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Short abstract:

In Vietnam, diverse fisheries concentrate along interconnected waterways. Exploring how people perceive water as polluted by upstream communities, outshore fishers, or aquaculture farmers, this paper illustrates the entanglement of people and waterways through the movement of pollutants.

Long abstract:

Our study aims to understand the impact of plastics and other environmental pressures on different aquaculture and fishery communities in coastal Vietnam. With diverse fisheries activities concentrated along interconnected waterways, the livelihoods of local communities are intricately tied to water quality. However, increasing industrialisation and intensification of farming and fishing, including the observable “catch fish – dump trash” practice have led to serious environmental pressures and water pollution. Following the Red River and Mekong River to the sea, we explore people’s perceptions about how waterways are troubled and trouble those who depend on them – through the plastics, chemicals, antibiotics, and other organic pollutants they carry. We illustrate the entanglement and dependencies of people, waterways, plants, and animals through the movement of plastics and other pollutants in terms of cycles: the movement cycle from upstream to estuaries and from the ocean back to the coast; the seasonal cycle of wind and rain, summer and winter; the farming and fishing cycle; and the cycle of blame. The paper also shows that even when the ‘water problem’ is tackled through filtration and closed systems of intensive farming, these new water infrastructures are never fully isolated and create new relationships between people and places based on water quality and blame. By unravelling these complex intertwining cycles, the paper offers insights into the intensification and effects of water pollution on coastal people and ecosystems, and into the tensions between linear solutions and the perceptions and experiences of cyclical connections between pollution’s sources and pathways.