Hot Science, High Water: Assembling Nature, Society and Environmental Policy in Contemporary Vietnam by Eren Zink (review)

Vietnam is among the most vulnerable countries to the effects of climate change, based on its predicted land losses from sea-level rise and the population density within these areas. Given the magnitude of this problem, conventional wisdom suggests that a coordinated effort to address this threat to Vietnam’s population and economy is in the best interest of both local and global actors. If the interests of Vietnamese citizens, the national government, and international development practitioners fail to align on this issue, what hope is there for these actors to make inroads on more contentious global issues such as democratization or human rights? Eren Zink’s Hot Science, High Water demonstrates that despite years of sustained international assistance, the politics of climate change in Vietnam are used to reinforce existing political, social, and cultural structures as much as—or perhaps more than—to achieve the objectives needed to address it.

Vietnamese and international actors approach the subject of climate change with divergent perspectives on its causes, impacts, and solutions, despite agreement on the scientific facts that confirm its existence. Zink’s fundamental argument is that scientific work is inseparable from the social, cultural, and historic relationships in which it is embedded. Indeed, these observations can be applied beyond the politics of climate change, as he explores more broadly “what it means to be a scientist and to do science in Vietnam” (p. vii). Zink begins by tracing the history of higher education in Vietnam to demonstrate the roots of pedagogical traditions and hierarchical relationships between educators and students that continue to shape contemporary behaviors. Within this context, he traces the careers of several Vietnamese climate scientists using an ethno-graphic approach that reveals how climate change politics reached the agenda in Vietnam, as well as how externally driven policies to address global warming failed to translate to a new political, cultural, and economic setting. He observes multiple instances in which both Vietnamese officials and donors benefitted from the “slippery spaces” between policy and practice. The concept of slippery spaces—spaces that facilitate collaborations among actors trying to achieve different and sometimes contradictory goals—is central to the observation that the meaning and context of an initiative that originates in one context may be completely different when it arrives at another, such as the local level.

This book demonstrates effectively how historical, cultural, and economic practices are sticky fixtures that will not easily disintegrate as a result of knowledge transfer, technical training, or development aid. Universities, for example, have their own economies, in which grant kickbacks to higher-level administrators and promotions based on kinship ties are a traditional way of conducting business. These common local practices undermine the effectiveness of donor initiatives that are intended to increase capacity-building among a new array of actors or to facilitate innovative research. Anecdotes in the book include a workshop in which the participants were acquaintances of the organizer, who was helping members of his network supplement their formal income through the honoraria offered; research funds that were eaten away by informal costs or corruption; and the recycling of findings or doctoring of project reports to hide these realities from donors. These practices provide a damning account of the disconnect between perceived and actual project accomplishments: donors pride themselves on moving money toward locally owned projects, which reinforce rather than challenge Vietnamese social, cultural, and economic structures.

Zink’s book reveals a high level of familiarity with the personal connections between scientists and their career trajectories that can only be achieved through close, sustained contact. The strength of Zink’s argument is nonetheless based on the anecdotal nature of his ethnographic studies, and personal experiences do not necessarily represent dominant societal trends. Zink devotes one chapter to five personal vignettes of scientists who earned doctorates abroad and struggled to find work upon their return. In each case, the social and professional hierarchies in Vietnam failed to reward their formal training...