Contenu du sommaire : Ville et campagnes d'Asie (Vietnam - Thaïlande - Inde)

How to Appropriate a Territory by Planting Coffee trees on the Plateaux of Central Vietnam. Still dominantly agricultural, Vietnam has based its economic dyna¬ mism on the export of agricultural products of which coffee holds an important place, to such an extent that the country has become one of the largest world producers. By means of a study of a province in the Plateaux of the center of the country, several aspects of the procedure employed for the constitution of these territories are touched upon. Contrary to the widespread opinion according to which the "boom " of coffee in the 1980s was due entirely to the peasantry, an attempt is made to show that the productive potential was constituted thanks to the strong interrelations -which produced a synergy effect -that existed between the large and the small plantations. This then leads us to examine how the expansion of coffee growing in Vietnam parti¬ cipates in the production of spaces where the dynamics of economic and social partitions are at work

The Rehabilitation of an Urban Space in Southeast Asia : The Chinatown of Bangkok, Thailand. The historical nucleus of Bangkok, the Chinatown quarter, must now face the vicissitudes of a center city the growth of which has remained disorderly for much too long. Its inadequate network of streets has reached an alarming degree of congestion ; its pollution rate, its intolerable noise, and its shortage of parking space are at the very origin of the deterioration of its living quarters and noxious environment. Unofficial responses to the degradation of the site are aimed at saving the inherited urban structure with the implementation of rehabilitation projects.

The "Montagnards", autochtonous people of the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The term "Montagnards" (Highlanders) describes the ethnic minorities of the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The integration of this region with Vietnam and the vicissitudes of its history have jeopardised the Montagnards' physical and cultural environment. Colonisation, independence wars, internal migrations, and various policies aiming at their assimilation have threatened the survival of these peoples. At the same time, massive spraying of defoliants by the United States Army, the over exploitation of natural resources and agricultural expansion have greatly reduced the surface occupied by the tropical forests and endangered the Montagnards' way of life and their outstanding adaptation to an environment which is both hostile and delicate.

The South-East Asia Crisis : a world wilde's bitter fruit. The economic crisis in Southeast Asia ; the bitter fruit of world-wilde expansion. During the course of the past decade, the countries forming the ASEAN group have had the distinction of being the ones that posted the most rapid economic expansion. Mid-1997, however, the "new economic tigers" were been facing a crisis, and the oft-repeated question at present is wether the ASEAN economic "miracle " is coming to an end ?