Call for Papers: Anthropology and environment in contemporary Vietnam

Monday - 24/05/2021 06:03

Rationale

Natural and human-made disasters are extreme manifestations of larger changes in environmental conditions and in the relationship between people and the environment. The impacts of these changes on human life in Vietnam’s mountains, plains, coasts and waterways, and rural and urban areas, are profound and varied. The Government of Vietnam has issued policies and implemented actions to cope with negative impacts of environmental change in general, and disasters in particular. At the same time, local communities and households have also had their own ways of responding to natural and man-made disasters, with resourceful responses to crises such as storms, floods, landslides, scarcity and disease, and to the impacts of industrial, urban, agricultural and hydropower development, to name just a few pressing challenges.

In that context, it is essential to investigate how people and the state in Vietnam think about and respond to change and crisis in their environment. The term environment can encompass social, cultural, technological, institutional, economic and natural settings. Ethnographic analysis of such issues promises new theoretical and empirical insights, especially in the current global, national and local contexts of the Covid-19 pandemic. Anthropologists possess the comparative perspective and methodologies to illuminate the multifaceted experiences and effects of environmental change. Ethnographic analysis can shed light on state policies and practices, while also uncovering diverse modes of coping by individuals, households, communities and ethnic groups to environmental conditions in general, and natural and man-made disasters in particular.

Aims and Themes

The University of Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH) organizes this conference for anthropologists and researchers to share their research findings and discuss relevant issues on the environment in contemporary Vietnam. Drawing on anthropological approaches, each paper should focus on at least one of the topics as follows:

Anthropological perspectives and methods in research on the environment
Situation and multifaceted impacts of environmental change
Environmental policy and government responses to environmental change, natural disasters, and/or man-made disasters
Worldviews and dynamics in the relationship between people and the environment;
Coping methods of households, communities and ethnic groups to environmental change, natural disasters and man-made disasters
Awareness of and response to the Covid-19 pandemic

Date and Venue

Date: 1 day, December 8, 2021
Place: University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU Hanoi, 336 Nguyen Trai, Thanh Xuan district, Hanoi

Format

Vietnamese participants and international researchers who reside in Vietnam at the time of the conference can participate in the conference at the USSH campus or through virtual modes.
International researchers who are not in Vietnam at the time of the conference should participate in the conference virtually without coming to Hanoi.
Language of the conference: English and Vietnamese

Submission Guidelines