Introduction: Environment and Narrative in Vietnam

This essay provides a brief introduction to issues of environment, culture, and narrative in Vietnam as well as a survey of the other essays included in the volume. Environmental challenges in Vietnam have arisen in different ways in the periods of French colonialism, the Vietnam War, the Communist government starting in 1975, and after the Đổi Mới transition to a socialist-oriented market economy in the 1980s. Central issues include the introduction of sometimes inappropriate water management technologies and policies during the colonial period and during the American presence in Vietnam; recurring conflicts between the Kinh majority and a variety of ethnic minorities, especially but not only over swidden agriculture and deforestation; industrialization, urbanization, and population growth; the introduction of capitalist market mechanisms; and climate change. The volume approaches these issues from the perspective of the Environmental Humanities with a focus on narrative. Building on existing research in Vietnam on environmental anthropology, history, literature, and philosophy, the Environmental Humanities, starting in the 2010s, provided a matrix to link this research to humanities-based environmental studies in other parts of the world. Analyzing environmental crises as issues of history, culture, and politics rather than primarily as issues of science and technology, the volume brings the tools of narrative analysis to bear on twentieth- and twenty-first century environmental cultures and imaginations in Vietnam.