The Power of Sustainable Development in Vietnam and beyond

Sustainable development is present everywhere – globally and in Vietnam. The talk departs from a localized experience of how sustainable development as a narrative and practice is and has been used in (re)creating power relations in Vietnam.

It examines how narratives are used to establish environmental rule in the socialist state from different angles – and how practices counteract the narrative notions. The argument then moves beyond the Vietnamese case to question how the tool of sustainable development in shaping power has changed over the last few years in which geopolitics have greatly influenced the sustainability discourse.

Speaker & chair biographies

Dr. Julia Behrens currently works as a Research Analyst for the German Advisory Council on Global Change. She holds a PhD in Southeast Asian Studies from Humboldt University in Berlin and specializes in issues related to sustainability, power, and state–society relations. Throughout her career, she has sought to combine academic research and scientific approaches with real-world policy implications. Now based in Berlin, she has studied and worked in Vietnam, Thailand, and the UK.

Prof. John Sidel is Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, and the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

*Banner photo by Van Space on Unsplash

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