Paper short abstract:

Understanding of the uses of climate change knowledge in the global South and how trust and authority for knowledge is established in different ways is examined, using a case study of ethnographic work in Vietnam among both climate impacted rural communities and with Vietnamese climate scientists.

Paper long abstract:

This proposed paper contributes to ethnographic understanding of the uses of knowledge in the global South and how trust and authority for knowledge, particularly on climate change, is established in different ways, using a case study of ethnographic work in Vietnam among both climate impacted rural communities and with Vietnamese climate scientists. Vietnam is likely to be one of the most impacted nations in the world from climate change, due to its very long coastline, dependence on agriculture, and relatively low levels of development in rural areas. My research in climate-affected communities in the Red River Delta has revealed strong ambivalence about the degree to which humans can affect climate; many people expressed reservations about man's ability to control or ameliorate climate impacts, often phrased in terms of 'fate' or 'heaven's destiny', a legacy of strong Buddhist and Confucian beliefs. Yet these communities are not 'climate skeptics' per se as they do not actively question the science of anthropogenic climate change; they simply do not know if it is anthropogenic or not, because their experiential knowledge on coping with severe weather appears to be in decline. Ethnographic work with climate scientists and modelers in Vietnam indicates that they are well aware of the need to produce science that is understandable and useable by this confused public. In this paper I interrogate how cultural and social issues affect the perceived authority of scientists' work on climate issues and how scientists and communities together rework and remake climate knowledge in Vietnam.