The Nguyen Weather-World: Environment, Emotion and Governance in Nineteenth-Century Vietnam

Abstract

The environment was a major preoccupation of the Nguyen court in nineteenth-century Vietnam. The court devoted considerable time and resources to observing, measuring and recording the weather – including the formations in the sky, the seasons, wind and rain – and changes in the waterways and terrain of the land. According to Nguyen conceptualisations of nature and Heaven, everything in the cosmos was subject to the elemental flows of khí, the vital energy moving through the entire natural world, including human beings. With its coursing elemental flows, the environment was understood to be alive, embodied and responsive to human emotions. In the face of nature’s might and human sensitivity to its effects, the Nguyen court prioritised weather knowledge and cultivated a disposition of affective vigilance towards the environment. This thesis is an environmental study of the Nguyen dynasty between 1802 and 1883, prior to the full imposition of French colonial rule. It explores how the Nguyen court organised itself in relation to the powerful, agentive and emotional ‘weather-world’ within which it was immersed. A central argument is that Nguyen governance was an ecological project that focused attention on the weather, land and phenomena in the skies overhead. The environment is a neglected context for the study of the Nguyen dynasty, typically appearing as little more than a backdrop to the ‘main story’ of internal disruption and mounting foreign threat. Yet the environment was wedded to the political configuration of the court in numerous ways. Taking a phenomenological approach, this thesis explores power and hierarchy at the Nguyen court as qualities that emerged in response to, and were deeply rooted in, environmental concerns. The weather was an abiding preoccupation of the political elite whose perceived efficacy in measuring, divining and responding to climactic events was an important means through which authority was obtained. Drawing on a diverse range of primary materials, this study pays attention to the lived experiences of being in the weather-world and emotive interactions with the environment in nineteenth-century Vietnam. Knowledge about the natural world, and a capacity to express emotion in poetry and sincerely conduct rituals, played a role in establishing court hierarchies and bolstering royal authority. Nguyen emperors consolidated their position through displays of their superior weather knowledge, emotional subjectivity and reciprocal resonance with the natural world. Through a consideration of Vietnamese understandings and experiences of the weather-world, this thesis offers new insights into the nature of the Nguyen court and its systems of governance. Show more