Speaker: Emmanuel Pannier, Research Unit “Local Heritage, Environment and Globalization” (PALOC), French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) and National Museum of Natural History (MNHN)

Title: Contingent Adaptation as Everyday Performance: Crafting New Agriculture Practices to Respond to a Historic Flood in Vietnam’s Northern Uplands

Abstract:
Everyday adaptation to environmental stress is a new but still understudied topic of interest in adaptation studies. It allows moving away from the tropism of exceptionality conflated with extreme weather hazards and to reinsert adaptations within the flow of routinized activities. This paper presents findings from an extensive ethnographic study that documents the everyday adaptations that took place after a historic flood in the northern uplands of Vietnam. By examining the transition from subsistence rice cultivation to market-oriented sericulture, this article expands the theoretical framework on everyday adaptation by introducing the concept of “contingent adaptation”. This form of adaptation emphasizes the farmers’ abilities to grasp opportunities, demonstrate flexibility, and leverage improvisational skills to address unpredictable circumstances. It provides a comprehensive understanding of how farmers adapt not only to climate hazards, but also to deal with day-to-day uncertainty, whether they are environmental, climatic, political, economic, or social. Ultimately, we argue that this ability to craft everyday adjustments to navigate uncertainty is an effective mechanism for coping with shifting ecologies.

Bio:
Emmanuel Pannier, anthropologist, is a researcher at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) within the Research Unit “Local Heritage, Environment and Globalization” (IRD & National Museum of Natural History). He lived and worked in Vietnam for 15 years, carrying out fieldwork with rural populations in the Red River delta and the mountainous regions of northern Vietnam. Situated between economic anthropology and development anthropology, his research focuses on non-market transfers, legal pluralism, State-population relationships, and socio-environmental changes. He has recently coordinated a research project on local responses to extreme weather hazards in rural Vietnam.