Roles of the Elderly, Village Heads, Patriarchs and Prestigious People in Some Ethnic Groups in Son La Province

Abstract

This article focuses on conceptions of the elderly, village heads, patriarchs and prestigious people and their roles in modern community life. The author points out that these people still play an important role in building new model-based rural communities, especially in implementing democratic regulations at the local level in conjunction with the communal government’s management. Therefore, it will be more effective for the implementation of the lines and policies of the Vietnamese Communist Party and the central government, if the above-mentioned people are distributed throughout the political system at the local level.