Lessons from climate-related planned relocations: The case of Vietnam

Planned relocation is increasingly recognized and implemented as a climate change adaptation strategy. Nascent literature on climate-related relocation draws on findings and experience from developmentforced displacement and resettlement (DFDR), yet DFDR contexts lack a key factor central in climate-related relocation: uncertain environmental change. The article therefore examines how planning and implementing authorities address environmental uncertainty and what implications this may have for relocation outcomes. In the case of coastal erosion and related relocation schemes in Central Vietnam, linked to climate change, the article focuses on responsible government institutions. It looks at the governmental practices they employ to manage environmental change and related relocation. Based on field study, in-depth interviews, and document and policy review, the article finds that the subnational institutions responsible for relocation attempted to make environmental change legible through quantifying and standardizing fluctuations in coastal erosion. These technical approaches carried through planning and implementation. They contributed to rigid relocation programmes in which households’ input and adaptive outcomes were limited and other political goals were realized through territorialization. The findings support literature on the highly political nature of adaptation and challenge the prominence of technical approaches to adaptation.