Youth participation in environmental action in Vietnam: Learning citizenship in liminal spaces

Abstract

Youth participation has become an important element of environmental governance and is also a way that young people learn about the expectations of citizenship. In the global South, young people are confronted with multiple understandings of citizenship as international development organisations may introduce citizenship in a liberal, democratic framing which may differ from national citizenship norms.In Vietnam, state agencies have a history of supporting youth participation linked to nation building and community service. These activities create an imaginary which highlights citizenship as a status and the national scale as being central.More recently, liberalisation policies have opened the door for activities of international organisations which extend imaginaries of citizenship to the global scale and beyond status to a process centred on creating a sense of belonging. Other forms of participation are also flourishing, thanks to the increasing reach of social media. This paper explores how the diversity of this landscape creates liminal spaces of citizenship which young people navigate, working within and between different scales and imaginaries.

Youth participation in village development (Study in Muara Badak Ulu Village, Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan)

“…One of them is by allowing them to participate in village development. Youth participation has become an essential component [26]. It is common knowledge at this point that encouraging youth participation in ongoing development efforts through meaningful activities is one of the most effective ways to include young people in a constructive way [23].…”

Listening to Experiences of Environmental Change in Rural Vietnam: An Intergenerational Approach

“…Furthermore, structures linked to the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), such as the Youth Unions, play a role in environmental protection, through engaging young people in community events such as clean-ups or tree planting. 1 This type of mobilization for community service is characteristic of public participation in Vietnam (Beckwith et al, 2022; Bruun, 2020).…”

“…For example, in the Kinh-majority research site, young people highlighted the role of the Youth Union in organizing environmental actions like tree planting. The Youth Unions are an extension of the Communist Party of Vietnam and generally take their priorities from the central government, although in some cases there is scope for them to identify their own local initiatives, provided these are not political (Beckwith et al, 2022). In the Cham community, mosque leaders were perceived to play an important role in speaking for the community, though interviews did not indicate that they had identified local environmental issues as a priority for action.…”