Fishers, Monks and Cadres

This remarkable and timely ethnography explores how fishing communities living on the fringe of the South China Sea in central Vietnam interact with state and religious authorities as well as their farmer neighbors - even while handling new geopolitical challenges. The focus is mainly on marginal people and their navigation between competing forces over the decades of massive change since their incorporation into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1975. The sea, however, plays a major role in this study as does the location: a once-peripheral area now at the center of a global struggle for sovereignty, influence and control in the South China Sea. The coastal fishing communities at the heart of this study are peripheral not so much because of geographical remoteness as their presumed social 'backwardness'; they only partially fit into the social imaginary of Vietnam's territory and nation. The state thus tries to incorporate them through various cultural agendas while religious reformers seek to purify their religious practices. Yet, recently, these communities have also come to be seen as guardians of an ancient fishing culture, important in Vietnam's resistance to Chinese claims over the South China Sea. The fishers have responded to their situation with a blend of conformity, co-option and subtle indiscipline. A complex, triadic relationship is at play here. Within it are various shifting binaries - e.g. secular/religious, fishers/farmers, local ritual/Buddhist doctrine, etc. - and different protagonists (state officials, religious figures, fishermen and -women) who construct, enact, and deconstruct these relations in shifting alliances and changing contexts. Fishers, Monks and Cadres is a significant new work. Its vivid portrait of local beliefs and practices makes a powerful argument for looking beyond monolithic religious traditions. Its triadic analysis and subtle use of binaries offer startlingly fresh ways to view Vietnamese society and local political power. The book demonstrates Vietnam is more than urban and agrarian society in the Red River Basin and Mekong Delta. Finally, the author builds on intensive, long-term research to portray a region at the forefront of geopolitical struggle, offering insights that will be fascinating and revealing to a much broader readership. From the backflap: “As geopolitical tensions rise in and around Vietnam’s Eastern Sea (known elsewhere as the South China Sea), too little is known about the richly variegated and complex social life along Vietnam’s coastline. This detailed and painstakingly researched ethnography from coastal central Vietnam places the disputes over oceanic sovereignty within a longer history of social life in this fascinating but curiously understudied part of Vietnam. Revealing how entangled Vietnamese economic and spiritual life is with the sea, we learn how ritual, religion, economy and politics all course through the heart of changing relations among state and society. Everyday actors navigate the categories of state, society and religion like they sail the seas with the stars; the categories are both fixed and in motion, guiding life at the interface of sea and shore, even as everyday actors constantly shift their position among them.” —Erik Harms, Yale University “Roszko’s excellent analysis of state-society dynamics in contemporary Vietnam reflects her many years of living in, and studying, these communities. Her discoveries about personal, political and religious life are perceptive and fascinating. This book will be a significant contribution to studies of local political power in Vietnam and throws new light on the ways the state and communities have engaged with aspects of the disputes in the South China Sea.” —Bill Hayton, author of The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Modern Asia

Fishers and Territorial Anxieties in China and Vietnam:Narratives of the South China Sea Beyond the Frame of the Nation

In the geopolitical conflict over the South China Sea (SCS), fishers are at the center of Chinese and Vietnamese cartographic imaginations that define the sea as either “Chinese” or “Vietnamese” and hence tied to the disputed territories of the Paracel and Spratly Islands. While their historical presence and customary fishing rights in the SCS have been much publicized in the context of this territorial dispute, the long-standing Cham seafaring trade networks and legacy are ignored by both countries. The ethnic and national categories of Cham, Việt, and Han intersect with occupational categories such as those of fisher, trader, shipbuilder, sailor, and pirate, which in the past represented shifting, relational, and situational activities by the same people. The contemporary use of such professional and national labels produces particular political effects by projecting recent closures and enclosures onto the past, in spite of the common historical, cultural, and ethnic flows that always existed in the SCS. Rather than aiming to legitimize or delegitimize Vietnam’s or China’s territorial claims to the SCS, this article argues that seafaring narratives should be liberated from abstract, anachronistic discourses of sovereignty, territoriality, and territorial anxieties that separate the interconnected histories of the Cham, Vietnamese, and Chinese

Contested Knowledges of the Commons in Southeast Asia

Environmental questions are at the heart of many development dilemmas in Southeast Asia. New actors and technologies, changing domestic politics, policies, and economies - as well as shifting geopolitical contexts, are remaking nature-society relations in the region. A failure to address transnational environmental challenges could not only undermine ASEAN’s legitimacy but also have drastic consequences for the region’s security and its political and economic stability. In addressing these questions in Work Package 1 (WP1), we are particularly concerned with contested knowledges of “the commons” and competition over resources. We consider the environment as a driver of processes of regional integration, but also of conflicts between various actors in the region. Our research focuses on three environmental contexts namely: sea; rivers; and air. In addressing all three our emphasis is on the transition to a low-carbon economy. The aim of this paper is to present the theoretical framework of our work as well as the three main strands of our research. In the first section, we explain our understanding of the concept of ecological knowledge. This is followed by a presentation of our methodological approaches, while the last section presents the individual research projects in the WP, arranged in three modules.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement N°770562