From Margins to Models: Women’s Narratives of Resilience in Climate-Affected Farming Villages in Central Vietnam

Abstract

This qualitative study explores how rural women in climate-vulnerable farming villages in Central Vietnam build resilience amid intensifying environmental uncertainty. Drawing on in-depth life-history interviews with twelve women farmers across three flood-prone communes, the research reveals that female-led adaptation practices are not only responses to climate shocks but also deeply embedded within local gendered experiences, cultural obligations, and intergenerational knowledge systems. Participants shared narratives of everyday ingenuity reorganizing planting schedules, managing seed diversity, and mobilizing informal networks of support often in the absence of formal recognition or institutional aid. Despite systemic constraints such as land insecurity and gendered labor expectations, these women continuously redefined their roles from passive recipients of risk to active agents of resilience. Their stories challenge dominant technocratic framings of climate adaptation by foregrounding relational care, spiritual practice, and community-oriented strategies. This study underscores the importance of centering women’s lived experiences in climate discourse and policy, arguing for a grounded understanding of resilience that is contextually situated and culturally meaningful. In doing so, it contributes to both feminist environmentalism and participatory climate adaptation literature by positioning marginalized voices not as exceptions, but as models of transformative agency.