Indigenous Knowledge as Social Capital for Climate Change Adaptation: A Case Study of Ethnic Minorities in Vietnam with Implications for the ASEAN Region

Abstract

Across Southeast Asia, the impacts of climate change are increasingly visible, particularly in rural and ethnic minority regions where floods, droughts, and ecological instability place growing pressure on local livelihoods. Although climate adaptation policies often prioritize technological and infrastructural solutions, Indigenous Knowledge (IK) remains insufficiently recognized as a strategic resource for community resilience. This study employs a theory-informed qualitative meta-synthesis of peer-reviewed empirical studies and authoritative institutional sources focused primarily on the 2010–2025 period, with foundational theoretical and methodological works used to frame the analysis. The synthesis centers on Vietnam and selected Southeast Asian contexts and examines how documented ecological knowledge practices are embedded in relational processes of collective action, knowledge exchange, and institutional engagement. The findings indicate that IK contributes to climate adaptation through three interconnected but analytically distinct relational mechanisms. Bonding is evident where shared norms and repeated community interaction sustain place-based agricultural and resource-management practices; bridging occurs where knowledge, seed, forest-management, or risk-reduction practices circulate across community networks; and linking becomes salient where Indigenous actors engage government, academic, scientific, or disaster-risk institutions. Comparative evidence from Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand further shows that the adaptive value of these mechanisms depends on their interaction and on the institutional conditions under which local knowledge is recognized and used. Conceptually, the article does not treat IK and social capital as interchangeable. It advances a relational interpretation in which IK is a socioecological knowledge-and-practice system, whereas bonding, bridging, and linking social capital describe the relational resources through which knowledge is maintained, exchanged, coordinated, and connected to formal governance. The analysis also identifies limits: strong internal ties may produce closure, horizontal exchange may detach knowledge from context, and vertical linkages may reproduce unequal power when Indigenous participation is weak. Because the study synthesizes existing evidence rather than generating new field data, its contribution is analytical and comparative rather than causal, and its ASEAN implications are framed as context-sensitive policy principles rather than universal prescriptions.