Farmers in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta are using improvised music to think through solutions to climate change, and a new research project aims to prove that this musical listening reshapes economic decision-making. The problem is stark: both Indigenous Khmer Krom and settler Vietnamese communities face salinisation, reduced freshwater, and sand mining that threaten their livelihoods. Economists and the Vietnamese state have overlooked the role music plays in how these workers innovate. SoundDecisions will fill that gap by combining archival, ethnographic, and econometric methods across three continents. If successful, the project could give economists new tools to measure how cultural practices—specifically music—mitigate climate impacts and improve economic outcomes. For ethnomusicologists, it offers econometric methods to evaluate music’s real-world effects. The research is fundamentally about understanding how grassroots cultural change, rather than top-down economic planning, can generate sustainable solutions. There is no immediate practical application for a device or policy, but the findings could reshape how development agencies and governments recognise informal, culture-driven innovation in climate-vulnerable regions.
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Music is the mediator par excellence of effective decision-making. Using the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam as a case study, SoundDecisions applies an interdisciplinary approach and mixed methodologies to prove the bold claim that music performance enables farmers and other workers to listen to their surroundings and think through innovative solutions to immediate environmental and economic challenges. Both Indigenous Khmer Krom and settler Vietnamese who inhabit the Mekong Delta face climate change catastrophe from increased salinisation, reduced freshwater runoff, and intrusive sand mining. Together, they use improvised music to shape how they think about farming, trade, and other economic activities. Furthermore, by connecting with diasporic musicians via global telecommunication systems, they co-curate dynamic forms of musical listening and thinking to build trust, experiment with new solutions to environmental issues, and cultivate choice. These musicians reshape development of the region; and yet, since development emerges from a cultural basis rather than an economic one, the Vietnamese state and economists have not so far recognised their work. How do cultural changes forged by musicians at the intersection of the region's rich natural and cultural resources enable new socio-economic development? What new forms of sustainability might arise from their grassroots attempts to establish new methods of co-existence given climate change realities? The first project of its kind, SoundDecisions undertakes a major programme of archival, ethnographic, and econometric research across three continents to answer these questions. SoundDecisions offers new methodologies for economists to understand the role of music in mitigating climate change and improving economic livelihood, and for ethnomusicologists to use econometric methods to expand their ability to evaluate music's place in the world.
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