Abstract
This paper explores the maintenance of livelihoods under climate, environmental, and economic development pressures, through the case of Thang Binh District in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam. Within widespread recognition of the need to link sustainable livelihoods approaches with climate change adaptation, there is growing awareness of the importance of people-centered approaches which keep the diverse experience, capabilities, and knowledges of the most vulnerable at the heart of sustainable livelihoods thinking. In response, this paper explores the conditions for changes in modes of livelihoods in a case study area where top-down strategies for sustainable livelihoods are met with residents’ diverse experiences of vulnerability, and where climate and environmental changes shape residents’ relations with the landscape. The research is undertaken via interviews with residents, farmers/fishers, and local government officials. Our study finds that whilst government-led initiatives for sustainable livelihoods are welcomed in the locality, inflexible policies can make it challenging for the most vulnerable people to access support. Moreover, residents see the capacity to live with and respond to extreme weather events as a critical component of maintaining a sustainable livelihood. Our findings reinforce international literature, showing that ‘the poor’ are not a homogenous category, and illustrate the importance of attention to the smallest levels of government who are tasked with putting sustainable livelihoods initiatives into practice in relation to people’s daily lives.
Highlights
There is widespread recognition that, with the poorest and most vulnerable people and places being hit first and hardest by climate change, approaches to sustainable livelihoods need to link with climate change adaptation (Clay 2018; Davies et al 2013)
We: (a) clarify challenges for sustainable livelihoods in the case study area; (b) understand top-down and ‘official’ responses to sustainable livelihoods under climate and environmental change in Thang Binh District, and how these are viewed by residents; (c) evaluate less formal community or household strategies towards the maintenance of livelihoods under overarching climate, environmental, and economic development pressures in Thang Binh District
As outlined at the start of the paper, interest in linking sustainable livelihoods with climate change adaptation is tempered by the concern that technocratic and/or systems thinking-driven approaches can flatten the diversity of knowledges, experiences, and, vulnerabilities that exist in a locality
Summary
There is widespread recognition that, with the poorest and most vulnerable people and places being hit first and hardest by climate change, approaches to sustainable livelihoods need to link with climate change adaptation (Clay 2018; Davies et al 2013). Our findings make a contribution to the existing literature on people-centered approaches by highlighting three areas of attention: who within a community is considered ‘vulnerable’ and how are they defined; how people’s own knowledges and experiences of living with climate and environmental change as part of a sustainable livelihood mesh with techno-scientific understandings of risks to livelihoods; and the roles and limitations of the smallest scales of government in putting livelihood transitions and transformations into action. An associated lack of investment in technology and infrastructure compared to the Global North, can lead to a lack of environmental data and skills to address complex socio-environmental issues (Nightingale et al 2019; Shih et al 2020) These concomitant social, economic, and environmental pressures can force decision-makers towards pragmatic shorter-term outcomes which balance climate and socio-economic development imperatives (Sarkki et al 2017). Lu and Lora-Wainwright (2014) explain that sustainable livelihoods are an organising concept for understanding livelihood strategies and outcomes, one which emphasises rural people’s views of their lives and the environment they live in and pays attention to livelihood resources, access to different kinds of capital, and broader institutional factors
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
