The changing nature of rural–urban migration, in the context of transition economies of East and Southeast Asia, is usually interpreted as an outcome of structural transformation, while the longue durée of these migration flows tends to be neglected. Adopting a historical perspective, supported by the ’migration as resistance’ approach, this paper examines the changes in rural–urban migration dynamics in Vietnam from the 1950s to 2010 in relation to the country’s political and economic reforms (пi M¿i). Drawing on a case study of female migration between Phu Khe and Hanoi, it analyses how migrants resist and undermine state control over population mobility in order to pursue their movement and migration, and how they develop their migration networks over time. By doing so, the paper highlights a gradual process of the changing nature of rural–urban migration in which migrants themselves, through their resistance to governance of mobility and their establishment of migration networks prior to пi M¿i, play an important role.