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Scholars and policymakers often use their expert knowledge to define the risk that laypeople face. Nonetheless, they have frequently overlooked how laypeople describe and explain the risks they face on a daily basis. Moreover, an emphasis on individualisation and reflexivity in Western societies has led to little understanding of how a non-Western community constructs its shared risk culture and how this culture associates aesthetic reflexivity and risk epistemologies. The purpose of this research is to fill these gaps by exploring how Vietnamese farmers reflexively define risk in their everyday lives, which in turn informs their risk-taking attitude and action. Drawing on a case study of disaster-prone farmers in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, this research reveals a distinct set of farmers’ risk epistemologies through a process of hermeneutic reflexivity situated in their risk culture and a shared identity. They do not view risk as wholly negative but rather as an opportunity to attain the aim of surviving and profiting. They see cultivating a risky crop as a collective action of risking their lives, sharing with their community both the challenges and the opportunities that risk might offer. My article makes a case for sociological research into non-Western civilizations, where late modernity and reflexivity might not be accompanied by individualisation but rather with collectivism and tradition.

Since Doi Moi (i.e. the Renovation) in 1986, Vietnam has substantially transformed its society from one of the poorest countries into a middle-income country. The socio-economic reforms have led academics to the focus on studying macro problems such as economic reform, weak government, civil society or social inequality. In the mean time, the investigation of micro aspects presented in everyday life has been often neglected. The presentation of everyday life, however, is essential to understand social structure in general. This paper employs the concept of "deference rituals" developed by Erving Goffman to investigate the ways Vietnamese people address others, give them exclamations, and perform salutation rituals in their day-to-day life. By doing so, the paper aims to answer the question that why it is functional for society that those deference rituals are carried out; and what their performance does accomplish for maintenance of social interaction order. The paper finds out that although these small rituals are usually considered as mundane forms, their displays serve to help Vietnamese participants show their respect to and readiness to comply with the wishes of the seniors, ensuring the stability of a hierarchical order.

PurposeThis article examines how farmers' assignment of responsibility for the disaster in late 2015 – early 2016 connects with reflexivity, habitus and local vulnerability.Design/methodology/approachThis article uses semi-structured interviews with 28 disaster-affected households in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta to answer the question.FindingsThis article finds out that Vietnamese farmers actively accepted their responsibility for the disaster. In their explanation, they link their action with the root causes of vulnerability embedded in their socio-cultural traditions and collective identity.Research limitations/implicationsThis article makes a case for the importance of local culture and epistemologies in understanding disaster vulnerability and responsibility attribution.Originality/valueThis article is original in researching Vietnamese farmers' responsibility attribution, their aesthetic reflexivity, collective habitus and the socio-cultural root causes of disaster.