In many discussions about highland tourism, local people are often seen as those who “participate in” or “benefit from” tourism. However, Sarah Turner’s (2012) research in Sa Pa, Lào Cai tells a different story. Local people do not simply follow the market or tourism trends; instead, they actively choose how to engage – and when not to engage.
Based on many years of ethnographic fieldwork, Turner describes how Hmong households diversify their livelihoods through cardamom cultivation, textile trading, and trekking tourism. These activities provide cash income, but they never fully replace subsistence agriculture, which remains a central foundation of everyday life and cultural practice.
Local people actively create a balance. They engage with the market in a “just enough” way. They are willing to pass up income opportunities if the risks are too high, if the work disrupts agricultural cycles, harms nature and environment, or if it interferes with family obligations and cultural rituals. Many work as trekking guides or sell goods to visitors, and still return to their fields when needed.
The study shows that not every change should be labelled as “development,” and not every opportunity to earn money needs to be taken. In highland life, labour, culture, nature, and identity are not separate, but are closely intertwined in everyday practices.
When tourism enters highland communities, choices are weighed daily – between staying and leaving, between the present and what needs to be preserved. Local people become “cultural brokers”, adjusting their rhythms of life to adapt to new changes, while sustaining and recreating cultural values that have been carried across generations.
Author: Khánh Linh Châu – Research Assistant
Photo Credit: Hờ Thị Dinh – Local Collaborator
Turner, S. (2012). Making a living the hmong way: An actor-oriented livelihoods approach to everyday politics and resistance in upland Vietnam. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 102(2), 403–422. https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2011.596392
Vietnam Outdoor Tourism Research 