Fish for Transparency: Challenges of Environmental Governance from the Perspective of Food-Driven Protests

Quoc, Thai Nguyen Van; Trell, Elen‐Maarja; Holzhacker, Ronald

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-59054-3_12

Cited by 2 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Between April and June 2016, protests and rallies took place not only in the directly affected provinces, but also in Hanoi and Hochiminh City, two most populous cities of Vietnam (Vice News, 2016). During this time, while official numbers were not recorded, eight 'waves' of protests (comprising a number of smaller protests whose quantity we unfortunately cannot verify within this research) could be distinguished in relation to the coastal pollution (Nguyen Van Quoc et al, 2020) 1 . These protests were met with the state’s oppression, including police brutality against activists, and reported harsh sentencing imposed on activists (Phuong, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 73%

“I choose fish”: Understanding informal civil society in Vietnam through environmental grievances and actions

Quoc

Trell

2022

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper focuses on informal civil society in an authoritarian context, particularly the unprecedented nation-wide protests and civic action in Vietnam, triggered by the industrial pollution and the resulting mass fish death on the central coast in 2016. We explore civil society actors' motivations and tactics to take action under political restrictions. Data was collected from semi-structured interviews with civil society actors. The findings illustrate how informal civil society in Vietnam is built on independent or partly NGO-affiliated individuals working together to promote non-violent change, although the process of doing so might involve challenging the government apparatus. The activists were motivated to take action by the dead fish’ symbolism of endangered livelihood, environmental protection, and to demand transparency from the government. Critical factors further contributing to the mobilisation of citizens included the combination of food symbolism and anti-China nationalism, the tactical use of Facebook by urban activists, and religious leadership in the rural areas. The protests resulting from the coastal pollution can be seen as boundary-spanning events through which Vietnamese civil society actors ‘invent’ spaces of (political) participation amidst limited ‘invited’ space.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 73%

“I choose fish”: Understanding informal civil society in Vietnam through environmental grievances and actions

Quoc

Trell

2022

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For the locals of Mekong Delta whose livelihood is dependent on agriculture and fisheries, the increasingly harsh and unpredictable climate, exemplified by the drought, has become detrimental to not only their earning but also domestic stability and life quality (Betcherman et al, 2019; Koubi et al, 2016). Thus, the Mekong Delta has been the focus of both local and national governments, with a variety of mitigation and adaptation measures discussed and implemented (Poelma et al, 2021). Environmental degradation in the region has also received ample attention from local and international NGOs, most likely due to its many implications for current and future development of not only the delta but also Vietnam.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The activism was constantly challenged by interventions from the government, namely cracking down on protests, portraying protestors negatively through state news, monitoring social media contents from 'key opinion leaders', as mentioned by interviewees, and maintaining a strict narrative of 'experts know best' (Nguyen Van Quoc et al, 2020b). These restrictions did deter participation in the protests.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nationalism is a multi-faceted phenomenon; still, culture plays an undeniably critical role in its formation (Leerssen, 2006). The critical role of fish sauce to the Vietnamese' cultural identity (Avieli, 2011) helped trigger discussion on the marine disaster beyond the polluted-polluter boundary, touching upon issues of food safety and anti-Chinaism on a national scale (Nguyen Van Quoc et al, 2020a). The popularisation of #ichoosefish went beyond culinary preferences to signal an intricate connection between fish as food resource and being a 'nationalistic' Vietnamese (cf.…”

Section: The Imperatives Of Culinary Nationalism and Anti-china Natio...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Activism and non-activism: The politics of claiming environmental justice in Vietnam

Quoc

Turhan

Holzhacker

2022

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper aims to explore how under authoritarian regimes, undergoing reform processes, divergent forms of environmental activism may emerge. Two severe cases of environmental degradation serve as our starting points: the marine disaster in the central coast of Vietnam in 2016 and the Mekong Delta's ongoing environmental degradation. While the former offers a case of rural grievances over mass fish death in Central Vietnam triggering protests on a national scale, the latter presents a continuum of environmental changes leading to serious impacts on deltaic livelihoods, albeit with no observable efforts of activism compared to the situation in other countries along the Mekong Delta. Drawing from in-depth interviews and participant observation with NGO workers in Vietnam who focus on environment and community development, we unravel the conditions, methods and rationalities behind their engagement (or lack thereof) with environmental activism in each case. We argue that the difference between the cases can be explained by tracing the process of politicising environmental grievances, taking into consideration culinary nationalism, anti-China nationalism and political opportunities under authoritarianism. Moving beyond current literature on activism under authoritarian regimes which relies mainly on institutional and/or social network approaches, our analysis helps further shed light on how contemporary environmental activism is mobilised in Vietnam from a geographically and politically grounded as well as culturally embedded position.

show abstract

Fish for Transparency: Challenges of Environmental Governance from the Perspective of Food-Driven Protests

Cited by 2 publications

References 27 publications

“I choose fish”: Understanding informal civil society in Vietnam through environmental grievances and actions

“I choose fish”: Understanding informal civil society in Vietnam through environmental grievances and actions

Activism and non-activism: The politics of claiming environmental justice in Vietnam

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About