Immiserizing growth and the middle-income trap in rural South East Asia: Comparing exclusion and coping mechanisms among farming and fishing communities

South East Asia is generally considered to be a relatively successful part of the Global South, yet wealth distribution remains socially and spatially skewed. This calls for a better understanding of how middle-income countries can improve the quality of economic growth. This article investigates rural inequality through the concepts of the multi-scalar middle-income trap and immiserizing growth. In addition to rural–urban differences there are stark disparities in rural and coastal villages. We compare processes of inequality and exclusion within and between fishing and farming communities in Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Our empirical inquiry focuses on livelihood challenges, inequality, and coping mechanisms based on 438 interviews in four coastal and four inland research sites covering 26 villages. We show that apart from the farming area in Vietnam, the personalized and spatial dimensions of the middle-income trap keep fishers and farmers in vulnerable settings and rural inequality is widening. This is particularly the case among farmers in Indonesia and fishers in Thailand and Vietnam. A chain of events can be identified from exclusion to immiserizing growth to in situ coping (Southern Thailand and Malang) and circular migration (Sukabumi and migrants from Central Vietnam). Our comparative investigation also reveals a substantial degree of resignation: villagers neither expect transformational change nor do they consider permanent outmigration. Based on these results we advocate for a reconceptualization of the middle-income trap and seek a more effective integration of territorial, sectoral, and welfare policies in South East Asia.