Economy in Motion: Cham Muslim Traders in the Mekong Delta

The transition from a centrally planned to a market-oriented economy under way in Vietnam over the last twenty years has led to a national aggregate rise in incomes, increased expenditures and a decrease in poverty levels (Haughton et al . 2001; Taylor 2004a). Yet Vietnam’s ethnic minorities, who officially comprise over fifty different linguistically distinct groups and account for around 15 per cent of the population, are widely seen as the losers in the liberal reform process. Their incomes and expenditures are much lower than those of the Kinh, Vietnam’s ethnic majority group, and they have a greater incidence of poverty, lower participation in schooling and poorer health (Baulch et al . 2002; Rambo & Jamieson 2003). Three principal explanations have been advanced to account for the failure of the economic reforms to benefit ethnic minorities in Vietnam. First, these groups are seen as physically remote from economic opportunities and government services, living as they do for the most part in the uplands and in geographically marginal areas (van de Walle & Gunewardena 2001; Vu Quoc Ngu 2004). Second, many ethnic minority peoples are thought to experience the problem of ‘cultural remoteness’ (Baulch et al . 2002, p. 17), their distinct linguistic, customary or religious heritage presenting cultural obstacles to their interactions with the wider society that inhibit