The alternative 'diverse economies' vision of J. K. Gibson-Graham and supporters regarding how people make a living outside the capitalist framework, lists street vendors and informal economies of the global South as potential components. This article critiques the relevance of this vision for street vendor livelihoods in a politically socialist locale, albeit one embracing neo-liberal modernity.

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This article explores the cross-border trading networks and practices of highland residents in north-west Vietnam. It reveals how such individuals, of highland minority and majority Kinh ethnicities, negotiate the political reality of an international border in highly pragmatic ways as they augment their livelihoods by trading commodities with inhabitants in south-west China. We follow four particular commodities, traded across different political tiers of border crossing (each with specific rules, regulations and negotiations), by a diverse range of traders. In doing so we argue that border access is mediated by a complex and multifaceted set of social and structural components including not only state policy, but ethnically-embedded social relations and specific geographic variables that, in turn, are engendering disparate economic opportunities.

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