UCHANU syllabus and user's guide

VS106 Vietnamese Society in Transition: From Development to Positive Change
EAP Viet Nam Study Center – Hanoi University
Fall Semester 2009 Syllabus

Instructor: Dr. Gerard Sasges
Email: gsasges@yahoo.com
Classes: Undergraduate class TBA; Graduate seminar TBA
Office Hours: TBA

A. Introduction

This course is about the Vietnamese economy, culture, society and environment, and the changes they are undergoing under the impact of the processes we call development. Its aim is to understand these processes in terms of local effects and lived experience. The central feature of the class is a group project where students are challenged to effect positive, sustainable change in Vietnam. The class is open to students from both UC and HANU, and may be taken for either undergraduate or graduate credit.

B. Course Objectives

The course has three main objectives. The first is to engage with some of the current debates and scholarship about development in Southeast Asia and Vietnam. We’re going to use insights derived from larger debates about Development to frame our understanding of the changes occurring in contemporary Vietnam, and understand that Development is not a neutral and inevitable process, but rather one that is shaped by particular actors for particular ends. The second objective is to develop our own conclusions about how Development can best be shaped to reflect the needs of society and the world, that is, to change Development into positive change. The final objective is to apply these conclusions in a real-world project that will effect positive and sustainable economic, social, or environmental change in Vietnam today.

C. Graduate Credit

Students may take this class for graduate credit. Students taking the class for graduate credit must complete all the assigned undergraduate work with the exception of the final group project. In addition, they must complete all the assigned graduate readings, attend the graduate seminars, and complete a graduate project developed together with the instructor or together with the instructor and a supervisor on the student’s home campus. Minimum graduate credit is six quarter units. Students may take the class for more credit with the approval of the instructor and the director of academics at UOEAP.

D. Text

Jonathan Rigg, Southeast Asia: the Human Geography of Development, second edition

E. Class

The regular class meets once a week for a total of three hours. In general, the first half of class will be spent reflecting on the previous week’s field research trip. The second half of class will be spent discussing the weekly reading and preparing for the upcoming field research trip. The requirement for class is that you come having done the assigned readings and prepared to participate in the discussion.

F. Graduate Seminar

The graduate seminar meets once each week to discuss particular themes and issues in more depth than the regular class. It is required for all graduate students; UC undergraduate students are required to attend at least three graduate seminars of their choice. It will not be open to HANU students. As with the regular class, the requirement for the graduate seminar is that you come having done the assigned readings and prepared to participate in the discussion.

G. Attendance

We’re all adults. As adults, we’re each responsible for our presence in time and space, and one of our responsibilities is to be at class on time and prepared to take part in the discussion. I will take attendance at the beginning of each class. Late students will not be admitted to the class. Each unexcused absence from class will result in the loss of 5% from the student’s final grade. Excused absences are those due to family emergency or when in the opinion of a medical practitioner, it would be medically unwise for the student to attend class. Attendance at class field research trips is mandatory, and students arriving late will not be able to participate.

H. Field Research

Field Research Trips are an integral part of the class. The class includes weekly field research trips in the Hanoi area that are required for all students. In addition, UC students will participate in two major field research trips to Central and Southern Vietnam during the week 6 and week 12 reading breaks, and a field research trip to Sapa in week 10. All field research trips are accompanied by relevant readings and discussions.

I. Evaluation

Work will be evaluated according to four criteria. First, has the student/group understood the issue? Second, how successful was their effort to effect sustainable change? Third, how could they do it better or develop it in the future? Fourth, how have they integrated the experience personally?

Participation: 10%
Course responses: 20%
Vietnam Autobiography: 20%
Group Project: 40%
Service: 10%

Due dates are listed on the class schedule. It is up to students to be aware of upcoming assignments and to balance work in this class with their work in other classes. Due dates will not change, and extensions will only be granted in the case of documented family or medical necessity. Late assignments will lose 10% per day.

J. Assignment Descriptions

Participation: The reason to come to class is to reflect on the experience of field research, debate the meanings of new reading assignments, and prepare for the next field research project. Along the way, I hope we can challenge the ideas and assumptions of ourselves and our classmates.

Course response: Studying isn’t learning unless you reflect on and integrate what you studied. Every week, you’ve got to make some sort of response somehow related to what we did in class or during field research that week, posted on your blog page. It can be anything: photos with text, an essay, a poem, a song, a painting, any thing of any length. And if your response is in a format that can’t be put up on the web, that’s cool too as long as you can get it to me somehow. Did I mention it’s due on your blog page at the end of each week by Sunday midnight?

Group project: From what little I know about life, much of it consists of working with other people to solve real problems in the real world. So your job is to get a group together, choose a real issue in Vietnam that you think needs to be addressed, and make an “NGO” (well, we’re somewhat organized and we’re not the government, so why not?) to address it in a sustainable way. The only limitation is that your group has to involve at least three members of the class, at least one of whom has to be a HANU student. The project will involve three phases. During the organizational phase, you’ll do preliminary research, choose an issue, put your group together, and make a proposal to me. During the research phase, you’ll learn everything you can about the issue (the science of the issue, the economics, the history, the stakeholders, obstacles to change, everything). During the implementation phase, you’ll do something about it. It could be anything from a down and dirty physical cleanup of the To Lich river to a documentary of the life of an ambulatory vendor to making a proposal to the Deputy Minister of Planning to preserve more green space in Hanoi. Really: it can be anything, as long as it’s a real effort to effect positive change. At all stages of the project, you’ll be working closely with me so that I can facilitate your work. At the end of the semester, you’ll make a presentation to a panel of experts and your peers who will evaluate the success of your project and suggest ways to develop it in the future. And if you don’t get everything done you wanted to do this time, come back and finish it after you graduate.

Service: A big part of being fully human is doing things for others. So your final task for this course is to do something that makes Vietnam a better place than it was at the start of the semester. It can be big or small, public or private; it just has to be something separate from your group project that is a genuinely good thing. Tell me about it in our individual advising sessions.

K. User’s Guide

Each week has a particular theme, and assigned Reading that must be completed before the class. About half of the readings are from Jonathan Rigg’s Southeast Asia: the Human Geography of Development; the rest will be made available to students in electronic form at the beginning of the semester. The regular Class meets once per week for three hours. In it we’ll talk about the experience from the previous Field Research, and prepare for the upcoming one. For the most part, the course Response will just ask you to tell us what you think about anything related to the course that week; however, the first two weeks have specific questions that you’ll have to answer. Your Autobiography is simply the story of your life that week. We’ll be having a lot of Advising during the semester: when it’s open, that means anyone can drop by at any time to discuss anything; when it’s specified, then you’ll have to sign up for specific times either individually or in groups, and discuss the specified issue. The headings Graduate Seminar and Graduate Reading list the theme and reading for each week. Last, things are Due when they’re Due.

Week O: Orientation
Reading: An obituary from the Economist Magazine’s obituaries section
Class: Orientation
Field Research: Suburban Spaces
Advising: individual meetings to develop Learning Plans (UC students)

Week 1: Miracles and Mirages
Reading: Rigg, 1-42
Class: Integrating autobiographies, thinking about Miracles and Mirages
Field Research: Miracles and Mirages
Advising: individual meetings to develop Learning Plans (HANU students)

Week 2: Issues and responses: NGOs
Reading: Urban Package
Class: Integrating field trip, the urban spaces of Development
Field Research: urban spaces
Advising: individual meetings to develop Learning Plans (HANU students)

Week 3: Issues and Responses: Panel
Reading: NGO handout and the directory of NGOs at http://www.ngocentre.org.vn
Class: Guest panel
Field Research:
Advising: open

Week 4: Picking your issue, making your proposal
Reading: none
Class: Organizational: picking an issue, picking a group, making the proposal
Field Research: student choice
Advising: open

Week 5: Central Worlds
Reading: Central Package
Class: Integrating Student Choice research, preparing for Central Trip
Field Research: cancelled
Advising: group project proposal and timeline

Week 6: Central Trip

Week 7: The Geography of Exclusion
Reading: Rigg, 89-138
Class: Integrating the Central Trip, exploring the geography of exclusion
Field Research: How do Vietnamese define exclusion?
Advising: individual advising: progress report 1

Week 8: The Experience of Exclusion
Reading: Rigg, 139-189
Class: Integrating research, exploring the experience of exclusion
Field Research: How do Vietnamese experience exclusion?
Advising: individual advising: progress report 2

Week 9: Sapa, the Kinh, and ethnic minorities
Readings: Sapa Package
Class: Integrating research, preparing for Sapa
Field Research: Sapa
Advising: group project progress report 1

Week 10: New Rural Worlds
Reading: Rigg, 193-237
Class: Integrating Sapa trip, exploring new rural worlds
Field Research: village
Advising: group project progress report 2

Week 11: Southern Worlds
Reading: Southern Package
Class: Integrating village trip, preparing for the Southern Trip
Field Research: none
Advising: open

Week 12: Southern Trip

Week 13: Factory Worlds
Reading: Rigg 238-278
Class: Integrating Southern trip, exploring factory worlds
Field Research: Factory
Advising: group project progress report 1

Week 14: Summarizing and integrating
Reading: none
Class: integrating factory trip, summarizing and integrating
Field Research: student choice
Advising: group project progress report 2

Week 15: Final Presentation Preparation
Reading: none
Class: cancelled, groups make dry run of final presentations
Field Research: cancelled
Advising: open

Week 16: Reverse Orientation
Reading: none
Class: cancelled, groups or individuals take instructor for orientation
Field Research: cancelled
Advising: open

Week 17: Final Advising, Final Presentations
Monday, Tuesday: Individual Advising
Wednesday: Language Presentations
Friday: Project Presentations