Disposable People as Infrastructure? The Livelihood Trials and Tactics of Three-Wheeler Delivery Drivers on Hanoi’s Streets, Vietnam

Abstract

The Vietnamese state is envisioning Hanoi as a prosperous, ‘civilised’ capital city with fast, ‘modern’ mobilities and their corresponding infrastructures, including expressways and an elevated railway. Concurrently, slower informal paratransit are increasingly discouraged and marginalised, threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of three-wheeler motorbike delivery drivers. Despite official registration as disabled war veterans, ‘real’ three-wheeler drivers find themselves in an ever more conscribed environment, while other drivers attempting to maintain livelihoods in this way are deemed ‘fake’ by officials and further ostracised. Drawing on conceptual debates regarding people as infrastructure and mobility (in)justice, and ethnographic fieldwork with three-wheeler drivers, I detail how drivers (both ‘real’ and ‘fake’) must negotiate inconsistent policies, a growing discourse that they are obsolete and hence disposable, and new infrastructures incompatible with their livelihoods. Combined, these elements create specific mobility experiences and frictions to which drivers react with subtle and inventive tactics to maintain their rights to the city’s streets.

Keywords:

• ‘People as Infrastructure’
• Mobility Justice
• Informal Transport
• Hanoi
• Vietnam

Introduction

In the bustling streets of Hanoi, Vietnam, a resilient figure weaves through the chaotic traffic on his xe thương binh (three-wheeler motorbike). Meet Minh, a 75-year-old delivery driver, whose war-torn past has left him with an amputated foot. Despite the challenges etched in his history, Minh navigates the present with a determined spirit. Each day, Minh ventures into the labyrinth of narrow alleys and crowded streets of his neighbourhood, transporting boxes laden with non-perishable food, household essentials, and hardware supplies for small, family-operated shops. His three-wheeler, adorned with stickers denoting him as a war veteran, is a familiar sight as he manoeuvres skilfully through the frenetic Hanoi traffic. Minh’s relationships with the shopkeepers he serves are more than transactional; they are built on trust and camaraderie. As he picks up and delivers goods, the exchanges are often accompanied by friendly banter and shared laughter. However, Minh must tread cautiously when parking his vehicle, for the local police, indifferent to his war veteran status and proper documentation, may hassle him. The bureaucratic dance and the constant threat of fines add an unwarranted layer of stress to Minh’s already demanding day. Weather is no deterrent for Minh. Whether it’s the relentless rain or the scorching sun, he perseveres through his deliveries. By day’s end, fatigue settles in, evident in his weary eyes and slowed movements. The physical toll is exacerbated by the worsening traffic congestion and air pollution in Hanoi. Minh, who once navigated the streets with ease, now finds himself battling a persistent cough, a stark reminder of the environmental toll on his health. As he heads home, he reflects on another day, feeling the weight of his years. Yet, he remains a resilient presence in the ebb and flow of the city, a testament to the indomitable spirit that propels him forward despite the obstacles that linger from both his personal history and the evolving urban landscape.

Across the Global South, large numbers of city dwellers depend on paratransit services to fulfil their everyday mobility needs and resolve gaps in their local urban infrastructure (Evans, O’Brien, & Ng 2018; Kumar et al. 2016). Often a key element of local informal economies, paratransit is defined as public transportation modes that are typically ‘flexible, demand-driven and unregulated’ (Peters & Bhusal 2020, 160; see also Cervero 1991; Phun, Kato, & Yai 2018).¹ This flexibility arises from schedules, fares, and routes commonly being determined through negotiations between passengers and operators (Evans, O’Brien, & Ng 2018; Ghosh & Kalra 2016), while the services are demand-driven as a response to inadequate or unaffordable government-provided transport services (Cervero 1991; Kumar et al. 2016). These services are also unregulated since governments tend to limit their own involvement to, at most, enforcing vehicle registration, driver’s licenses, and insurance (Kumarage, Bandara, & Munasinghe 2010; Peters & Bhusal 2020). An additional characteristic is that paratransit operators are often low-income, rural-to-urban migrants, with limited levels of formal education or urban-relevant skills, effectively excluding them from formal employment opportunities (Cervero & Golub 2007; Natarajan & Sheik Abdullah 2014; Rahman & Assadekjaman 2013). Such paratransit services range from minibuses and collective taxis, to motorbikes (Turner 2020b), with my focus in this article being three-wheeled vehicles, a form of passenger and cargo transportation found in scores of cities across the Global South.

Ranging from Nigeria’s Keke Napep, to Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia’s tuk tuk, and India’s auto-rickshaws, researchers have focused on both motorised and non-motorised three-wheeled vehicles (Cervero 1991; Peters & Bhusal 2020; Shimazaki & Rahman 1993). Such work has examined the socio-economic factors that have fostered the growth of this informal paratransit sector, including the role three-wheelers play as a tool for urban livelihood diversification and poverty alleviation (see, for example, Rahman and Assadekjaman’s 2013 study on rickshaw pullers in Dhaka City, Bangladesh, and Mukhtar and Danakni’s 2015 findings on Keke Napep drivers in Maiduguri, Nigeria). Researchers also note that three-wheeler paratransit options commonly exist due to their important function filling gaps left by formal transportation infrastructures. Although one could argue that providing access to public transportation falls within the government’s realm of responsibility, many municipalities lack the resources and governance capacities to do so (Cervero & Golub 2007; see also Harding et al. 2016; Melwani et al. 2018). Moreover, in their study of five Indian cities, M. Kumar et al. (2016) found that even in cities with public transport, residents were still dependent on personal and informal modes of transportation given the inadequate and unreliable state of formal systems. Other authors have also highlighted how three-wheelers can play an essential role in providing first and last mile connectivity to more formal transportation options (Chhabra, Chowdhury, & Chowdhury 2020; Natarajan & Sheik Abdullah 2014). Three-wheeler rides and services (such as carrying cargo) are recognised for their affordability, ensuring that low-income individuals and families are able to ‘reach jobs, buy and sell produce, and access medical care’ (Cervero & Golub 2007, 456). Notably, the urban poor frequently grapple with acute problems with transportation systems and face mobility injustices, as governments in developing countries have a tendency to allocate funds towards transportation infrastructure catering to the needs of the privileged minority (Pucher et al. 2005). Paratransit services like those provided by three-wheelers thus provide a crucial role for low-income residents and neighbourhoods that lack other affordable options (Peters & Bhusal 2020).

With this background in mind, I set out to investigate how three-wheeler delivery drivers in Vietnam’s capital city Hanoi maintain access to the city’s streets and provide a much-needed service for a range of residents (Figure 1). Three-wheeler vehicles are favoured by many in Hanoi for their convenience and versatility, particularly for tasks such as delivering small goods, transporting construction materials, and moving house. My aim is to better understand how these three-wheeler drivers make a living in a politically socialist, yet increasingly neo-liberal economic context, where slower, informal livelihoods and paratransit are being increasingly discouraged. This context has been partly shaped by Hanoi’s ‘Master Plan to 2030, with a Vision to 2050’ proposed in 2011, which underscores the Vietnamese state’s campaign to fashion Hanoi into an economic super-hub to rival other capital cities in the region. This vision involves proposals for rapidly ‘modernising’ Hanoi and overhauling the city’s infrastructure. This has resulted in the establishment of numerous mega-infrastructure projects favouring high-speed mobility, such as highways, rapid-bus transit corridors, and an urban railway system (Turner, Nguyen, & Hykes 2023). High-rise residential complexes with tightly monitored outdoor areas have also transformed both the urban transport landscape and public spaces.²

Figure 1. Three-wheeler vehicles waiting for an assignment at one of Hanoi’s busy intersections. Drivers decorate their vehicles to emphasise their disabled veteran status. Source: author.

Hanoi’s three-wheeled delivery drivers, including Minh and his peers, are not part of the Vietnamese state’s discourse advocating for urban spaces and infrastructure to be progressive, systematic, and predictable. These drivers are being increasingly side-lined in the city’s plans, as new infrastructural projects create physical and legal barriers to their mobility. Their position is not helped by Vietnam’s (state-approved) media, which often reports on accidents, pollution, or traffic congestion ‘due to’ three-wheelers (for example, Đỗ Huệ 2016; Vũ Điệp 2013). Such incidents often result in a clamp down by local transport police on three-wheeler drivers, regardless as to who was at fault. Although drivers note a certain rhythm to these tighter enforcement periods (detailed more below), there is a clear tendency for Vietnamese officials and journalists to view slow moving, traditional paratransit vehicles as antithetical to modern transportation systems (cf. Carruthers 2018; Cervero 1991). This is despite the fact that to legally operate as a three-wheeler driver in Hanoi one needs to be officially registered as a disabled war veteran (like Minh, introduced earlier). Despite this state recognition—and one would assume somewhat revered patriotic status—these drivers find themselves in an increasingly conscribed environment. Their livelihoods are made even more challenging by an increasing number of ‘fake’ three-wheeler drivers vying to operate on Hanoi’s streets. Drivers labelled as ‘fake’ often have disabilities or are war veterans; however, they lack the officially recognised status and paperwork that comes with meeting both categories. Thus, as state policies increasingly privilege ‘modern’ mobilities, livelihoods, and infrastructures over so called ‘traditional’ paratransit, and as competition heats up on the city’s streets between disabled veteran and ‘fake’ drivers, I explore the range of tensions emerging and how different three-wheeler drivers are responding.

After briefly detailing my methods next, I outline the conceptual framing for this study, in which I bring together key debates from the ‘people as infrastructure’ and mobility (in)justice literatures. I then assess the different categories of three-wheelers and their history on Hanoi’s streets. I delve into how individual drivers become established, as well as their motivations to adopt this livelihood. I then analyse the benefits and pitfalls that both disabled veteran and ‘fake’ drivers express regarding this livelihood, before moving on to focus on a range of tactics they draw on to remain on the city’s streets. It soon becomes clear that disabled veteran drivers with so-called ‘rights’ to the city are having to overcome a number of mobility injustices to bring home a reasonable income, while ‘fake’ drivers face additional daily tensions and restrictions to their livelihoods.

This work is based on 41 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with drivers of three-wheeled delivery vehicles completed by myself and my Vietnamese research assistant Ngô Thúy Hạnh in 2019 and 2020, with follow up observations in 2023. Thirty drivers were disabled war veterans, one was the son of a war veteran and affected by Agent Orange from birth (deemed an officially recognised driver in the past, but no longer), and ten were what other interviewees and the transport police called ‘fake’ drivers. We interviewed drivers from both groups to gain a better understanding of the potential competition, tensions, and possible alliances between them. Despite our best efforts to track down the sole female three-wheeler driver who other respondents informed us was working in the city, we were unable to find her. Consequently, all our interviewees were men, mirroring the overwhelmingly male composition of the driver community. The average age of driver interviewees (legal and ‘fake’) was 63. Interviews lasted between 25 min to over an hour, sometimes with repeat visits. They usually took place on the side of the road where drivers were waiting for customers, or at a nearby tea stall. Interviews covered themes such as motivations to start and continue to drive, strategies to secure customers and maximise profits, drawbacks of this livelihood, relationships with other three-wheeler drivers, and tactics to avoid police. We also interviewed a garage owner who repaired three-wheelers, and 30 Hanoi residents across socio-economic class regarding their observations and impressions of three-wheeler drivers and their services. I rounded off the study with interviews with six Vietnamese urban planners and relevant academics to gain their impressions of this mode of paratransit and broader changes to Hanoi’s urban form, for a total of 78 interviews. While then conducting thematic analysis for all the interviews, I systematically identified and interpreted recurring patterns within the data, employing a constant comparative approach to refine themes and incorporating axial coding to explore relationships and connections between codes (Saldaña 2021).

Conceptually Focusing on People as Infrastructure and Mobility (In)Justices

In this paper I hope to make an innovative contribution by bridging conceptual insights related to both ‘people as infrastructure’ and mobility (in)justice debates. The growing literature on people as infrastructure can be seen as a response to the call set out by the ‘infrastructural turn’ to shed light on the ‘labor through which infrastructure is produced, maintained, contested, and claimed’ (Addie 2021, 4). Authors are increasingly challenging commonly held notions of infrastructure as neutral, natural, or inevitable (Ferguson 2012; Lemanski 2018). In doing so, they decentre ‘state-centric accounts of service provision that privilege the technological dimensions of infrastructure and presumed universal access to resources’ (Addie 2021, 2). Discussions regarding people as infrastructure therefore extend commonly accepted understandings of infrastructure to include its social, intangible, and embodied dimensions (Addie 2021; Fredericks 2018; Simone 2004). Building upon Abdou Maliq Simone’s (2004) insights, and subsequent developments, this literature sheds light on the ways by which human labour often complements and compensates for failures and absences within formal infrastructural systems or private services. Informal networks thus become essential infrastructures for the delivery, transportation, circulation, and disposal of resources, people, information, and waste (Malasan 2019; Tonkiss 2015). These social assemblages are highly provisional and incremental—adapting and evolving in response to changing needs and emerging gaps (Addie 2021; Silver 2014; Simone 2021). Nonetheless, although people as infrastructure are often essential to the functioning of cities, their value, labour, and presence are largely overlooked in formal planning discourse and practices (Evans, O’Brien, & Ng 2018).

Researchers investigating people as infrastructure have typically focused on Global South cities to better understand the ways by which marginalised communities form networks to substitute for insufficient formal infrastructure (Addie 2021; Fredericks 2018; Simone 2004). An illustrative example is Schwenkel’s (2015) study of residents of a socialist housing block overcoming domestic water supply failures in Vinh, Vietnam. Other studies cover a range of informal services including paratransit systems, waste disposal, street vending, communication networks, and the formation of clandestine energy connections (Evans, O’Brien, & Ng 2018; Fredericks 2018; Malasan 2019; Silver 2014; Zhang 2019). Importantly, such research has rendered visible the role of social collaborations in sustaining the livelihoods of marginalised communities and ensuring the smooth delivery of essential services.

Recent scholarly contributions have connected people as infrastructure debates more closely with another product of the infrastructural turn, the concept of infrastructural violence (Addie 2021; Doherty 2017; Rodgers & O’Neill 2012). Jacob Doherty (2017, 193) has suggested that as people become instrumentalised within infrastructural networks, they become a ‘means to ends’. He introduced the concept of ‘disposable people as infrastructure’ to draw attention to the darker perspectives of how certain people and groups are disproportionately impacted by ‘processes of marginalisation, abjection and disconnection’ (Rodgers & O’Neill 2012, 402). Doherty (2017) argued that boda boda drivers in Kampala are disposable on three levels. First, they are part of the urban surplus labour that is unable to find work within the formal workforce. Second, their bodies are subject to unequally high levels of violence and harm that too often result in their death. Third, seen as a blight on a city’s image, the displacement of this entire industry is easily justified on the grounds of restoring public order. Related to Doherty’s second point is a small but growing corpus of work on ‘bodies as infrastructure’ that stresses how ‘neighborhoods and cities are unequally experienced at the bodily scale’ (Truelove & Ruszczyk 2022, 102492; see also Andueza et al. 2020). For example, Rosalind Fredericks’ (2018, 4) study of household waste politics in Dakar concluded that ‘governing-through-disposability’ necessarily involved devolving ‘infrastructure onto labor’ and placing the ‘burdens of stigma and disease’ onto specific bodies. Indeed, as argued by Amy Zhang (2019, 102) in a study of Guangzhou’s migrant waste workers, it is human bodies and human labour that must ‘bear the burden’ in broken channels of service delivery and circulation.

Other conceptual insights useful for this study come from the mobilities literature. This work provides a critical lens to interrogate the character and importance of different movements and flows, while also focusing on how power and meaning are intertwined with movement, and broader political and sociocultural contexts (Sheller & Urry 2006; Uteng 2009). Yunxian Wang et al. (2013) have emphasised that mobility extends beyond physical movement, being a relational process that is simultaneously spatial, political, social, and cultural. The mobilities paradigm thus focuses ‘not simply on movement per se, but on the power of discourses, practices, and infrastructures of mobility in creating the effects of both movement and stasis, demobilisation and remobilisation, voluntary and involuntary movement’ (Sheller 2018, 11; see also Manderscheid 2009). Fixity, restrictions, and the stationary are thus also important elements within mobility scholarship (Cresswell 2006, 2009; Uteng 2009).

Relatedly, Nancy Cook and David Butz (2016) envision mobility justice as aiming for just and impartial access to motility (the capacity for movement) across society, combined with fair and unbiased processes of policymaking and oversight. Mimi Sheller (2016, 15) adds that while mobility ‘may be considered a universal human right', an ongoing obstacle is that ‘in practice it exists in relation to class, racial, sexual, gendered, and disabling exclusions from public space, from national citizenship, and from the means of mobility at all scales’.

While this is not necessarily surprising, it does point to the urgent need to highlight hidden inequalities in specific times and spaces, while also challenging us to find more equitable ways forward. Non-normative ways of moving around cities, such as three-wheeled paratransit, often disrupt the proposals and ambitions of those in positions of power by not conforming to official discourses of appropriate mobilities. As we will see shortly, this has resulted in three-wheeler drivers being disciplined and policed, furthering mobility injustice (Vukov 2015). A call for mobility justice thus requires us to contest the increasing restrictions often facing such vehicles and services, or find appropriate alternatives.

In the Vietnamese context of a one-party socialist state, I integrate these concepts and debates to focus on how three-wheeler drivers in Hanoi, who are increasingly experiencing constraints to their mobility, are responding, adapting, and possibly resisting. While these drivers might be practising ‘governmobility’, defined by Jørgen Ole Bærenholdt (2013, 29) as ‘a situation where the regulation of mobilities are internalised in people’s mobile practices’, I am also curious as to whether they might be responding to such regulations and expectations in novel and possibly defiant ways.

Three-Wheeler Livelihoods in Hanoi

Getting Established—Historically and Individually

There is no certainty as to when three-wheelers first appeared on Hanoi’s streets, resulting in a variety of origin stories. A few disabled veterans noted that three-wheelers were initially introduced to Vietnam via Ho Chi Minh City during the American war (as interviewees called it, VN: chiến tranh Mỹ).³ These vehicles were often slightly larger than what is now the norm on Hanoi’s streets. However, a 60-year-old disabled veteran strongly disagreed, arguing that the vehicles originally found in the south were formally called ‘lamboro’, were available before the war, and were modelled on the Thai tuk tuk. He believed that the model in the north had been introduced from Russia in the early 1980s. A 64-year-old disabled veteran interviewee added a further twist, being adamant that the first of Hanoi’s three-wheelers arrived from East Germany just after 1975 and were donated to disabled veterans, while two other disabled veterans, 59 and 66 years old, argued that Hanoi drivers themselves had taken the idea direct from the Thai tuk tuk and repurposed it for goods rather than people. Despite these uncertainties regarding their exact origins, interviewees concurred that from the mid-1970s, a significant number of these vehicles were imported from China, while others were homemade or made in small workshops around the city.

To add further complexity, these three-wheelers have a range of commonly used names. They are sometimes called xe thương binh meaning disabled veteran vehicles, while others call them xe lam, from the possible origin of the ‘lambro’ in the south.⁴ They are also sometimes called xe ba bánh (literally ‘vehicle three wheels’). Another term, xe ba gác (gác: to put/convey) was noted to have come from the south, and while still used there and in central Vietnam, it is less commonly heard in Hanoi.⁵

Drivers noted that three-wheelers cost about VND30–50 million (USD1200–2100) to purchase, although the price varied considerably depending on whether the machine was originally imported and then adapted, or custom made in Vietnam, and what additional fittings had been requested. A mechanic added that a team of eight to ten workers could make a three-wheeler in a week. Honda 100 and 110cc motorbike engines were the most popular amongst interviewees, known for being reliable and durable, and easy to find spare parts for. Chinese branded engines were considered inferior, and less economical on fuel. The weight capacity of the three-wheelers varied considerably from 100 to 500 kg, due to the motor and materials the bike was fabricated from, the vehicle’s age, and the ability of the driver. More severely disabled drivers were unable to manage heavy loads and hence tended to have machines built to transport lighter, smaller loads.

Interviewees estimated that there were between about 4000–6000 three-wheelers at work on Hanoi’s streets as of 2019–2020, with my research assistant Hanh and I concluding from our observations that 6000 was probably more realistic. Interviewees’ assessments of how many of these were driven by ‘fake’ drivers varied considerably. The most common response was that about half (approx. 3000) were ‘fake’, although several other drivers estimated that there were more ‘fake’ than disabled veteran drivers. Most drivers added that the proportion of ‘fake’ drivers was rising, since disabled war veterans were growing older and less able to maintain this livelihood. By 2023, from further observations and follow-up discussions with drivers, it appeared that the total number of three-wheelers had risen post-Covid, with interviewees suggesting that the proportion of ‘fake’ drivers was also increasing due to limited alternative informal employment options. There are no clear records of three-wheeler numbers due to the transport police’s lack of continuous registration. While there was a period of approximately ten years in the 1990s–early 2000s when the transport police issued registration cards and number plates for three-wheelers, this has now stopped and drivers can no longer register their vehicles. Their right to drive on the city’s streets has thus reverted to having a driver’s licence and a disabled veteran’s card and, for ‘fake’ drivers, the ‘goodwill’ of the transport police (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. A thương binh disabled veteran’s registration card. The ¾–41% represents his level of disability as determined by the state. The symbol top left is frequently used by the drivers as a logo on their three-wheelers. Source: author.

To be allowed to formally drive a three-wheeler in Hanoi, drivers must have official documentation proving their status as a disabled war veteran or having sustained a disability directly linked to a war. This criterion can relate to any war, with most drivers we interviewed being disabled veterans of the Vietnamese invasion and occupation of Kampuchea/Cambodia (December 1978–September 1989), or the Sino-Vietnamese war (February–March 1979). More specifically, these disabilities are categorised into two groups. Thương binh drivers sustained physical injuries during a war and are subject to four categorisations according to the severity of disability, while bệnh binh drivers suffered from the result of disease (Agent Orange, dengue, etc.) during the war.⁶ However, war veterans with no officially recognised disability or impact from disease were not officially permitted to drive three-wheelers, leading to their classification as ‘fake’ drivers by both disabled veterans and the transport police. Other ‘fake’ drivers included the sons or relatives of disabled veterans, those with disabilities not stemming from a war,⁷ as well as physically fit individuals wanting to rely on this form of employment. One notable case was a 66-year-old driver with enduring disabilities resulting from his mother’s exposure to Agent Orange during the American war. Despite previous official permission to drive a three-wheeler, he was no longer considered a ‘real’ driver by the transport police, which upset him greatly.

Transport police who regularly work in a certain neighbourhood soon become familiar with those drivers who are disabled veterans and those who are ‘fake’. This means that in their local neighbourhoods, disabled veteran drivers seldom have interactions with police, while ‘fake’ drives are either frequently stopped for bribes or pay police a monthly ‘fee’. However, when both groups of drivers are working outside their usual neighbourhood, transport police have no way to determine whether or not a driver is ‘fake’ without stopping them (unless the driver is obviously too young to have served in one of the wars). This ambiguity leads to both groups often being stopped by police to verify their documents, causing widespread frustration as detailed further below.

Livelihood Benefits and Pitfalls

While wages vary enormously in the city, the monthly average income of formal workers in Hanoi is said to be about USD300 (cf. USD260 in rural areas) (Vietnamplus 2023). The three-wheeler drivers could match this urban average income if they worked every day (which many did). Over half the drivers noted that they had long-term customers, often owners of small enterprises, who called the drivers by phone to pick up goods to be delivered. This did not mean that orders were regular, however. Three-wheeler vehicles were also often used for people renovating or moving house, since they can fit down the city’s narrow and winding alleyways. A 68-year-old disabled veteran explained: ‘When people need to have some bricks or other construction materials delivered in a small alley, a truck can’t get in, and a porter is more expensive, so they prefer our three-wheeler. We help them save money’.

The drivers gave five main reasons as to why they undertook this livelihood (some providing more than one). The most common was that they were old, and in the case of ‘real drivers’ they detailed having one or more disability and being physically unable to do many other jobs. A 64-year-old driver explained:

I’m a veteran. After the war in Cambodia I came back to Hanoi. To earn a living, healthy, normal people can work as a xe ôm driver [motorbike taxi driver] or another job, but I only have one leg left. I can’t do anything else, so I had to buy a three-wheeler to earn a living for my family.

Second, many noted that they had joined the army at a young age and had been unable to continue with their formal education, leaving them with few other opportunities in the city. A 71-year-old disabled veteran noted: ‘I was in the middle of 7th grade [13–14 years old] when I left for the battle in 1967’. Others remarked that they had migrated to Hanoi to pursue this livelihood due to limited opportunities in their rural village. Similarly, some rural migrants took up driving as a form of livelihood diversification because their household’s farming was insufficient to support their family’s needs.⁸ A few drivers had lost their previous job because of budget cuts at their former place of employment or due to health reasons, and had started to drive a three-wheeler as an alternative livelihood. Finally, some took up this occupation because their pension was inadequate to support themselves and their family. In the case of a disabled veteran pension, the value is related to the degree to which the individual is categorised as disabled, calculated as a percentage of their health lost. One 60-year-old disabled veteran explained:

Sure, I’ve got a veteran’s card but my support is only 21 per cent so the state support is very low, under VND1 million [∼USD42] a month. That’s all I have! It’s not enough for my family to live so I have to work this job. (see Figure 2)

All drivers noted that they used their income for daily necessities and to fund special events such as weddings, funerals, and festivals. If they had children or grandchildren (which most did), they also saved what they could to help pay for school or university fees. Disabled veterans added that they often had large medical expenses, explaining that while some medical services were covered by the government due to their veteran status, many were not or, if provided, were of such poor quality that they needed to pay for better quality drugs, equipment, or services.

While the drivers were fairly pragmatic about why they needed to undertake this livelihood, they were also fairly positive about the benefits that it brought them, given their circumstances. As one 68-year-old disabled veteran said with a smile:

I like this job as it makes me happier. If I don’t work, I stay at home all day with my wife and it’s very boring. Now I can travel and work all day and go home in the evening, so it’s much better.

Drivers noted that they appreciated the flexibility of this employment, as they were able to choose their work schedules, including what days they worked and for how many hours. A few also mentioned that they liked being able to return home for lunch and rest during the day. Many added that, in comparison, other non-skilled jobs such as being a security guard provided far less flexibility.⁹ Interviewees also highlighted that they could easily take time off when sick, to attend a special event in the family or home village, or to take care of a family member. In this way, the conceptual idea of people as infrastructure can be extended beyond the public realm to the private, familial expectations of services that certain family members provide. These obligations to attend family events (and offer financial contributions for them) are very noticeable in a Confucian-based society such as Vietnam, where family bonds and ties to one’s homeland can be argued to often be stronger than in the West.

Nonetheless, the drivers also raised a number of pitfalls about their livelihood, revealing the degree and forms of infrastructural violence that drivers must negotiate as they become a means to an end for urban transportation services to continue smoothly. Three of these pitfalls were mentioned by both disabled veteran and ‘fake’ drivers. These included the irregularity of gaining customers, with many likening their work to ‘going fishing’ (đi làm thế này như đi câu). One 51-year-old disabled veteran explained:

This work is like going fishing. In the morning I might be able to catch fish and earn some cash, but in the afternoon I can’t fish at all [have no work]. Some days we have no fish, we must just accept it, but it’s not easy.

These unstable incomes worried drivers since they still had regular expenses to cover, while a 60-year-old driver stressed the negative emotions this irregularity raised:

I can’t tell you how much on average that I earn per week. It’s an unstable job. This week, I haven’t earned anything. Like today, it’s noon and very hot, but my phone hasn’t rung at all. At lunch time I have to report to my wife that today I have no money; I feel so bad.

Second, over three-quarters of the drivers highlighted the harsh weather and elevated pollution levels they had to work in. This included a 60-year-old disabled veteran who lamented: ‘It’s hard work, we must face both rain and sun, it’s not easy at all’. More specifically, another disabled veteran, aged 60, related the weather conditions to his ailing health:

My concern is if it’s raining or too hot. My health isn’t good so I can’t work on those days. If there’s storms or lots of rain, I become ill quickly so I have to take the day off. If it’s too hot, I can’t work, and I’m afraid of being sick so I stay home to avoid the heat.

Pollution levels in Hanoi are often amongst the worst in the region (Minh Nga 2023).¹⁰ Drivers were well aware of the poor air quality, but tended to shrug their shoulders and note that there was nothing they could do.

Third, drivers were concerned about the state of the city’s roads with regard to both increasing traffic congestion and increasing limitations on where they could drive. A 69-year-old driver explained:

It’s stressful when we’re on the road as there are so many traffic jams now. It’s quite dangerous as well when we have full goods loaded on the bike, but if I can’t work in this job, I can’t find another one.

These reflections directly relate to Doherty’s (2017) notion of ‘disposable people as infrastructure’, with these work conditions unevenly exposing three-wheeler drivers to possible harm and injury. In addition, three-wheelers are banned from several new expressways around the city, creating longer detours and delivery times for drivers than in the past. These restrictions add to the infrastructural violence that these drivers face as they must contend with official interpretations of what a city should be like and what forms of transportation are valued.

Another pitfall that stood out due to its sudden and severe economic impacts for drivers was the livelihood and mobility frictions caused by transport police, who are notoriously corrupt in Vietnam. It is a well-known secret that many police—without family connections within the organisation—give a large ‘brown envelope’ to gain their jobs, sometimes up to USD6000, and that the next years are spent finding ways to recoup this cost. Thus, the smallest of traffic violations can result in a stiff ‘fine’. While searching for ‘fake’ drivers, transport police will stop both groups and ask for ID papers, with a 60-year-old disabled veteran driver explaining: ‘The police don’t only target fake veteran as they don’t know who is who, they just randomly check or stop any three-wheeler drivers to ask for the veteran card’. If a disabled veteran has forgotten his card that day, then he is also easily targeted. As a 66-year-old disabled veteran sadly noted: ‘That the job improves my life a lot is what I like the best, but I don’t like it when the police crush us on the roads’. Mobility injustices are thus highly fluid, precariously related to social relations and often due to ‘being in the wrong place at the wrong time’.

Moreover, interviewees noted that transport police had introduced specific campaigns targeting their vehicles in the past, with these campaigns tending to occur in ebbs and flows.¹¹ These campaigns often begin due to a highly publicised accident for which a three-wheeler driver is blamed. Many drivers remembered such crackdowns on drivers in 2016 and 2017 when they were ordered off the city’s streets. In June 2017 the police reportedly seized 102 three-wheelers from ‘fake’ drivers and handed out fines for using prohibited roads or transporting goods in a dangerous manner (Pháp Luật Plus 2017). Another trigger for these campaigns was negative media publicity regarding dangerous loads that a three-wheeler is documented carrying, while some disabled veteran drivers noted that the behaviour of ‘fake’ three-wheeler drivers had caused transport police crackdowns. A 60-year-old mechanic repairing three-wheelers made the same observation:

The government bans a lot because so many normal [non-disabled] people drive the [three-wheeler] bikes for work. Some youngsters driving carelessly cause accidents so the police ban the disabled drivers as well, who don’t have [another] job and are poor.

Both disabled veterans and ‘fake’ drivers noted that these campaigns tended to last one to two months and then restrictions were relaxed again. This led to endless confusion, with transport police able to use this to their advantage to quickly enforce a specific regulation if they needed ‘money for the weekend’, as one driver put it bluntly. Not surprisingly, neither disabled veterans nor ‘fake’ drivers were fans of the transport police and a number commented on the latter’s actions with contempt. One driver explained:

We’re all getting old and we all contributed our blood and youth to protect this country before. So if the authorities care about us, let us work. Don’t ban us or make some unreasonable regulations; let us live. We must protest and raise our voice to different relevant officers because mostly the three-wheeler drivers are disabled veterans.

While this 60-year-old veteran driver was not disabled, he still felt strongly about the plight of others who were disabled, as well as arguing that all veteran drivers should be permitted to undertake this work.

Livelihood Tactics

Susan Leigh Star (1999) emphasises that infrastructures extend beyond physical structures and technological networks; they are learned procedures or configurations that delineate belonging to a specific community of practice (see also Schwenkel 2015). Despite differences in livelihood tactics between ‘fake’ and ‘real’ drivers, as analysed below, drivers collectively constituted a community of practice united by their shared goal of remaining active on the city’s streets. While not targeted by the transport police as often as ‘fake’ drivers due to their disabled veteran status, ‘real drivers’ still did what they could to reduce possible frictions with police and maintain their livelihoods. This included avoiding attracting unwanted attention from the police, with a number making sure to park and wait with their vehicles only in permitted areas. Other approaches included stopping at red traffic lights (usually fairly negotiable in Hanoi) and avoiding speeding. Most also avoided driving on banned roads and highways or driving the wrong way on one-way roads—again, fairly common, especially among motorbike drivers. Some also shunned transporting bulky goods during rush hours to prevent possible accidents and did their best not to block traffic. Although driving with large loads, or long trailing goods such as pipes or wires, is technically illegal in Vietnam, it is fairly common. While drivers preferred not to transport such goods, they sometimes made an exception for a loyal customer or a large order. In these cases, drivers modified their spatial practices and re-routed to avoid police as best they could. If police told disabled veteran drivers to move on from a specific, popular waiting spot, drivers would assent but then return when they knew the police had left, such as after 5pm or at weekends. Highlighting the social networks that drivers often relied upon to maintain a regular waiting place, a 58-year-old disabled veteran added: ‘The ward police don’t say anything to me unless their boss is with them. Then they come by and ask me to park elsewhere. I go away to avoid their boss and then come back’.

For ‘fake’ drivers, the danger of being stopped by transport police was far higher and the possible bribes or fines stiffer. ‘Fake’ drivers hence drew on additional tactics to overcome these frictions. To avoid particular police roadblocks or ‘high police areas’, ‘fake’ drivers who regularly waited in groups (for example, at markets or busy intersections) advised their driver friends of the presence of police along the routes they had just travelled, while all drivers knew of, and avoided, the usual locales where police were stationed. A few ‘fake’ drivers also noted that they only waited and worked in an area where the transport police knew them already and were sympathetic to their situation, and hence did not issue fines or expect bribes. In such cases, drivers built on specific social capital ties to maintain their livelihoods. Others worked to develop a relationship with local transport police, often resulting in them paying a monthly ‘fee’ to have a place to wait for customers and be left alone by police. While ‘fake’ drivers explained these tactics to us, this 67-year-old disabled veteran summed them up clearly:

Yes, when I travel on the road, I can see some fake veterans stopped by the police. If their vehicles are too old and unsafe for working, then they’re confiscated. But if the vehicles are new and good, then the fake veteran and police ‘negotiate’ with each other—làm luật [making law]—it means a bribe, money under the table. Both sides benefit. When they are sitting drinking tea together, they’re talking about ‘living with each other’.

Another tactic involved avoiding entire city wards or districts where the police were known to be more strict. A 51-year-old ‘fake’ driver explained: ‘If we’re “talented” we can avoid the police, if not, we get fined. Each fine is different, the maximum is VND5–7 million [∼USD210–295]. Some police are terrible, really horrible’.

Perhaps the most innovative tactic that some ‘fake’ drivers utilised to maintain their livelihoods was to hire a disabled war veteran to sit beside them on their three-wheeler. A 68-year-old disabled war veteran explained: ‘Some of the fake drivers around here hire or work with a real veteran on the same bike so that the real disabled veteran becomes a “protector” for the fake driver’. An enterprising group of ‘fake drivers’ had grouped together to hire one disabled veteran, an alcoholic, with each paying him VND50,000 (∼USD2) a day. The drivers explained that if they were stopped by police, the veteran would tell the police that he was drunk, unable to drive that day, and hence his ‘nephew’ was driving for him. Disabled veteran drivers were more sympathetic to ‘fake’ drivers employing disabled veterans than ‘fake drivers’ using other approaches like paying bribes. The disabled veterans recognised that this tactic allowed another veteran—but one either too severely disabled or incapacitated to drive, or without the financial capital to purchase a three-wheeler—to at least gain some income as a ‘protector’.

If stopped by police, drivers—both ‘real’ and ‘fake’—were not shy to voice their disdain and give the police a ‘run for their money’. Disabled veteran drivers were seldom fined, however, and would be let go with a warning unless they had forgotten their disabled veteran card or had committed an obvious offence. ‘Fake’ drivers who were veterans but without a disability, and hence without the appropriate official papers, often tried to negotiate with police for a lighter fee or bribe. They would highlight that as war veterans their sacrifices for the country had been great and that the police had no idea what real work and sacrifice meant. Drivers noted that they had more courage to make these accusations when they grouped together, and this was one reason they often waited for customers in groups instead of waiting alone. Like Doherty (2017) found among boda boda drivers in Kampala, Hanoi’s three-wheeler drivers draw on ‘powerful forms of solidarity that interrupt facile attempts to cast them as a disorderly nuisance’. One key informant added that: ‘the veteran can make things “dirty” [difficult] at the police station as he considers himself a hero who sacrificed a large part of his blood and bones for the peace of the country’.

With regard to periodic campaigns to crack down on three-wheeler road usage, a 58-year-old veteran without a disability card (hence working illegally) explained: ‘We must avoid the transport police more when there is some order from the government or police bosses to catch three-wheelers, then we must listen to the radio and know and avoid them even more’. Both disabled veterans and ‘fake’ drivers were vocal in their anger over such campaigns and at reports of upcoming bans. For example, in 2018, it was reported that all ‘homemade’ three-wheeler vehicles would be banned by the Hanoi Department of Transportation, leading drivers to organise open protests, a fairly rare sight in socialist Vietnam. Interestingly, in the wake of these protests and growing public sympathy for the disabled veterans, officials backed down, explaining that only a ‘review’ of numbers would be carried out (Công An Nhân Dân 2018). The uneasy tensions between officials and drivers have continued since then.

Disposable Three-Wheeler Drivers as Infrastructure, or Resilient Livelihoods?

Revisiting Doherty’s (2017) exploration of the boda boda industry in Kampala, and his concept of ‘disposable people as infrastructure’, sheds light on the specific ways by which three-wheeler delivery drivers in Hanoi, when viewed as ‘people as infrastructure’, experience the effects of ‘processes of marginalization, abjection, and disconnection’ (Rodgers & O’Neill 2012, 402). Doherty (2017) argued that boda boda drivers are disposable on three levels, and I would argue that Hanoi’s three-wheeler drivers are similarly rendered as disposable people as infrastructure. Yet to these three levels of disposability I would add a fourth, namely how three-wheelers can also be considered as disposable due to cultural perceptions.

Starting with Doherty’s (2017) three levels of disposability, there are numerous ways by which Hanoi’s three-wheeler drivers fit his first classification regarding urban surplus labour. Many drivers ceased their formal education at a young age to serve in the military, and hence lack the skills required for modern, formal employment. Drivers noted that the disabled veteran pension is far too meagre to support their families, compelling them to take on such a livelihood.¹² Some drivers added that this minimal financial support meant that they had to continue to drive well into their seventies to make ends meet. Second, while many of Hanoi’s three-wheeler drivers have already been disabled through war, their bodies continue to be subjected to high levels of stress and harm due to the nature of their delivery work. While drivers typically noted that this livelihood was less strenuous than other informal possibilities such as being a porter, they added that driving a three-wheeler required a certain level of strength and endurance in relation to the considerable burdens of perilous traffic, poor weather, and hazardous pollution. The metaphor ‘phơi mặt ngoài đường’ (exposing one’s face to the street/elements) was used by some to reflect these burdens, which seemed particularly fitting. These stresses on drivers’ bodies were intertwined with the mental stress of navigating the city’s traffic and corrupt transport police, reflecting the intimate relationships between bodies, space, and power (Truelove & Ruszczyk 2022).

Third, three-wheeler drivers are being rendered disposable in the discourses of the central state and Hanoi’s municipal government which consider such paratransit as outdated and ‘non-modern’. Crackdowns on three-wheeler livelihoods are readily justified on the grounds of causing accidents, perceived dangerous actions, or the broader belief that they tarnish Hanoi’s image. Three-wheelers might fill an important gap in the city’s infrastructure, allowing residents to transport goods through narrow streets and alleyways, but they also remind officials of state failures to upgrade and remodel the city in an inclusive way. In the state’s quest for modernity, Hanoi’s planning policies and infrastructural projects—including expressways, motorways, and gated communities—have resulted in increased infrastructural violence and mobility injustices for many of these drivers who are increasingly marginalised within the urban fabric. Adding to stresses on their physical and mental health, drivers must also navigate fluctuating policies and their implementation, and negative media coverage.

Fourth, I propose the inclusion of cultural nuance in conceptual discussions surrounding ‘disposable people as infrastructure’. In the Hanoi context, declining interest in war events and sacrifices, particularly those related to the American war, are also rendering these drivers (‘real’ or ‘fake’) and their livelihoods as increasingly disposable. Over 70.4 per cent of Vietnam’s current population was born after the war, aged under 45 years at the time of the 2019 census (Vietnam General Statistics Office 2020). Many of the residents I interviewed, particularly those under 45, exhibited a lack of engagement or indifference towards the American war, with comments such as ‘sure, my grandparents talk about that, but I don’t enter those conversations, and I really like American culture’ (26-year-old male student; see also media reports such as Rosen 2015; Meyers 2017). Another resident noted, ‘we’re far more worried about China than the US now, so we don’t really reflect on the American war any more’ (48-year-old female NGO worker). Not surprisingly, and as reflected in some of the drivers’ quotes above, three-wheeler drivers voiced concerns about the diminishing recognition of their war contributions and sacrifices. They were apprehensive that if society ‘moved on’ too fast, this pursuit of modernity could affect their rights to pursue a three-wheeled livelihood, making their war-veteran identities outdated and, in essence, disposable.

Yet, three-wheeler vehicles remain a convenient and preferred paratransit service for the delivery of small goods and for moving house where navigation of the city’s twisting alleyways is required. In this way, three-wheeler drivers as infrastructure ‘are at least as resilient and usually more adaptive than official and technical networks, and often barely more visible’ (Tonkiss 2015, 388). Focusing on three-wheeler drivers as infrastructure helps highlight the everyday tactics and survival mechanisms drivers draw upon and the roles of social networking and ties in both ensuring the continuing delivery of much needed services, and the durability of these livelihoods. Indeed, driving these vehicles continues to create important livelihood opportunities for both disabled veterans and others who turn to this mode of paratransit, such as those with disabilities, or non-disabled veterans. Three-wheelers thus support a number of Hanoi’s residents and their families ‘to have economic resilience and life opportunities in cities’ (Truelove & Ruszczyk 2022, 102492).

As drivers continue to relate to and navigate numerous frictions on the city’s streets, their actions craft specific infrastructural lives. These infrastructural lives include a certain level of solidarity among drivers in the face of ongoing political ambivalence and increasing citizen disinterest. Yet, as this socialist state races to embrace a certain take on modernity, this research shows that three-wheeler drivers—by carefully modifying spatial routines, building upon social capital and networks, and negotiating power relations with individual police officers—continue to defend their access to public spaces and their livelihoods as they strive for mobility justice. What the future will bring, given the number of important mobility and livelihood frictions these drivers face, remains to be seen.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Ngô Thúy Hạnh for her meticulous and enthusiastic research assistance in Hanoi, and express my sincere appreciation to all the three-wheeler drivers who were kind enough to discuss their experiences and opinions. Thanks also to research assistants Celia Zuberec and Ammar Adenwala, who helped gather secondary materials for this piece, and to Binh N. Nguyen and Philippe Messier who provided valuable feedback on an earlier draft.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes

1 Informal economies and informal paratransit refer to economic activities that operate outside formal regulatory frameworks, usually lacking official oversight, formal contracts, and adherence to legal labour standards (Turner 2020a).

2 These state-sponsored or approved projects resonate with Christina Schwenkel’s (2015) discussion of ‘spectacular infrastructure’ in Vietnam. Drawing on the example of the Nhật Tân bridge, an elegant cable-stayed bridge over the Red River in Hanoi, inaugurated in 2015, she notes how such ‘grand forms of spectacular postsocialist infrastructure, funded by new aid partners (most often overseas development assistance, or ODA, from Japan), aspire to expand, rather than eliminate, a market economy’ (Schwenkel 2015, 524; see also Carruthers 2018).

3 For the Vietnamese this lasted from November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975, despite overseas military and intelligence involvement being shorter.

4 The term xe lam combines xe meaning vehicle, and lam most likely from Lambro, a series of three-wheeler vehicles produced by the Italian firm Lambretta in the 1960s (https://www.lambretta.com/project_category/three-wheelers/). Interestingly a company near HCMC now sells reconditioned Lambro series three-wheeler vehicles but notes that these are for marketing, coffee carts, or use at private events such as weddings, and are banned from circulation (https://lambrovietnam.com/2020/11/15/5-dong-xe-lam-co-thiet-ke-doc-quyen-tai-lambrovietnam/).

5 One interviewee thought that this term originated from the French les bagages, which had been shortened and reworked through transliteration to become ba gác.

6 To gain Bệnh binh status, an individual needs to be categorised as having been impacted by disease to a degree of 61 per cent or more, with the disease contracted while the individual was performing urgent and dangerous tasks. Individuals with this status are not eligible for war pensions.

7 Interviewees did note that transport police tended to be lenient on non-veteran drivers with disabilities if they could show a disability card from the Department of Labour and Social Invalid Affairs that was registered where they lived.

8 Out of the 41 drivers, 23 were born in Hanoi, while the remainder were rural-to-urban migrants from nearby provinces. Despite potential variations in police responses based on migrant status, we found that the presence or absence of paperwork demonstrating disabled veteran status played a far more important role during encounters with police or other officials. This stands in contrast to the experiences of street vendors, where migrant versus Hanoi-born status was a more salient factor (Turner & Schoenberger 2012). Nonetheless, migrant drivers did face instances of discrimination. Due to space limitations, the finer details of their everyday experiences are the focus of another paper currently in preparation.

9 Security guards at small businesses in Vietnam tend to be older, unarmed men. They are commonly employed to watch over stock deliveries, manage motorbike parking or other uses of the premises, and check visitors’ purposes.

10 The Air Quality Index (AQI) system, which reports on the severity of air quality levels frequently places Hanoi in the ‘unhealthy’ (151–200) or ‘very unhealthy’ (201–300) ranges, on a scale of 0–500, and Hanoi had the second worst air quality in Southeast Asia during 2022 (Minh Nga 2023).

11 This mirrors other policies in the city regarding public space use. For instance a pro-pedestrian ‘Clean up the Sidewalk’ campaign was initiated in 2017 to clear sidewalks of motorbike parking, encroaching shop merchandise, and street vendor stalls. This campaign was then relaunched in March 2023 with crackdowns starting again, while enforcement in the intervening years was highly erratic (Vo Hai 2023). For more on erratic policing of itinerant street vendors see Turner and Schoenberger (2012) and Turner, Zuberec, and Pham (2021).

12 It should be noted that an individual has to serve in the military in a formal position for five years to be eligible for a pension, hence soldiers serving for any shorter time, or volunteers, are ineligible.