Suchergebnisse

"This coauthored ethnography bridges the traditional divide between studies of China and peninsular Southeast Asia by examining the agency, dynamics, and resilience of livelihoods adopted by ethnic minority Hmong communities in Vietnam and China's Yunnan Province, both within each country and across the border. It contests the prevalence of country-based studies of such populations and promotes a transnational approach. The product of wide-ranging research over many years, this study is particularly valuable because it covers the reactions to state modernization projects (and the global market forces that have accompanied them) among the same ethnic group in two national jurisdictions which, despite their common Marxist-Leninist political systems and neoliberalizing economies, have pursued somewhat different policies with respect to "development" in minority communities along the border. The work contributes to a growing body of literature on cross-border dynamics for ethnic minorities along the borderlands between China and its neighbors, and more broadly within mainland Southeast Asia"--

AbstractFor workers employed in the public and nonprofit sectors, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program offers the potential for full forgiveness of federal student loans for those with 10 years of full‐time work experience. A year‐long waiver issued by the Department of Education in 2021 to address administrative problems in program access provided a new path to PSLF relief for many borrowers. We explore the overall impact and distributional implications of potential full participation in loan forgiveness enabled by the PSLF waiver program using the 2018 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Our estimates identify more than $100 billion in loan forgiveness available to as many as 3.45 million borrowers through the PSLF waiver program. Potential beneficiaries of this initiative are disproportionately employed in occupations like teaching and health care. Full take‐up of the PSLF waiver would lead to a narrowing of the racial gap in student debt burden. However, the distributional impact of the PSLF waiver depends critically on the take‐up rate and there is some evidence that those borrowers with relatively high income or advanced degrees have been most likely to access benefits.

For individuals who experience job loss, enrollment in post-secondary programs may provide an opportunity to improve future employment outcomes. However, decisions to enroll may be hampered by insufficient information about the benefits and costs and the necessary steps and assistance available to facilitate such investments. Using variation in the dissemination and timing of letters sent to UI recipients containing this information, we find that individuals sent the information are 40% more likely to enroll. These findings suggest that well-coordinated information interventions delivered with institutional support may be more effective than raising the generosity of existing government programs in increasing participation.

Drawing from experiences in Northern Indigenous Canada, Uganda, and Vietnam, we discuss the challenges encountered while trying to communicate relevant results to local communities with whom we work. Wavering between participatory and advocacy research, we explore how we grapple with finding the right audience with whom to share results, our attempts to craft communication to be relevant within specific contexts, and dilemmas over self-censorship. We also document our struggles to manage our own expectations and those of the communities with whom we work regarding the ability of our research to broker change. This article emerged from our frustration at wanting to be accountable to our interviewee communities, but finding few academic articles that go beyond ideals to examine how researchers often struggle to meet these expectations. While participatory approaches are increasingly mainstreamed in social science work, we argue that advocacy research can be a more appropriate response to community needs in certain cases.

ABSTRACTIn upland northern Vietnam ethnic minority farmers are cultivating what some global retailers refer to as the 'champagne of cinnamon'. However, a closer examination reveals that this spice is not 'true cinnamon' but cassia, with the exact species remaining uncertain. Drawing on commodity chain literature and debates over the creation of value and quality, the aims of this article are twofold. First, it investigates the making of 'Vietnamese cinnamon' as it moves from the hills of northern Vietnam to supermarket shelves in the global North, and the actors and livelihoods involved. Second, it explores how different actors define 'Vietnamese cinnamon' and infuse it with often‐contradictory values. Based on multi‐sited ethnographic fieldwork over a four‐year period, the study finds that the state and cooperating non‐government organizations tend to ignore ongoing taxonomic confusion while creating a geographical indicator to highlight the uniqueness of this commodity. Yet, concurrently, exporters and retailers in the global North focus on other distinctions as key marketing tools including remoteness, ethnicity, taste and health benefits. The article thus calls for an expanded analytical focus on competing value creation for agro‐food products and on the impacts for commodity producers, in this case ethnic minority farmers in the global South.