Built on Sand: Situating Extractive Economies in the Mekong Delta

Michaela Büsse (bio)

Abstract

This essay discusses the author’s experience doing field work in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, and suggests that the messy entanglements between sand mining, real estate development, and local life afford an analysis that is both situated in and attentive to the global economies of sand. Thinking along the ecological, social, economic, and political dimensions of shifting sands not only challenges systematic analysis; it also affects how we conceive of ourselves as researchers and the responsibility that comes with doing research.

Situating this Contribution

In 2018, I participated in a research residency organized by the Goethe Institute, Museum of Contemporary Arts and Design in Manila, and NTU Centre for Contemporary Arts in Singapore.¹ Titled “Nature and Urbanity: Acts of Life,” the residency explored the entanglements between nature and urbanity. Over the period of one month, split among Manila, Singapore, and numerous field visits, fifteen other residents and I tackled questions such as “What is the impact of technology on the urban and natural environment?” and “How has technological development affected both the visual arts and what it means to be human?” The residency marked my first stay in Southeast Asia and was a crucial experience in the formation of my multi-year research project on the material politics of land reclamation.

Upon arrival in Manila, my theoretically-informed research interests were challenged by my experience of being in this megacity, witnessing its ongoing violent transformation and attuning myself to the material processes on site—specifically, the contested nature of sand mining and trading. The local curator often joked that my systematic mode of thinking, the static camera frames I seem to prefer, and my desire for an orderly everyday life (crossing the street without the feeling of danger, for instance) were “so Western.” She predicted that once we reached our second destination, Singapore, I would feel “at home” again. She was right. I must admit, never did I feel so German (or Western if you will) as during this residency. Escaping the hectic life of Manila and venturing into the manicured island that is Singapore, I felt a relief that was also a revelation. This experience of alienation—observing oneself from the outside, or at least to the extent that this is possible—allowed me to question the assumptions I had not recognized before.

The often alarming situations with which I was confronted while visiting mining and construction sites and talking to people involved in or affected by reclamation processes transformed the abstract concepts of which I was aware before my field trips. This experience was important, but also made me question my role as an observer of and potential intruder into the livelihoods of others. I am deeply grateful for the trust and the openness with which I was welcomed and to everyone who generously shared their stories with me. While these personal encounters have been essential for my research project, I resist portraying individuals and their struggles, focusing instead on the socioeconomic and political processes with which these struggles are entangled.

The fieldwork has taught me many things. First and foremost, it taught me about my responsibility as a researcher not to cement narratives of exploitation and victimhood, thereby denying others agency. While I am not neglecting the power asymmetries at play, or my own privileged position, I choose to highlight those encounters that I perceived as hopeful. In conjunction with dominant global structures of power, other lifeworlds flourish, enabled by them, in resistance against them, or in cooperation with them. In her research on resource extraction, anthropologist Macarena Gómez-Barris notes: “if we only track the purview of power’s destruction and death force, we are forever analytically imprisoned to reproducing a totalizing viewpoint that ignores life that is unbridled and finds forms of resisting and living alternatively” (3). Inspired by what she refers to as a “decolonial queer and femme episteme and methodology” (9), the selected vignette from my fieldwork is an invitation to engage with the ambiguous and situated nature of sand mining and land reclamation in the Mekong Delta.

Thinking with and through Sand

Sand, next to water, is the second most-used resource in the world (Peduzzi). It makes for seventy-nine percent of all aggregates extracted and traded every year, providing the building ground for human infrastructure around the world (Torres et al.). In the form of glass, steel, concrete, and most fundamentally, land, sand is the main ingredient of urbanization. Different kinds of processing result in different kinds of material: coarse sand for construction, medium-sized grains for reclamation, fine-grained sand for building mass. The granular nature of sand enables its smooth processing, whether transported in bags, via trucks, through pipes, or via ships. As a so-called common-pool resource (Torres et al.), sand is considered “free” and thus cheap to extract. Only its procurement and transport produce costs, which is why sand is usually extracted in the vicinity of its processing site (Lamb et al.). Furthermore, sand is constantly moving via the forces of wind and water, making it nearly impossible to quantify and regulate ownership. Mined more than any other material, it is surprising that there are only sparse records of the exact number of aggregates extracted every year. Rapid urbanization, especially in Southeast Asia and Central Asia, and the development of large-scale flood protection infrastructure are projected to lead to a steadily rising demand (Torres et al.).

The huge consumption of sand and its fundamental role in society have only recently gained attention. Numerous journalistic (Beiser) and scientific accounts warn of the “looming tragedy of the sand commons” (Torres et al.) as well as of environmental concerns related to dredging and mining such as pollution, biodiversity degradation, and soil disturbance (Bendixen et al.; Larson), and illicit practices associated with the trading of sand (Magliocca et al.). The reality of sand mining is both dirty and messy. Legal and illegal activity are closely related to national and transnational politics. The exploitation of sand goes hand in hand with exploitative labor and environmental abuse. Furthermore, the creation of artificial land is as much an engineering effort as it is a political project, ensuring progress and economic growth above all. These messy realities often conflate climate change mitigation, real estate development, and speculation and cannot be navigated in any systematic manner.

In the context of this research, sand acts as an “interscalar vehicle” that allows me to make connections between scales of activity that are usually thought of as separate (Hecht). According to anthropologist Gabrielle Hecht, “[w]hat makes something an interscalar vehicle is not its essence but its deployment and uptake, its potential to make political claims, craft social relationships, or simply open our imaginations” (115). Such a nonscalable, partial account attempts to avoid determinism when describing phenomena (Tsing, “Nonscalability”). Instead, the emphasis is placed on situated and nonlinear narratives that traverse historical facts, cultural significance, geological specificity, and economic and political forces alike.

The “global assemblage” (Collier) of sand is constituted by the uneven and at times contradictory forces through which extractive capitalism unfolds and by which it is challenged. Political scientist Stephen Collier writes that “global assemblages are the actual configurations through which global forms of techno-science, economic rationalism, and other expert systems gain significance” (400). They persist across multiple social and cultural settings and transgress dichotomies of local and global. In the introduction to their edited volume on global assemblages, Collier and anthropologist Aihwa Ong point out that the composite concept “suggests inherent tensions: global implies broadly encompassing, seamless, and mobile; assemblage implies heterogeneous, contingent, unstable, partial, and situated” (12). Global assemblages therefore allow us to problematize entangled processes across different scales, bodies, and geographies.

By bringing together Hecht’s material analytics with Ong and Collier’s analysis of the dynamics of global processes, I attempt to provide a perspective attentive to the specificities of place and their role within the economy of sand. Heather Swanson, Anna Tsing, Nils Bubandt, and Elaine Gan write that “somehow, in the midst of ruins, we must maintain enough curiosity to notice the strange and wonderful as well as the terrible and terrifying” (M7), suggesting that an ethnographic attentiveness is required both to challenge extractivism and to cultivate curiosity for the world around us. Emphasizing sand’s shifting state, physically and symbolically, allows us to see dominant structures and alternative openings in conjunction, not as mutually exclusive but entangled.

By visiting mines, reclamation sites, planning departments, and engineering labs, I have gained the important insight that there exists no strict separation between registers of activity. Political ambitions and economic desires often guide extraction and development, but histories, geographies, and material activity pay their respective tolls. This messiness can never be fully captured or represented, but there are ways to engage inherent frictions that resemble stories rather than theories.

Figs 1-2. Aerial view of a dredging site on the Mekong River close to Sa Đéc. Film still, Michaela Büsse and Konstantin Mitrokhov, 2019.

Ends and Beginnings in the Mekong Delta

The Mekong Delta in the South of Vietnam is not only the third largest river delta in the world but also a notorious site for illegal sand mining activities (Jordan et al.; Bravard et al.). A delta is an intertidal zone where a river reaches the sea and therefore salt and freshwater intermingle. It is a highly dynamic environment influenced both by seaborne and landborne processes: changes in sea level and river load, storms, floods, and erosion (Welland 97). Sand in the delta has been mined for centuries and exported to Singapore where it was—and, some claim, still is (Global Witness)—utilized as fill material to extend the city-state’s national territory. Since the early 2000s, stimulated by its economic growth, Vietnam began to invest in its own infrastructural development (Bravard et al.). It does so with the help of Dutch engineers for whom Vietnam, especially the low-lying delta, is a promising overseas market.

The Mekong River originates in Tibet and flows through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia until it eventually enters the ocean in Vietnam. The delta extends over an area of forty thousand kilometers (Biggs and Cronon) where the river branches into several arms crisscrossing the landscape, making it into one of the most fertile grounds in the country but also highly prone to flooding and groundwater salinization. Locals also speak of the Mekong Delta as Nine Dragons (Cửu Long), referring to the number of its entry points into the South China Sea. However, this description fits the morphology of the Mekong Delta of about 1910. Since then, erosion, siltation, and flooding have altered the course of the Mekong and the number of its mouths.

Sand dredging happens all along the Mekong, but the delta sees an especially high number of legal and illegal dredging operations because of its proximity to the sea and thus to the international market (Jordan et al.). While in some parts of the delta sand is being dug away in the secrecy of the night and sold at high prices to middlemen in Singapore (Global Witness), dredging boats operating just a few meters away might supply one of Vietnam’s official reclamation sites, at lower prices but driven by the promise of progress (Bravard et al.). Fueled by these simultaneous processes, the delta is steadily sinking, floods are occurring more frequently and livelihoods of the local communities are endangered. Both Vietnam and neighboring Cambodia officially banned the export of sand in 2009, but illegal trade continues to flourish (Nga; Nguyen and Pearson; Anh). Most of Vietnam’s sand resources have ended up in Singapore (Tuoi Tre News).²

In their 2010 report Shifting Sand, NGO Global Witness revealed the corrupt nature of sand trading between Cambodia and Singapore. They particularly emphasize the mismatch between import and export in both countries, obscuring illegal practices and amounting to many times higher extraction than officially reported. There is no comparable report for Vietnam, but because of its geographical proximity and centuries of reported sand trade with Singapore, it can be assumed that Singapore’s growth had its toll on the delta. In more recent years, high demand for internal development and construction fuels ever more sand extraction (Bravard et al.). As a result of Vietnam’s economic growth, and as a means for further growth, the demand for infrastructure development rises. The resulting ecological and social implications are not to be taken lightly. While it is the specific morphology of the Mekong that accumulates plenty of sand and turns it into a paradise for miners, mining accelerates flooding in the low-lying intertidal zone (Jordan et al.). Intensified human use of the land, that is, the building of bridges, roads, and residential and commercial structures, further restrains the movement of matter. The Mekong Delta is thus steadily sinking while at the same time the sea level is rising. It is projected that the delta will be regularly flooded by 2050 (Kulp and Strauss).

In Cần Thơ alone, a tourist hub in the Mekong Delta, almost twenty thousand people fear displacement because their houses are in danger of collapse (Vietnam News Agency, “Over”). After several years of eroding land, collapsing houses, and forced displacement, the government initiated the development of a warning system based on remote sensing (Vietnam News Agency, “Remote”). Still, repair work is slow, and ironically sandbags are deployed to fortify the riverbank. News reports of the silent disappearance of several strips of land frequently appear in the press (Nguyen and Pearson). There is also continuous reporting of illegal miners who come at night and disappear in the morning (Reed). As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing regulations the situation has worsened, as miners could operate their business without getting spotted (Nga). Locals also suggest that it is the involvement of politicians in mining activities that leads to little or no prosecution at all (L. Hoang). Thus, they are resolved to fight sand extraction themselves by organizing night patrols and building weapons such as slingshots with which to hit intruders with stones and bricks (N. Hoang). While some resist sand extraction, others join forces with sand buyers. The high demand for sand in Southeast Asia makes the mining business much more lucrative than tourism or farming—the primary sources of income in the Mekong Delta (Anh).

On my visit to the region, I encountered multiple dredging boats spread across a section of only a few kilometers. According to my local host, Yennie Nguyễn, sand dredging is so omnipresent that people do not even notice it anymore.³ The constant humming in the air has become a background noise as consistent as the smoke ascending from the kiln in her neighborhood—pottery-making is the specialty of this region. Yennie knows from reports in the press that the Mekong Delta is projected to sink rapidly, and she knows the shores are eroding. In fact, the bank across from her house on the other side of the river is eroding. She also knows about neighboring villages and their initiatives to stop illegal sand mining. Still, she returned to her home in Vĩnh Long after finishing university in Ho Chi Minh City to open a homestay at her parents’ place. Tourism in the Mekong Delta almost exclusively relies on this form of accommodation, which is also supposed to give visitors the authentic experience of staying with a Vietnamese family. Her family’s existence depends on this business and the business depends on Yennie. She taught herself English by watching TV. Pottery designed by her mother lends her homestay a special touch. Yenie was excited when I told her about my project, because she hopes someone will put a halt to sand exploitation. She feels she does not have any agency to bring about change herself. Instead of leaving the region and looking for a life elsewhere, she did what felt most obvious: join the tourist industry and contribute to the continuous urbanization of the delta. I feel very conflicted when I meet people like Yennie because of the asymmetries that brought us together. My research signals to them international awareness and raises hope that there will be pressure on the government to stop the mining and selling of sand. At the same time, the livelihoods of Yennie and her family are already intertwined with these practices, posing the need for much more complex solutions than just stopping the mining.

On the day I left Vĩnh Long, Yennie arranges a skipper to bring me upriver to Sa Đéc. I chose this route because a geological survey indicates that this section of the river features heavy dredging activities (Jordan et al.). The river curves sharply approximately halfway along—a promising sign that sand will settle here. And in fact, once I reached the curve, there were so many dredging boats and sand storage vessels that I could hardly count them. The dredgers operate in small teams; one person runs the machine, while one or two others arrange the excavated sand in a pyramid shape, flattening the sides with shovels or by walking up and down the slopes. They use stationary dredgers attached to a floating platform with a grab head that can be released all the way down to the riverbed. When the dredger pulls the head out of the water, sand pours out of the slits in the grab head, lowering the effective volume of sand extracted and causing turbulence in the water. As a result, the water is brown, and patches of seagrass float atop the river.

Most of the dredgers seem to leave their boats rarely. They work and live on their vessels that hold both the platform for the dredging machine and a shed for themselves. Some even keep plants on the boat. On other boats, I observed colorful laundry hanging on clotheslines stretched around the shed. Business requires them to stay mobile, able to follow the river to wherever sand deposits occur. It is unlikely that these are the men who make big money with sand. Like Yennie, they are just trying to make a living off the Mekong Delta, and the steady demand for sand secures their jobs. Those who extract illegally usually work under the cover of night and sell abroad at much higher prices. Both activities cause equal trouble but on different fronts. Legal or illegal are concepts to which sand is oblivious, that only matter in relation to the consequences extraction has on people in the region and Vietnam’s economy. Unregistered sand deprives Vietnam of potential revenue, draining the country of sand and thus of money (Global Witness).

Figs 3-4. Dredgers operating on the Mekong River. Film still, Michaela Büsse and Konstantin Mitrokhov, 2019.

The dredgers I encountered most likely supply sand for Vietnam’s own reclamation projects such as those in Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s largest city both in population and size, located at the gate to the Mekong Delta. In 2011, the Vietnamese and Dutch governments initiated a strategic alliance that would help redesign Ho Chi Minh City’s waterfront based on the example of Rotterdam. The homepage of the Vietnam Climate Adaptation Partnership (VCAPS) says: “The VCAPS consortium offers process management, advice on key issues and part of the outputs. In addition, the project provides possibilities for knowledge transfer and business development” (VCAPS Consortium, “Ho Chi Minh City”).⁴ The alliance focuses on the similarity between the two cities—port cities located in deltas—leaving largely untouched the significant differences between their political systems and living conditions. The climate adaptation strategy developed as part of the alliance copies many features of Rotterdam’s urban design strategy in order to promise not only a safe but also prosperous future for Ho Chi Minh City (VCAPS Consortium, Climate).

As is the case in Rotterdam, Ho Chi Minh City will move its harbors outside the city center and towards the sea. This way, precious space will be freed for development. One of the recently cleared spaces includes Thủ Thiêm, a 647-hectare peninsula on the Saigon River across from the historic center of Ho Chi Minh City. Service workers with day jobs in the historic center used to live here amidst swamps and farmland (Yarina). In the early 2000s, Thủ Thiêm was drained in order to relocate the Central Business District away from the overcrowded District 1 and to a more presentable site—Thủ Thiêm New Urban Area. This “forgotten” piece of land, as it is described by urban researchers, had a central role to play in supporting the historic center, yet it was not recognized as urban (Phu Cuong et al.).

In the Netherlands, waterfronts are seen as prime locations for commercial development, but Ho Chi Minh City, according to the consultants, was not yet leveraging this potential:

The city’s river banks have a potential to contribute to the attractiveness of the city. In many metropolitan cities river fronts are the most attractive public spaces offering recreational areas to stroll and enjoy river views. River panoramas also often include bridges which can serve as icons for the city. At some locations in HCMC today, river fronts already offer great views over the Saigon and Nha Be rivers but this potential largely remains undeveloped. The river system currently contributes very little to a positive image of the city. Public access to the river is often blocked due to private property and motorways, and in some areas slums and unofficial housing make waterfronts unattractive places to spend time. To transform high quality river front areas into accessible public spaces will require appropriate city planning and support from key stakeholders and local communities.

(VCAPS Consortium, Climate 40)

From the Dutch point of view, the peninsula, understood as undeveloped land, thus offers opportunities to combine flood protection with commercial and residential facilities: seemingly a win-win solution. To this end, an already existing plan for Thủ Thiêm was reworked into a “future landmark” that combines sustainability, multifunctional usage, and iconic design (Sasaki Associates). The vision statement of the climate adaptation strategy gives an outlook of the imagined future of the site and its inhabitants:

The year is 2100 and Ho Chi Minh City has become a true metropolis. Its pleasant living environment has throughout the century attracted a multitude of multinationals, talented people and investments. This is a great achievement considering the huge competition that exists between cities in the region. Providing a safe and pleasant environment proved to be of key importance in the 21st century, as natural threats from climate change had an ever-increasing impact on coastal and delta cities. Not the strongest cities of the 20th century have had most success in the 21st century. It was the cities best capable to adapt to changing circumstances that have become the most livable with vibrant economies.

(VCAPS Consortium, Climate 5)

Figs 5-6. Aerial view Thủ Thiêm New Urban Area in Ho Chi Minh City. Film still, Michaela Büsse and Konstantin Mitrokhov, 2019.

Silent Resistance

Construction at Thủ Thiêm started in 2005 and has so far included the building of three bridges linking the east, north, and the historic center of Ho Chi Minh City. In preparation for my visit, and because I need a geolocated site to use Grab, the local driving app, I browsed Google Maps for a promising location. A quick glance at the map revealed several sites already occupied by projects such as Eco Smart City, Empire City Viet Nam, The Metropole, or Lake View. The picture selection for these entries features a mix of renders and impressions from construction sites, making it difficult to assess whether these sites do in fact exist physically. But their existence as digital landmarks fulfilled my purpose. Their virtual presence in the form of a geotag on Google Maps allowed me to navigate the space—a space that I otherwise would not have been able to address through the interface of Grab. I randomly chose Lake View as my destination.

As I entered the peninsula via the linkage at District 1, I was astonished to see such a vast plot of untouched land just across from the buzzing downtown area. Having been slightly overwhelmed by the intensity of the city center—like Manila, Ho Chi Minh City is way too busy for me—I caught myself feeling relieved because of the openness of the space. The driver took me along perfectly straight and smooth streets that were surprisingly big and uncrowded. Construction sites popped up here and there, but there was nothing to be found that would resemble one of the buildings from the rendered pictures. When we approached Lake View, a problem occurred: our car was not able to access any of the junctions that were supposed to lead to the development sites. They were blocked by barricades. I decided to hop out of the car and explore the area on foot. I spotted several people hanging out on their scooters on the other side of the barricades, which assured me that there was no immediate trouble to be expected from crossing the barricades. On the other side of the fence, a network of streets unfolded, intersecting each other orthogonally and by doing so framing perfectly square parcels of land. Some of the squares were swampy, others completely dry. In Sasaki’s master plan I found that the parceling of land selects some parts to be used for development while others become strategic watersheds (Sasaki Associates). The open system they promote transforms the irregular form of the peninsula into a grid, a structure that seems to provide easier management. On the parcel where I expected Lake View to be, I did not find a construction site. Instead, I discovered a group of locals, mostly middle-aged men, gathered to fly dragon-shaped kites. They were not alone. On the corner between two streets, I spotted some mobile food vendors selling lemongrass juice and colorful sweets to teenagers equipped with kites. At a crossing further along the street, another vendor sold kites. I was at an informal gathering for kite enthusiasts.

As I curiously walked between the parcels, the site started to get busy. Entire families arrived, each squeezed together on a single scooter, and more men of all ages arrived with their kites on the backseat. More and more street vendors rushed by to cater to the crowd, announcing their presence by honking and shouting. It soon became noisier and more hectic, also because younger people who joined the gathering started to play music from their phones. Taken by this sudden change of scenery and the feeling that something special was unfolding around me, I decided to buy a lemongrass juice, walked around, and observed the kiters. Next to me, five men were busy trying to lift a huge kite into the air. Three of them were holding the kite while one started running, pulling the string attached to the kite, and the last one shouted something that I interpreted as commands for the runner. They failed at first, but when they managed to lift the kite into the sky everyone applauded. Children jumped across the street in excitement and teenagers posed casually for selfies with the flying kites in the background. A crowd of youngsters slurping colorful drinks observed me suspiciously while I observed them. One of them casually held a kite while the others browsed their phones and discussed funny clips they found on the Internet. I felt a bit like an intruder, because no one there spoke my language, nor did I speak theirs, and there was not a single tourist around. And while the spot cannot be a secret—there are numerous Instagram posts of the event—none of my local interlocutors mentioned the site as worthy of a visit.

Lacking the right words to put this surprising experience into language, I resort to calling it magical. Amidst the barren land and a grid of streets that led to what is to become an opera house, a convention center, a marina complex, and a sports stadium, locals were embracing the opportunity to enjoy themselves and the open space. The colorful kites stood in stark relief to the cleared land with its empty streets; they brought back a sense of vibrancy that must have resided here once but is no more. At the same time, the playfulness of the scenery carried a hopeful connotation.

As darkness fell, I tried to find my way back to one of the locatable spots on the map on the other side of the fenced area. Walking towards the main street, I passed by the construction site for The Metropole. Not much was to be found there aside from a poster promoting the project with the catchy slogan, “Tomorrow’s dreams today.” Whose dreams these are becomes obvious when looking at the project’s homepage. SonKim Land, awarded Best Boutique Developer in Vietnam, operates in the high-end real estate market, describing its clients as having “a strong financial background, aesthetic taste and personality” (SaigonRealty). Who exactly these clients are remains to be seen, but SonKim Land, Sasaki, and the climate adaptation strategy agree who are not their clients—the informal community that previously lived here. Maybe there is nothing special about people flying kites on a reclamation site in the middle of Ho Chi Minh City, but to me this informal gathering felt very special. Once the land has been settled, the barricades removed, and development continues, the kiters will be gone, too. Thus, flying their kites could be interpreted as a silent and peaceful form of protest, an act of temporarily reclaiming the space before others will claim it as Thủ Thiêm New Urban Area. I am grateful for this accidental encounter, because it makes me believe that despite the repeating patterns of domination, people continue to inhabit the cracks, if only for a short time.

Figs 7-8. Kiters on the construction site of Thủ Thiêm New Urban Area. Film still, Michaela Büsse and Konstantin Mitrokhov, 2019.

Conclusion

My fieldwork in the Mekong Delta describes the complex simultaneity of gain and loss, development and exploitation, and human and non-human processes. It shows the persistence of dominant forms of urban design across geographies, yet elucidates the specificities of each site and their importance for place-making. Whereas land reclamation projects are driven by economic ambitions first and foremost, an emphasis on their specific histories and continuous material transformations provides ground to imagine lifeworlds differently. Tracing the flows of sand alerted me to instances that are easily overseen because they do not fit neat descriptions. Instead, the messiness of sociomaterial practices affords an analysis that focuses not only on extractive dimensions but also on contingencies, ruptures, and alternative openings (Tsing, Mushroom). Maybe it is in these temporary openings that we can locate transgression, and as Isabelle Stengers suggests, “slow down” reasoning. “How can I present a proposal intended not to say what is,” she asks, “or what ought to be, but to provoke thought; one that requires no other verification than the way in which it is able to ‘slow down’ reasoning and create an opportunity to arouse a slightly different awareness of the problems and situations mobilizing us?” (994).

Sand’s ambiguous nature provides the backdrop that these stories and histories unfold upon, against, and through. And it is apparent that my encounters are only snapshots of a process continuously doing and undoing itself. As sand is shifting, so is the political climate. Rising sea levels will accelerate decomposition, rendering ephemeral the imaginaries attached to reclaimed land. While some will continue to fight this realization, others will be more pragmatic and inhabit the cracks. These relationships are not even, yet they are contingent in such a way that pinning them down to either/or is reductive. They exist with and at the expense of each other, their lifeworlds entangled, stretching beyond clear-cut separations.

Michaela Büsse is a postdoctoral researcher at the Technische Universität Dresden working with the Chair of Digital Cultures, and Associated Investigator in the cluster of excellence “Matters of Activity. Image Space Material” at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her research focuses on sociomaterial transformations in the context of speculative urbanism, climate change mitigation, and energy transition. Drawing on elemental anthropology as well as feminist science and technology studies, she investigates how design practices and technologies govern environments and define who and what is rendered inhuman. Michaela’s interdisciplinary practice is research-led and involves filming, editorial, and curatorial work.

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Footnotes

1. The residency has been documented online at https://www.goethe.de/prj/aol/en/index.html.

2. Singapore’s rather questionable sand policy has been the focus of many investigations and inquiries by activists and journalists. See Global Witness; Milton; Subramanian.

3. Yennie Nguyễn and her mother operate a small homestay business in Vĩnh Long, right next to the Mekong River and a couple of local dredging sites. During my stay I had several informal conversations with her about my research project and she was incredibly supportive and welcoming. I am very grateful for her hospitality and for the many little favors that eased the logistics of travelling the Mekong Delta off the beaten track.

4. As of August 18, 2022, the homepage of VCAPS is no longer accessible.