Ethnic minorities, transnational diasporas and communicative sovereignty: Challenges and opportunities for Vietnam’s development NGOs

Diaspora networks constitute an important resource for ethnic minority groups that seek greater recognition and representation in development and social change. However, for local development NGOs, mobilizing communication for development (C4D) to support these connections is often historically, politically and socially complex. In this article we offer the concept of communicative sovereignty as a C4D framework that local NGOs can use to help ethnic minorities achieve greater recognition and representation. We illustrate the utility of this concept through analysis of the Vietnamese NGO iSEE, which formed the Tien Phong network for the voices of ethnic minority groups, and has carried out various projects to support their efforts. We conclude that despite digital connectivity and extensive social networks, there are often significant communicative and cultural barriers to mobilizing diasporas for development, and addressing these requires historically situated analysis.