“Rice-Roots” Civil Society in Vietnam: Food grievances and depoliticising

This paper is grounded on the case of mass fish death at the Central coastal area of the country in 2016. Using Wells-Dang’s “rice-roots democracy” and Hannah’s functional approach to civil society, preliminary results show that civil society actors in the case have relied on the fundamental value associated with the notion of food to challenge the authorities under a façade of apoliticality. Discourse analysis, based on both visual and textual data, reveals that civil society in Vietnam, while limited in their institutionally confrontational capacity, utilises the politics of daily life to advance its causes while minimizing the risk of political sanctions from the government. Specifically, the connotation of “food” as a crucial necessity of daily life allows the civil society actors to voice their political concerns in what they perceived to be an apolitical manner.