The Open Communities of Vietnamese Coastal Residents: Interregional and Transnational Relations

Abstract

Owing to livelihood and natural risk challenges, Vietnamese coastal communities often exhibit openness, fostering increased relationships from outside the community. This article examines such openness through the interregional and transnational livelihood, social, and cultural relationships of coastal communities in the three provinces of Quang Ninh, Ninh Thuan, and Kien Giang. Depending on the context, the openness of each community is expressed in tourism development, migration, agricultural commodities, or trade and ethnic relations. Open relationships have a positive impact on the dynamism of socio-economic development in island/coastal areas but also pose a number of issues regarding security, social order, and smuggling at sea and in transnational ethnic relations.