Events Calendar

18 Oct
Coal, Water, and the Limits of Environmentalism in French colonial Vietnam
Event Type

Lectures, Symposia, Etc.

University Unit
Asian Studies Center
Subscribe
Google Calendar iCal Outlook

Coal, Water, and the Limits of Environmentalism in French colonial Vietnam

This is a past event.

No other industry had more profound impact on the environment and communities of northern Vietnam than coal mining. Since the French discovery of the Quang Yen coal basin in the 1880s, Tonkin, a French protectorate in northern Vietnam, had risen to become one of the world’s largest coal exporters. However, as in many other parts of the world, coal mining also denuded forests, fashioned massive open-pit wastelands, polluted the air and water, and created some of Vietnam’s most troubling and enduring environmental problems. This presentation will explore how the coal mining-driven processes of land acquisition and exploitation not only altered the physical and ethnic landscape of Vietnam but also led to conflicts between big coal companies, the colonial administration and local communities.

Thuy Linh Nguyen is an Associate Professor of History at Mount Saint Mary College, NY. As a historian of modern Vietnam, Dr. Nguyen has published a book Childbirth, Maternity and Medical Pluralism in French Colonial Vietnam (1880-1945) and several articles on the social and cultural history of Vietnam.

Monday, October 18 at 12:00 p.m.

Wesley W. Posvar Hall, 4130
230 S Bouquet St, Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Coal, Water, and the Limits of Environmentalism in French colonial Vietnam

No other industry had more profound impact on the environment and communities of northern Vietnam than coal mining. Since the French discovery of the Quang Yen coal basin in the 1880s, Tonkin, a French protectorate in northern Vietnam, had risen to become one of the world’s largest coal exporters. However, as in many other parts of the world, coal mining also denuded forests, fashioned massive open-pit wastelands, polluted the air and water, and created some of Vietnam’s most troubling and enduring environmental problems. This presentation will explore how the coal mining-driven processes of land acquisition and exploitation not only altered the physical and ethnic landscape of Vietnam but also led to conflicts between big coal companies, the colonial administration and local communities.

Thuy Linh Nguyen is an Associate Professor of History at Mount Saint Mary College, NY. As a historian of modern Vietnam, Dr. Nguyen has published a book Childbirth, Maternity and Medical Pluralism in French Colonial Vietnam (1880-1945) and several articles on the social and cultural history of Vietnam.

Monday, October 18 at 12:00 p.m.

Wesley W. Posvar Hall, 4130
230 S Bouquet St, Pittsburgh, PA 15213

University Unit
Asian Studies Center

Powered by the Localist Community Events Calendar ©