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22. Forging Power and Space: Vietnamese Workers’ Acts of Resistance in an Evolving Political Landscape

Thu, March 16, 7:30 to 9:30pm, Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel, Floor: 4th Floor, Rosedale

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

The economic impetus for French colonial rule in Indochina required the development and services of a substantial labor force composed of skilled and unskilled workers. Vietnamese workers were recruited for vocational training or indentured labor on the mines and plantations of not only Indochina but also other French colonies where they were subjected to the intense surveillance and control of the colonial state. Within this context, Vietnamese workers negotiated and mediated their resistance in complex ways and in highly contested spaces. Challenging the perception of Vietnamese workers as just the victims of abuse and misery, the inter-disciplinary papers of this panel underscore the workers’ autonomy and creativity in their acts of resistance. Drawing from a diverse collection of sources from police investigation, mining accident report, memoirs of former vocational students to oral history of migrant workers in the Pacific, this panel illustrates how Vietnamese workers engaged in careful analysis of their particular situations and of the means necessary to ensure their survival, and to create viable spaces for themselves in a quickly evolving political landscape. Some workers opted to leave plantations despite the risks of imprisonment if caught deserting. Others defied colonial authorities through demonstrations and direct confrontation, while others preferred everyday means of resistance despite calls for what were deemed more radical methods. Finally, the graduates and students of the vocational schools found the means to transform what French colonial policy had intended to be the preservation of the lower status of Vietnamese into positions of political leadership and power.

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