Ethnic minority households in upland northern Vietnam are shaping culturally appropriate rural livelihoods
in highly pragmatic ways, as they negotiate the everyday realities of economic liberalization, intertwined with
centralized and authoritarian socialist political structures. Notions of “social interface” from actor-oriented
analyses, everyday politics, and covert forms of everyday resistance provide a heuristic device to understand the
nuanced decision-making processes underlying such livelihoods. Ethnographic data reveal how Hmong ethnic
minority individuals and households augment agricultural livelihoods by navigating new economic opportunities,
while also resisting unwanted reliance on the market. Based in Sa Pa district, Lao Cai province, the research in `
this article identifies three particular diversification strategies—cardamom cultivation, textile trade, and tourism
trekking—that currently form the foremost cash component of Hmong livelihoods that are otherwise largely
subsistence based. Livelihood decision-making processes among these upland rural dwellers are mediated by a
complex and multifaceted social interface involving state policy, the actions of local officials, and ethnically
embedded social relations, negotiations, and struggles that, in turn, are shaped by everyday politics. The case
points to the value of incorporating such findings into alternative discourses of upland development to support
the design of more appropriate livelihood and development policies