Leaving to Stay: Youth Migration and Family Continuity in Coastal Bến Tre

Leaving to Stay: Youth Migration and Family Continuity in Coastal Bến Tre

Authors:
Thi Minh ha Bui, UVSQ
Jean-Paul Vanderlinden, UVSQ
Charlotte da Cunha, UVSQ
Abstract:
This paper examines how young people and households in the coastal zone of former Bến Tre Province navigate socio-ecological transformation through overseas labour migration while seeking to maintain family continuity, local attachment, and socially valued ways of life. It draws on multi-year ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2022 and 2026, combining participant observation, semi-structured interviews, walking ethnography, and extended immersion in everyday coastal life.
The study situates migration within a rapidly changing coastal environment shaped by salinity intrusion, fisheries decline, hydraulic engineering, renewable-energy development, and infrastructural transformation. Rather than interpreting migration solely as an economic response to environmental or labour-market pressures, it argues that mobility is embedded within broader moral grammars through which households evaluate continuity, obligation, and future possibilities under conditions of uncertainty. Using the concepts of terminal change and principles, values, and ethics, the paper reconstructs how migration decisions are morally justified and socially negotiated.
The analysis shows that migration - particularly to Japan - is widely understood not as a rupture with local belonging but as a means of sustaining family continuity. Decisions are shaped by emic values including filial piety, familial reciprocity, care, intergenerational obligations, and ancestor continuity. The paper contributes to debates on migration, socio-ecological transformation, and the moral foundations of adaptation by showing how mobility can simultaneously enable profound change and reinforce valued forms of continuity.