Demand for tiger Panthera tigris parts has contributed to a global decline in tiger populations. Tigers are extirpated entirely from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, and extant populations in Southeast Asia are severely threatened. Across the region, tiger farms have been established for the principal purpose of supplying tigers for consumer demand (e.g. tiger bone glue for medicine). Tiger farms are known to operate within Vietnam and within Nghe An province, the focal area of this study. We interviewed 16 former tiger farmers to understand how they obtained their tigers, how and why they farmed tigers, why they stopped farming tigers and their beliefs around environmental policy, tiger conservation and tiger reintroduction. Tiger cubs were trafficked from Laos and raised by the tiger farmers to adulthood, at which point the tigers were sold to other individuals who slaughtered the tigers for their parts. We found that most of the farmers were aware that tigers are in decline globally and extinct from Vietnam. Farming was perceived as easy and lucrative; however, these farmers were no longer raising tigers because of fears of fines and jail time. The farmers were ambivalent about the current environmental policy around farming, but were supportive of reintroduction and stated their desire to see wild tigers in Vietnam again. Although tiger farms still operate in Nghe An, we find it heartening that proactive enforcement appears to be discouraging individuals from continuing to farm. Our study illustrates the importance of the government’s committment to executing policy as a driver of conservation impact.

Transgender women face substantial mental health inequities, yet little is known about the service processes associated with approaching and using formal care in Vietnam. We conducted a focused analysis of 40 Vietnamese-language interviews from a 2021 qualitative study in Ho Chi Minh City, using observational and digital-ethnographic materials to supplement interpretation. Participants had Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale scores of at least 16 and had avoided, declined or discontinued professional mental healthcare. Reflexive thematic analysis examined accounts from pre-entry through consultation and assessment. Participants linked engagement to three connected service processes. They described public information as a credible route when they could assess qualifications, confidentiality, cost, procedures and social fit, often through transgender peers or community organizations. Consultations were described as usable when clinicians treated participants ordinarily and kept the presenting mental health concern central. Accounts of fuller disclosure involved clinicians explaining sensitive questions, confidentiality, and possible consequences; ambiguity and impatience were associated instead with self-protective answers. Equitable access requires more than service availability. Verifiable entry pathways, clinically disciplined provider conduct and disclosure-supportive assessment are practical targets for inclusive mental health system improvement.

The normalization of relations eluded the United States and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam even fifteen years after the fall of Saigon. Despite both sides maintaining negotiations on several issues, including Indochinese refugees, the accounting of missing American soldiers, and the Third Indochina War, tangible bilateral exchanges remained absent. While Hanoi’s embrace of Doi Moi in December 1986 initiated a pragmatic foreign policy, more impactful to US–Vietnamese diplomacy was Ronald Reagan’s decision to appoint General John Vessey as presidential emissary. Vietnam viewed Vessey’s position as proof that the US sought sustained, high-level negotiations. Moreover, they resulted in tangible humanitarian exchanges. This paper shows how Vessey’s appointment was the catalyst for stronger US–Vietnamese relations.

This mixed-methods study integrates quantitative parasitological surveys with qualitative knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) assessments to evaluate trematode transmission patterns and describe human behaviour relevant to transmission among communities in hydropower reservoir areas of northern Vietnam. A total of 798 participants provided fecal samples, and 135 heads of household were interviewed. Overall, 236 individuals (29.57%) were infected with at least 1 helminth group. Fish-borne zoonotic trematodes (opisthorchiid/heterophyid-type eggs) were the predominant parasite group (22.56%), followed by soil-transmitted nematodes (Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, Ancylostoma/Necator spp.) (7.14%), tapeworms (Taenia sp.) (0.63%) and pinworms (Enterobius vermicularis) (0.13%). The prevalence and intensity of trematode infections were higher in men than in women. Infection levels were higher in older age groups, whereas infection in children (<16 years) was low. Marked spatial heterogeneity was observed among reservoirs. KAP surveys revealed limited understanding of trematode transmission routes, despite prior health education efforts. A pervasive misconception was that wild-caught fish or home-raised animals are safe to consume raw. Sanitation remained inadequate, and 73.33% of interviewees reported treating sick animals without veterinary consultation. Regular anthelmintic use was rare, with only 10.37% of interviewees reporting that they dewormed themselves twice per year, as recommended. These findings suggest hydropower reservoir regions in northern Vietnam may represent potential hotspots for food-borne trematode transmission. The observed patterns may indicate ongoing transmission, with ecological conditions and cultural practices as possible contributing factors. Targeted One Health–based interventions integrating human, animal and environmental health are recommended.

A new spiral nematode species, Helicotylenchus laichauensis sp. n., is described from the rhizosphere of Panax vietnamensis var. fuscidiscus in northern Vietnam. The new species is characterised by a hemispherical lip region with 4–5 annuli, a lateral field with four incisures whose inner lines fuse distally into a distinct m-shaped pattern on the tail, and a well-developed stylet 24.5–26.7 μm long, with knobs flattened to slightly indented anteriorly and a conus forming 50.1–53.5% of the total stylet length. The spermatheca is round and filled with sperm, and males are common. The tail is conical, dorsally convex, tapering to a prominent ventral projection bearing a variable mucro; phasmids are located 3–7 annuli anterior to the anus. Based particularly on similarities in the lip region structure, stylet morphology, lateral field pattern, phasmid position, and tail configuration, the H. laichauensis sp. n. is close to the known species namely H. microcephalus, H. craigi, H. oleae, and H. amplius. Phylogenetic analyses based on the D2–D3 expansion segments of 28S, partial 18S, and ITS rRNA sequences revealed that the newly generated sequences of the new species form a maximally supported clade with corresponding sequences of Helicotylenchus microcephalus in all constructed trees.

During the First Indochina War (1946-1954), soldiers from France’s colonies in North and Sub-Saharan Africa comprised more than a third of the French expeditionary force mobilised to Southeast Asia. Throughout the conflict, Vietnamese Communists employed appeals to anticolonial solidarity to persuade these soldiers to join their cause and carry the torch of revolution to the rest of the French empire. This article examines these efforts as well as the fate of those African soldiers who abandoned the French military to join the Việt Minh—many of whom decided to stay in the newly formed Democratic Republic of Vietnam after the war. Initially welcomed as “new Vietnamese people” (người Việt Nam mới), the Africans who rallied to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam represented a postcolonial future marked by the promise of global revolutionary collaboration. Despite favourable conditions, this promise never quite materialised. Tensions emerged as Communist cadres grew anxious about the presence of foreign men who often did not conform to their own revolutionary expectations and African defectors—marginalised by Communist state-making—became disillusioned with the realities of postwar North Vietnam. By tracing this unconventional example of South-South migration, this article reappraises the promises and limitations of Afro-Asian anticolonial networks to better understand how historical actors from opposite ends of the French empire attempted to realise the transnational potential of decolonisation—only to end up equally discontented.

This article examines contemporary expressions of human to more-than-human interaction through the lens of technoenvironments, understood as evolving networks that bind non-animate and animate life together, shaped by mutual agency, care, and resistance. We relate technoenvironments both to multinatural cosmologies recounting mythical origins of human society in Southeast Asia through the union of mountains and the sea, and to modern approaches derived from contemporary feminist political ecology. We explore performative practices which express and shape understandings of the co-becoming of humans and more-than-humans at case studies in Indonesia and Vietnam. The first analyses an art performance in Yogyakarta Indonesia, where participants from different classes, genders, and educational backgrounds co-create mandalas articulating their imaginaries of organic agriculture. Beans, plantlets, soil and plastics became actants in their own right. The second case studies performative protests by diverse citizens of Hanoi - students, families with children, artists, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community - in response to plans to fell more than 6,000 trees. This challenged the hegemony of science-based discourse by affirming the mutual affective relationships between humans and trees. In both cases, living matter such as trees, plants, seeds, and soil becomes agents in the performative representation of people’s entanglements with their more-than-human environment. We compare the performativity of environmental protest and art along the dimensions of 1) representation, 2) creative expression, and 3) multispecies relations. To conclude, we reflect on how the cosmologies of Southeast Asia inform current multispecies relationships in the context of technoenvironments both in Indonesia and Vietnam.

Although donating to private charitable organizations has been studied extensively, donating to local governments remains little examined. We advance this literature by applying Bekkers and Wiepking’s prominent theoretical framework of charitable giving drivers. Using nationally representative data from about 9,000 Vietnamese citizens, we test the relevance of some of these drivers in explaining the willingness to donate to local governments for road improvements. Our results largely corroborate previous findings about the roles of awareness of need (perceived issue importance), costs (the requested donation amount), and efficacy (trust in government). We also find support for the roles of altruism (the desire to help fellow citizens) and solicitation (the government’s ask)––two drivers whose application to local government donations was unexplored. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Work on the relationship between regulation and bribery suggests that bribes are a joint function of the demands of bureaucrats and the supply of business managers willing to pay them. However, due to biases in measurement, empirical work has concentrated on country-level, demand-side drivers, while research on factors that lead businesses to bribe remains theoretically rich but empirically underdeveloped. We contribute to the burgeoning work on the supply of bribery with a formal model that predicts poorly managed firms may strategically initiate bribes because resource constraints and/or poor service quality necessitate shortcuts in regulatory compliance. To test these theories, we present two connected studies. The first demonstrates that the predictions are consistent with cross-national business survey data. The second, a field experiment, randomly assigned firms to management training courses in Vietnam. Using detailed accounting books, we find that firms in the management course paid monthly bribes less than one-fifth the size ($227 less) of the placebo group, and, consistent with our predictions, had higher levels of regulatory compliance.

The silver-backed chevrotain Tragulus versicolor, categorized as Data Deficient on the IUCN Red List, is a poorly known and recently rediscovered ungulate endemic to Vietnam. To better understand its distribution and conservation status, we conducted semi-structured interviews and camera-trap surveys during 2018–2025 across 15 forest sites in five provinces of south-central Vietnam. We deployed 522 cameras at 487 stations, totalling 37,592 camera-trap nights. The silver-backed chevrotain was detected at five sites, including four newly confirmed populations beyond the single previously known population in Nui Chua National Park. The species was found in dry and semi-dry forests, with the highest number of detections in Nui Chua National Park and the Hon Heo peninsula. We failed to record the silver-backed chevrotain in several sites within presumed suitable habitat, and interviews indicated possible local extirpations driven by sustained snaring pressure. Our findings highlight the silver-backed chevrotain’s fragmented distribution, as well as its vulnerability to unsustainable hunting pressure and habitat loss and degradation. Given its limited distribution and the ever-increasing anthropogenic threats, urgent conservation actions are needed, including strengthening in situ protection in remaining strongholds and the establishment of an insurance ex situ population. This study provides the most up-to-date assessment of the status and distribution of the silver-backed chevrotain, and provides a foundation for evidence-based conservation planning for the species.

Drawing on Social Cognitive Career Theory and the human capital approach, this study examines how digital literacy (DL) shapes the digital entrepreneurial mindset (DEM) and contributes to poverty reduction through digitally driven innovation in Da Nang, Vietnam. Using an exploratory design and thematic analysis of in-depth interviews with 11 entrepreneurs, the findings show that DL enhances entrepreneurial self-efficacy, goal orientation, and outcome expectations, thereby fostering DEM and supporting poverty reduction. As one of the first studies to link DL, entrepreneurship, and poverty alleviation in Vietnam, it provides a foundation for future empirical research on the role of entrepreneurs’ digital skills in sustainable development.