Description
Book SynopsisHot Science, High Water explores the work of different generations of Vietnamese scientists as they engage with local and international efforts to conserve nature, address climate change, and carry out scientific research.
Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork in universities, government offices, and foreign embassies, as well as the muddy intertidal zones of coastal Vietnam, the study reveals scientists engaged in a politics of nature that is local and global, contemporary and historical, and natural and social.
More generally, this book is an ethnography of science in a developing country grappling with the local implications of global networks of knowledge production, and shifting trends in international development policy.
Table of ContentsPreface vii Acknowledgements xvii Abbreviations xix 1. Introduction 1 Actor-networks Slippery spaces 2. Science Histories 23 Confucian influences on the 'pacified south' Confucian education in an independent Vietnam Colonial educations Science and higher education in a divided country The Socialist Republic of Vietnam, doi moi and beyond Histories and their contemporaries 3. Science Economies 58 Dr. Ly's gift Unequal equivalencies and shifting power Getting to know a shrimp pond What's in it for me? Cash economies Observing the economy 4. Conserving Science and Composing Nature 83 Experiencing nature at Xuan Thuy National Park Natural and human actors Scientists at work Challenging natures Instability and the movements of birds and trees Normal natures 5. Making Climate Change 123 The Vietnamese climate Crises, curves and prices Climate change science and negotiations Assembling the facts Acting multilocally Performing climate change: A workshop for the National Assembly Tangled actor networks Delivering climate change to local government 6. The Circulations of Climate Change 172 Triggers or rockets? Budget support and climate change The unpredictability of anti-politics machines Back to the future: COP 15 and NTP - RCC Circular ends 7. The Science of Coming Home 187 Young scientists Re-entering Vietnam Dr. Dzung and powerless money Dr. Mai and the economy of success Dr. Phuong and the fading of a promising future Dr. Hang and trials of a straight line Dr. Thao returns home and catches a small case of the flu Scientific returns 8. Conclusion 229 Fighting for nature Means to different ends Theory, economy and history Constructing the social References 241 Index 265
