phòng ve, khai-phá bang phuong-tien riêng hien có, cat nhà de dua Ian Ian gia-dình ho den lâp nghiêp."
50. PTTDICH RG, File 10016, "Plan de mise en culture d'une zône de 70,000 Ha. de terre: No. 1860-DTCC/55/VP 24 November 1955," VNA2. For more on these early landdevelopment programs and U.S. reactions to them, see Catton (n. 2 above), 56-58.
51. PTTDICH RG, File 10809, "USOM Saigon. Considerations Involved in Continued U.S. Aid Support to Economic Land Development 22 October 1957," VNA2. Thanks to Edward Miller for contributing this document and first suggesting that American aid officials began pulling away from Diem's land-development programs as early as mid-1957.
52. GTCC RG, File 55704, "Bô Tong Truong Công-Chánh k/g Tong Thong Viêt Nam Công Hòa," VNA2.
53. The picture appeared in Ngô Dình Diem, Con Duong Chính Nghĩa Doc Lâp Dân Chu (The road to justice, freedom, and democracy) (Saigon, 1958).
54. GTCC RG, File 55704.
55. Joseph J. Zasloff, "Rural Resettlement in South Viet Nam: The Agroville Program," Pacific Affairs 35, no. 4 (1962-63): 327-40.
56. William E. Colby Oral History Interview 1, 2 June 1981, with Ted Gittinger, 16, Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, available online at http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/oralhistory.hom/Colby/ colby-01.pdf (accessed 1 July 2006).
57. Latham (n. 2 above), 173, suggests that Diem and Nhu became attracted to R. G. K. Thompson's tactics, while Catton (n. 2 above), 97, draws from Vietnamese sources to suggest that Diem and Nhu believed that the two insurgencies were fundamentally different and had already designed their program well in advance of meeting Thompson.
58. GTCC RG, File C15714, "Dien vǎn cua Dai Su Hoa Kỳ Frederick Nolting Jr. doc tai buoi le chuyen giao xáng Kim Giang ngày 31 tháng 8 nǎm 1961," VNA2.
59. GTCC RG, File 55704 (n. 46 above).
60. GTCC RG, File 1846/6, "v/v an ninh các công truonng máy xáng 1 June 1962," VNA2.
61. Publications RG, File NL504, 17.
62. Ibid., 37.
63. GTCC RG, File 1341/03, "Bang Thuyet Trình cua Kỳ Su, Truong Ty Công Chânh Kien Tuong 8 December 1966," VNA2.
64. Publications RG, File NV 4730, "Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Order No. 1068, Accelerated Development: Plain of Reeds," VNA2.
65. Ibid., 79.
66. Ibid., plate 12. See also Gourou (n. 16 above). Among various essays highlighting the contributions of Gourou's work to rural development in Vietnam is John Kleinen's recent essay, "Tropicality and Topicality: Pierre Gourou and the Genealogy of French Colonial Scholarship on Rural Vietnam," Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 26 (2005): 339-58. Kleinen suggests that Gourou influenced not only French, but also postcolonial Vietnamese (and, I would add, American), thinking on rural development in Vietnam.
67. Nguyen Thi Dieu, The Mekong River and the Struggle for Indochina (Westport, Conn., 1999), 153. See also David Ekbladh, '"Mr. TVA': Grass-Roots Development, David Lilienthal, and the Rise and Fall of the Tennessee Valley Authority as a Symbol for U.S. Overseas Development, 1933-1973," Diplomatic History 26 (2002): 335-74.
68. Victor J. Croizat, The Development of the Plain of Reeds: Some Politico-Military Implications (Santa Monica, Calif., 1969).
69. Nguyen, The Mekong River, 166.
70. Richard L. Meier, "Human Ecology in Long-Term River Basin Planning-the Mekong Case," University of California Institute of Urban and Regional Development Working Paper No. 239 (Berkeley, Calif., 1974), 18.
71. Personal conversation with Pham Xuân Ân, April 2000, Ho Chí Minh City. Phâm Xuân Ân is perhaps the best-known Vietnamese spy, because he worked with many American journalists through his positions at Reuters and Time. While I have little to corroborate Ân's story-and it is very likely that he embellished this memory, in light of comments such as Meier's above-it is likely that American aid officers saw such projects as ultimately supporting American economic interests in the area. For more on Ân, see Larry Berman, Perfect Spy: The Incredible Double Life of Pham Xuan An, Time Magazine Reporter & Vietnamese Communist Agent (New York, 2007).
72. Geoffrey Forden, "How the World's Most Underdeveloped Nations Get the World's Most Dangerous Weapons," Technology and Culture 48 (2007): 92-103.