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Fragments of the Present: Searching for Modernity in Vietnam's South
Abstract
MapsFiguresIllustrationsAbbreviationsPrefaceIntroduction1 Neo-colonialism as poison2 Renunciations of socialism3 Indigenising modernity in Nam Bo4 Reinventing modernity as threat5 Civilisation in the orchardConclusion
EpilogueNotesBibliographyIndex
... The region has been the site of widespread cultural interchange between the East and West regarding lifestyle, clothing, housing, transportation, and education (Elliott, 2016). In addition, according to Philip Taylor (Taylor, 2001), many ethnic groups have lived alongside each other for a long time in this area. ...
... In the fifteenth century, Chinese traders were one of the first foreigner groups to arrive in the Mekong through commodity trade (Taylor, 2001). Many traders from China stopped in the delta to purchase agricultural products from local Khmer or Cham ethnic groups. ...
... Vietnamese society and culture in the Mekong Delta underwent a transition in this period, which has continued in modern life (Taylor, 2001). For example, the French period produced a new autonomous class of individuals that were dissociated from a community of thought (Quang & Nghi, 2016). ...
This paper aims to analyze changes in the spatial configuration of houses constructed in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. In this study, the space syntax was used as an analysis tool to quantify spatial and functional patterns in terms of spatial configuration through means of its techniques. That is a convex map, J-graph, and these terminologies such as total depth, mean depth, relative asymmetry, real relative asymmetry, and integration value to explore the characteristics of spatial configuration. The representative housing samples that were built between 1858 and 1945 and have remained intact for over 100 years are investigated to demonstrate cultural interchanges between Vietnam and other countries regarding the spatial structure of housing. The spatial configuration of the six examined houses changes according to the year of their construction, adapting to new socio-cultural norms. The results of this study indicate that the influence of socio-cultural factors on the spatial structure of housing in Mekong Delta. Also, the houses built after 1900 have a flexible spatial configuration and additional functional spaces to adapt to the new requirements of their residents, especially to highlight the privacy of each space in the house. By this way, it can be concluded that socio-cultural aspects play important role on the formation of spatial configuration.
... According to Fforde (1990: 112), the Vietnamese culture is characterized as being "simultaneously highly collective and highly individualistic." Historically, the integration of the collectivistic culture of the north into the individualistic values of the rural societies in the VMD is the legacy of the early settlements throughout the 'March to the South' since the middle of the 18th century (Evers & Benedikter, 2009).These mixed values profoundly shape how local inhabitants interact with each other, and how they respond to local social-ecological complexities (Taylor, 2001). In light of this, we aim to incorporate both Reed et al.'s (2010) and Glasser's (2009) conceptualizations of social learning in this study to investigate how this concept operates in the rural communities of practice of the delta. ...
... This study confirms that it is such dual personhood that makes local inhabitants highly-adaptive and innovative learners in the face of change. Formation of spontaneous groups to deal with complexities is very prominent in this regard (Taylor, 2001). ...
... As noted by Taylor (2001), the communities of practice in the rural adaptation context of the VMD present spontaneous groupings of household individuals who come to share farming practices. They constitute informal networks which include individuals who know each other and are bound together by kinship or propinquity (Rose, 2000). ...
The social-ecological systems of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) are under stress driven by accelerating impacts of climate change, upstream hydropower development, and local flood management policies. These combined complexities have prompted the rural societies to make significant efforts to adapt to changing conditions. While local adaptation represents diverse patterns of communication and interactions across the social sectors, far less attention has been
given to how these learning processes occur in the rural communities of practice. This paper attempts to delineate the learning dynamics in which farming households are key practitioners. The mixed methods approach that guides data collection includes focus group discussions, indepth interviews with key informants and household surveys. The analysis suggests that social learning plays a significant role in facilitating the adoption and dissemination of experiential and experimental knowledge across geographical boundaries. This study highlights important aspects of households' social learning system characterized by informal networks with various forms of bonding and bridging relationships. These learning patterns suggest that informal communication is a dominant learning approach in the rural delta. This study contributes to advancing the theoretical and empirical knowledge of social learning and its policy implications for rural development in the VMD.
... The rationale for selecting these study areas is that local agrarian communities have profound experiential knowledge of living with floods, forming an inherent part of their riverine lifestyles (Taylor, 2001). Long-term engagement with seasonal floods allows agrarian communities to accumulate flood memories and understand how flood changes affect their everyday lives and flood-based livelihoods. ...
... Connecting this narrative to the work of Valencia et al. (2019), the contention here is that the VMD floodplains are "reservoirs of social memory" (p. 1471) that nurture agrarian communities' aspirations and motivations in dealing with natural environments (Taylor, 2001) and shape communities' adaptive behavior and actions to overcome environmental challenges over time. In light of social memory, the paper suggested that the ecological and experiential knowledge accumulated from agrarian communities' "living with floods" (Liao, 2019) in the past would help (re) construct adaptation strategies in dealing with the extreme conditions of too much or too little floodwater (Truong et al., 2019;Tung, 2019). ...
Rural adaptation encompasses place-based perceptions, behaviors, livelihoods, and traditional ways of life associated with local environments. These perceptions, norms, and practices are disturbed by coupled environment-development externalities. This study employs the Vietnamese Mekong floodplains as an exemplary case to illustrate how floods impact agrarian communities and how they have experienced flood alterations driven by hydropower development and climate change in recent years. Drawing on thematic and narrative analyses of qualitative data (focus group discussions and interviews) collected in three agrarian communities in the Vietnamese Mekong floodplains, sources drawn from various news outlets, and academic materials, we argue that disrupted flood environments in the floodplains have triggered affective flood reminiscences, catalysing shifts to incremental and transformative adaptation to achieve resilience. We build a nuanced understanding of how social memory helps to enhance human–environment relationships in response to highly complex hydrological dynamics in the delta.
... All human societies are fundamentally adaptive (Adger, 2003). Rural societies in the VMD have had long-term interactions with the natural environments (Taylor, 2001;Nguyen, 2017). During the Nam Tiến (March to the South) from the middle of the 18th century to the colonial times, free adaptation practices are prevalent in the 'opening-up the delta' process (Miller, 2007), which predominantly involved human exploitation of natural resources to serve their needs (Biggs, 2010). ...
... The exploitation of the delta did not require central planning and organisation but largely individual labour (Rambo, 1973). As Taylor (2001) put it, these practices highlight the profound imprints of nature on the local rural societies. ...
This paper investigates the adaptation processes with reference to the narrative analysis of human–environment interactions in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. From the political ecology perspective, it focuses on the discourses of the power relationships embedded within the ‘state‐society‐flood’ nexus over the course of its ‘opening‐up and closing‐off’ processes (e.g. excavating large‐scale canals for human settlements and agricultural expansion (opening‐up) and human interventions into natural systems through water control structures (closing‐off)). Drawing on empirical data gathered from 33 interviews and nine focus group discussions in three study areas and relevant literature, the paper argues that human interactions with the flood environments are intertwined with adjustments of adaptation patterns as evidenced through three periods: free adaptation (pre‐1975), transitional adaptation (1976–2010) and forced adaptation (after 2010). These processes have witnessed a gradual power shift in the ‘state‐society’ relations in manipulating floods, which moves from the top‐down towards a more collaborative fashion. By unravelling the political ecology of the ‘state‐society‐flood’ nexus, this paper exhibits the skewed development in the delta, which is largely bound to short‐term development planning to prioritise local socio‐economic and political objectives. The paper contributes important policy implications for achieving socially just and environmentally sustainable development in the delta.
... Mekong Delta has been known as an ancient, diverse and vital cultural area where many eastern and western values have co-existed (Taylor, 2001), and an open community does not discriminate against strangers or newcomers (Tran & Nguyen, 2016), so this place has widened economic and cultural communicative relation over many distinct historical eras. Hence, the settlers are extremely hospitable towards all newcomers or other ethnic which create a cultural exchange of openness and diffidence towards tradition (Taylor, 2001). ...
... Mekong Delta has been known as an ancient, diverse and vital cultural area where many eastern and western values have co-existed (Taylor, 2001), and an open community does not discriminate against strangers or newcomers (Tran & Nguyen, 2016), so this place has widened economic and cultural communicative relation over many distinct historical eras. Hence, the settlers are extremely hospitable towards all newcomers or other ethnic which create a cultural exchange of openness and diffidence towards tradition (Taylor, 2001). ...
The aim of this paper is to explore the transition in the architectural characteristics of the ancient Vietnamese housing in Mekong Delta, in Southern Vietnam from 1858 to 1945. For this purpose, this study selects six ancient houses to determine the architectural characteristics that reveal the relationship between society and architecture during this period. Then, these ancient houses’ characteristics are analyzed based on six factors which are settlement characteristics, planning scheme, facade, structure, material, and interior decoration to show the transition in their architectural style. Six factors of ancient houses are surveyed by three methods: using of the electronic distance meter to determine the size of houses, taking photos and drawing of the houses to analysis the architectural characteristics and interviewing the landlord to get information about ancient houses. As the results, the study explored the difference in the ancient houses style which is strongly affected both by French style to their facade and Chinese style to their interior decoration, but the spatial structure is still remained to Vietnamese people. In conclusion, the characteristics of selected houses should be considered in detail as a reference to the current design goals.
... Rural inhabitants in the VMD have long adapted to local environments (Taylor, 2001). This has come to form their inherent 'learn-to-adapt' capacity that assists them to better respond to environmental constraints (e.g. ...
... Taken together, these learning patterns characterize important cultural aspects of the rural societies that have long existed in the delta. As evidenced, these spirits form and strengthen capacity and a sense of collectiveness in sustaining supportive networks and promoting mutual assistance among community members when confronting with environmental challenges (Taylor, 2001). ...
The everyday adaptation practices in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta are characterized by the well-defined nuance of human–nature interactions under the compounding impacts of climate change, localized dyke development policies, and upstream hydropower dynamics. This gives rise to a so-called ‘learn-to-adapt’ approach that has been widely practised by the rural societies. This viewpoint argues that learning constitutes a key form of adaptation that enables rural farmers to bring together pools of adaptive knowledge in resolving shared problems. It particularly illustrates the significance of communicative and reflective learning practices that enable farmers to communicate and exchange experimental and experiential knowledge. These everyday practices enable farmers to make informed decisions in mobilizing necessary resources and capacity to accommodate changing conditions and secure their livelihoods at stake. The viewpoint particularly highlights how the everyday adaptation practices allow farmers to develop a variety of innovative production models which contribute to not only enhancing farmers’ adaptive capacity but also advancing rural development policies.
... In my own experience, people sharing drinks are more likely to repeat the couplet "Not drunk, not going home" (không say, không v ` ˆ e), as when pressing their fellow drinkers to keep it up or, more subtly, acknowledging the customary pressure to drink to intoxica- tion. Australian anthropologist Taylor (2001) has also commented on the use of alcohol to shore up social relations and smooth over interpersonal and intergroup difficulties. ...
... Lack of schooling led to credulous minds, few work opportuni- ties and, with opportunities foreclosed, a resort to alcoholism. (Taylor, 2001) As Taylor alludes, this folk model of "drinking culture" in a rural area imputes a circular causation between poverty and alcohol use, and presumes high prevalence of alcohol abuse and dependency. However, despite the highly commonly held perspective that rural populations are more likely to be abusive or dependent drinkers, no published study indicates whether urban and rural populations in Vietnam have different risk profiles for problematic alcohol use. ...
... Vietnamese " traditional " weddings are constructed against the twin " modern " threats of Western materialism and Chinese " backwardness. " Scholars' debates have dated Vietnamese confrontation with " modernity " to different times: the French colonial period, the US intervention era, or the Đổi Mới era (Taylor 2001 ). To the Vietnamese, however , " tradition is forever renewing itself, while 'modernity' is always just arriving in Vietnam " (Taylor 2001, 9). ...
... " Modernity " is constructed against the country's recent past in order to create a sense of pride in national accomplishment. The local people's perception and imagination of their country's condition relative to " modernity " is also very much a local concern (Taylor 2001). Our informants believe that they are joining the modern world while preserving their unique national identity. ...
This article examines the historical role of marriage and wedding rituals in Vietnam, and how they have changed during Vietnam’s transition to the market. The authors focus on how changes reflect the society’s increasing dependence on the market, how this dependence impacts consumer well-being, and the resulting implications for public policy. Changes in the meanings, function, and structure of wedding ritual consumption are examined. These changes echo shifts in the national economy, social values, social relations, and gender roles in Vietnamese society during the transition. The major findings show that Vietnamese weddings are reflections of (1) the roles of wedding rituals as both antecedents and outcomes of social changes, (2) the nation’s perception and imagination of its condition relative to “modernity,” and (3) the role of China as a threatening “other” seen as impeding Vietnam’s progress toward “modernization.”
... Vietnamese bolero is a particularly popular music genre that singers often Livestream on Facebook groups. This genre is a peculiar Vietnamese version of bolero, often colloquially known as Nhac Vang ("yellow music" or "golden music"), which took its influence from the Hispanic originator during the 1950s and blended it with traditional Southern Vietnam music during the Vietnam War era (Taylor 2000). Bolero songs are romantic, slow, and sad, often used to poetically express themes of love and daily life. ...
This study provides a snapshot of the social lives of primarily first-generation Vietnamese-Czech immigrants, who engage in small-scale merchant business at the Sapa market and cultural centre in Prague. To add to the existing research on the Vietnamese immigrant community in the Czech Republic, the research shifts from studying the immigrant community’s identity as business owners to their identities as cultural participants by observing the community’s interactions during break times. The researcher utilizes the framework of spatializing culture to focus on how such interactions help socially construct and transform the resting spaces, existing in both the physical and online worlds of the Sapa market and cultural space. This ethnographic study combines participant observation, insider ethnography, visual mapping, and visual and digital ethnography. The fieldwork reveals that the physical and digital rest areas of Sapa help facilitate ethnic identity construction and preservation among the community members.
... McHale (2008) demonstrates that, in the early twentieth century, ordinary Vietnamese people were engaged with penny literature and popular religious activities rather than burdening themselves with communist ideology or nationalist revolution, as is often suggested by studies of Vietnamese colonial politics. Taylor (2001) also challenges the homogenous, linear, and top-down perspective of the modern Vietnamese nation. As Taylor (2001, p. 22) argues, writing about multiple realities of modernity in Vietnam, 'the ontological category of time is not the preserve of the social scientist, nor the national leader, but is constantly up for grabs in the negotiation of existence'. ...
... 8 Phỏng vấn trực tiếp Huỳnh Thị Anh Vân, tài liệu đã dẫn. 9 Phỏng vấn trực tiếp Trần Đức Anh Sơn, tài liệu đã dẫn. 10 Phỏng vấn trực tiếp Trần Đức Anh Sơn, tài liệu đã dẫn. ...
... It suggests the ways farmers persistently explore and utilize their own experiences of local environments and develop innovative forms of knowledge supported by everyday communications and interactions with others. This reflects the mixed values of what Taylor (2001) terms 'a spirit of pioneering, even of adventure' held by rural farmers in response to environmental challenges. ...
Agriculture is exposed to climatic impacts, especially in developing countries. Adaptation is the predominant practice that farming communities undertake to deal with these climate-induced challenges. While significant attention has been devoted to farmers' adaptation strategies, little is known about how innovative practices are associated with the improvement of rural livelihoods. To address this gap, the paper attempts to investigate how farmers lead the process of rural innovations that constitute successful forms of adaptation to address the mixed impacts of dyke policies and climate change in two distinct agro-ecological zones (i.e. flooding and salinity) in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD). Drawing on qualitative information collected from focus group discussions and interviews across the case studies, the paper argues that farmers are the key innovation actors who contribute to improving rural farming and water management practices. The study suggests that the evolution of farmer-led innovations is mainly attributed to the operation of various informal learning networks that provide important platforms for the generation and diffusion of effective innovative practices across farming communities. It also highlights how farmers contribute their innovative knowledge to local adaptation policies. From the policy perspective, this study sees the development of rural innovation systems as the best practices of farmers' adaptation, which needs to be scaled out to better support agricultural water management in the delta.
... In search of a fitting female body Southern Vietnam during the decade following reunification was a difficult place for transgender people in the wake of a social and cultural campaign to eliminate decadent Western influences and life styles left over from the war (Taylor 2001). As society changed with economic openness and rising incomes in the -D oi M o ı (Reform) era, the opportunity came for people in Vietnam to purchase products such as motorbikes and cosmetic surgery, and participate in the cinema and caf e culture that in the immediate post-war years had been branded as decadent and bourgeois (Earl 2013;Vann 2012;Leshkowich 2008). ...
This paper examines aspects of feminisation among a group of transwomen funeral performers in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It highlights the health hazards faced by members of this vulnerable social group as the result of the use of non-medically prescribed hormone therapy, silicone injection and sex reassignment surgery in the absence of legal provision regulating these practices. The analysis is conducted against the backdrop of overlapping discourses of sex and gender identity, class, medicalisation and politics, both locally and globally.
... Beginning in 1986, following policies of economic liberalization (Đổi Mới), the Vietnamese state slowly laxed its control over religious practices (Fjelstad and Hien 2011;Taylor 2004Taylor , 2001 and granted "qualified" religious freedom (Hansen 2009). However, the church property has continued to be confiscated by the Vietnamese government, and discrimination against Catholics has remained rampant (Dang 2008; UCAN The Union of Catholic Asian News). ...
Holy mothers, specifically the Vietnamese-looking Our Lady of Lavang and Caodai Mother Goddess, are the crucibles of faith for many Vietnamese Catholics and Caodaists. Based on ethnographic data collected in California, which has the largest overseas Vietnamese population, I argue that Vietnamese refugees and their US-reared descendants have been able to re-centralize their fragmented communities through the innovative adaption of holy mother worship. In particular, Vietnamese Catholics in the US have transformed the European image of Our Lady of Lavang into a Vietnamese woman and exported it to the rest of the world. Meanwhile, Vietnamese American Caodaists have revived traditional religious rituals for the Caodai Mother Goddess which were repressed and prohibited for many years under communism in Vietnam. Through their shared devotion to holy mothers, these Vietnamese American faithful have also rebuilt relations with co-ethnic co-religionists living throughout the world. For both the Vietnamese Catholic and Caodai groups, holy mothers have emerged as emblems of their deterritorialized nation in the diaspora.
... Since the Communist-led Vietnamese state integrated the country into the global economy and abandoned collectivist policies, the threat of contagion by foreign culture was considered a challenge to the state's legitimacy. To fill the void created after withdrawing from socialist modernity, the Party-State attempted to create its own version of modernity, in which national identity played a dominant role and, as a result, took a more favorable attitude toward not only formal religions (tôn giáo) but also "folk beliefs" (tín ngưỡng dân gian) (Endres 2002;Luong 2003;Taylor 2001Taylor , 2007Salemink 2013). This allowed for the reinterpretation of flourishing religious practices throughout Vietnam as an expression of Vietnamese "culture" and, above all, "national heritage"a process I have described in detail elsewhere (Roszko 2012). ...
In the village of Sa Huỳnh, state, fishers, and Buddhist clergy draw from semiotic ideologies but often employ a common political language, rarely agreeing on its meaning. Highlighting different structural positions and goals of social actors, I argue that binary oppositions exist but are not mutually exclusive, ever-lasting or antagonistic, as they shift in unexpected ways across the triadic relationship between state officials, fishers, and Buddhist clergy. By exposing the extent of improvisation and legitimation tactics, I show that religious practices are co-produced locally by the state through its diverse agents and agencies, by religious reformers through their purifying discipline, and by various categories of villagers who use indiscipline as a local tactic when acting on behalf of their gods.
... have not met any Highlanders who were willing to forego such objects, services and opportunities, in a world saturated with images extolling the attractiveness of all things modern—even if they had sought to evade or resist the state in the past. This desire for modernity is not recent, and has gone through many iterations in Vietnam's history (cf. Taylor 2001). In colonial times nationalist movements are as much about independence from colonial rule as about the desire to be modern. The old Bru man in the opening vignette of this article lamented a history of exclusion of his community, despite the fact that the Bru had followed the Revolution [theo Cách mạng] and had thus discursively and p ...
Inspired by a critical reading of James Scott's The Art of Not Being Governed (2009) which argued that Highlanders in Southeast Asia have intentionally evaded ‘state capture and state formations’, I offer a contrasting vision of Highlander motivations and desires from the Central Highlands of Vietnam. I argue that, in pre-colonial times, lowland states and Highland regions have been mutually constitutive through trade, tribute and feasts. Economic, political and ritual exchanges and connections were far more important for both uplands and lowlands than is usually acknowledged, not only in scholarship but in such phrases as ‘remote and backward areas’. For postcolonial Vietnam, I show that Highlanders were often motivated by the desire to become modern, and enacted such desires by joining ecumenes that embody modern universals, in particular revolutionary and Christian ecumenes, exemplifying oppositional pathways to modernity that contrast with those offered by authors Tania Li and Holly High.
... Since the Đổi Mới [Renovation] reforms, the historical and mythological spirits enshrined in the freshly restored buildings and sustained by diverse revitalized religious practices, blend with the commercialization of everyday life and the global capitalist version of 'modernity' that Vietnam has adopted just recently [49]. Along with these acute social changes, the socialist state nervously tightens its grip on Vietnamese society by strengthening cultural campaigns to preserve 'authentic' Vietnamese traditions and promotes its own version of modernity after its withdrawal from a socialist modernity. ...
As in China and Soviet Russia, religion in Vietnam was considered to be harmful superstition. However, a glimpse into the Governmental Gazette – Công Báo – displays the important transformation of the state’s policy toward religion that became translated into national representation. While this article focuses on nation-building as a dynamic cultural process that leads to the promotion of selected religious practices as ‘national heritage,’ it also explores the state-society relationship beyond binaries. By looking at religious spaces and local communities I argue that in Vietnam religion is a powerful form of nation-building process and constitutes a creative space in which different actors exercise their agency beyond resistance and accommodation.
... Ho Chi Minh City has been a hub for such developments. The market system has a longer history here and was never completely suppressed during the period of socialist reorganization after reunification (Taylor 2001). One element of social mobility is spatial mobility, in response to changes in the labour market. ...
... In deze context vindt in Vietnam een proliferatie van festivals en andere rituele gebeurtenissen plaats. De verwarring over de richting van de postsocialistische moderniteit is groot (Taylor 2001), en net als in vele andere landen wordt deze verwarring bezworen door nieuwe rituelen en rituele vernieuwing (Endres 2000;Kleinen 1999;Luong 1993). Elders heb ik deze rituele proliferatie in Vietnam geanalyseerd als een poging van het Communistisch regime om na de praktische afschaffing van het socialisme en omarming van het kapitalisme enige nationalistische en religieuze legitimiteit te verschaffen (Salemink 2005; [tộc]. ...
Media Culture in Transnational Asia: Convergences and Divergences examines contemporary media use within Asia, where over half of the world’s population resides. The book addresses media use and practices by looking at the transnational exchanges of ideas, narratives, images, techniques, and values and how they influence media consumption and production throughout Asia, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran and many others. The book’s contributors are especially interested in investigating media and their intersections with narrative, medium, technologies, and culture through the lenses that are particularly Asian by turning to Asian sociopolitical and cultural milieus as the meaningful interpretive framework to understand media. This timely and cutting-edge research is essential reading for those interested in transnational and global media studies.
This paper discusses the failed policy of reconciliation carried out by the leadership in Hanoi after the collapse of the Republic of Vietnam (commonly known as „South Vietnam“) on April 30, 1975.
It argues that in spite of all promises to the contrary after the end of the war the victorious North systematically dicriminated Southern Vietnamese who had worked for the former Saigonese government or the United States in Vietnam. Furthermore, I will analyse in which way the leadership in Hanoi tried to write the Republic of Vietnam out of history by destroying „sites of memory“ (lieux de mémoire).
In the following I discuss how this policy together with the building of socialism in the southern part of the country led to serious social conflicts and finally to a massive exodus of approximately one million Vietnamese.
In the second part of the paper, I will show that since the beginning of the reform policy in Vietnam (đổi mới) in the 1980s the failed integration of many defeated South Vietnamese after the end of the war has increasingly been adressed in “memory debates” among Vietnamese abroad and at home. The fate of the former South Vietnamese war cemetery in Biên Hòa will serve as an example.
Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), the largest agglomeration in Vietnam, is a multitude of cities and where spatial development is inherently intertwined with a continuously transforming water structure. HCMC is a relatively young city—the foundational citadel dates from the end 18th century—that nevertheless was always complex. Its original dichotomic nature, with Chinese Chợ Lớn and Vietnamese Sài Gòn, forcefully colonized and domesticated a quagmire. It eventually became colonized itself by France (formalized by the Indochina federation 1887-1954). The agglomeration subsequently underwent strong growth and transformation during the American War (1955-75), to explode even more after the (re)opening up to the market in 1986 (Đổi Mới: the change to the new). Shock and wave development (and significant disruption), hand-in-hand with forceful public intervention and laissez-faire dynamics, led to odd bedfellows—a partially planned and spontaneous urban environment, iterating between conscious design decisions anchored on territorial characteristics (predominantly defined by water structures) and generic additions regardless of the terrain, between structuring and undirected fabrics. Amidst another wave of rampant growth and expansion, the city plans to double its center eastwards across the Sài Gòn River in the water-sick districts 2, 9 and Thu Duc. This offers the occasion to boldly rethink the formation of the contemporary tropical deltaic metropolis. The article will plead for an alternative for the future development of HCMC through the elaboration of a project for the twin center of Sài Gòn, foreseen in an interfluvial land that is systematically permeated by canals, river branches, ditches, etc. The plan recognizes that the water system defines the base spatial register of the territory and intelligently anchors urban development on this register.
This study aims to explore a difference in the settlement characteristics of native people in North and South Vietnam that have been existed for a long time ago. Frist, this research summarizes the main factors in the history and geography of Vietnam that lead to a change in culture and society in Vietnam and directly affect the spatial structure of the village. Second, the precious experiences in choosing a residential site have been inherited from generation to generation are presented in terms of settlement characteristics, public space, and site layout. That experiences will be the key diver of urban planning in the future. Finally, the results show the structure of village in North is clustered form, while the spatial structure of South's village observes the linear form. These explorations are helpful knowledge for urban designers in the urbanization process. The research results will be detailed when the case study concentrates on the comparison between two ancient villages in each region, which are Duong Lam ancient village in Northern Vietnam and Long Tuyen ancient village in Southern Vietnam.
Vietnamese musicians engage with the concept of tâm hồn, or “soul,” to express an inner experience for external understanding and community building. Following the traumas of the twentieth century, inner experiences of Vietnamese in diaspora became difficult to articulate. To overcome this, musicians have focused on the body as the primary mediator of the soul. They use the left hand in particular to rebuild the soul and make sense of the fractured narratives that tell the stories of Vietnamese survival in diaspora. This article suggests that two musicians, neither of whom are Vietnamese refugees but who bore witness to trauma, play leading roles in this work.
Người nghệ sĩ Việt Nam sử dụng khái niệm “tâm hồn” để chia xẻ suy tư của mình và giúp cho người nghe rung cảm với những gì mà họ muốn thể hiện. Sau cuộc chiến tranh Việt Nam, với những thách thức trong cuộc sống tại quê hương mới cộng với những nỗi đau mất mát về cả thể chất và tâm hồn trong những chuyến vượt biển, nghệ sĩ Việt Nam tại hải ngoại không còn dễ dàng chia xẻ suy nghĩ và tình cảm của họ qua âm nhạc như trước. Đối với một số ít nghệ sĩ từ dòng âm nhạc cổ truyền Việt Nam, những khó khăn này không làm cho họ dừng việc dùng âm nhạc để chia xẻ cảm nghĩ. Với những nghệ sĩ này, khái niệm “tâm hồn” được biểu tả qua bàn tay trái của họ, dùng bàn tay này để rung, nhấn, vuốt ve những nốt nhạc và âm thanh của cây đàn để tạo cây cầu kết nối với người nghe của mình. Trong bài viết này, tôi muốn chia xẻ với bạn đọc hai nghệ sĩ của âm nhạc cổ truyền Việt Nam, nhạc sư Nguyễn Vĩnh Bảo và nghệ sĩ Võ Vân Ánh, dùng bàn tay trái của mình không những để chia xẻ tâm hồn của họ mà còn kể lại những kinh nghiệm và câu chuyện sâu thẳm của người Việt tại hải ngoại qua âm nhạc.
This study aims to explore a difference in the settlement characteristics of native people in North and South Vietnam that have been existed for a long time ago. First, this research summarizes the main factors in the history and geography of Vietnam that lead to a change in culture and society in Vietnam and directly affect the spatial structure of the village. Second, the precious experiences in choosing a residential site have been inherited from generation to generation are presented in terms of settlement characteristics, public space, and site layout. That experiences will be the key diver of urban planning in the future. Finally, the results show the structure of village in North is clustered form, while the spatial structure of South's village observes the linear form. These explorations are helpful knowledge for urban designers in the urbanization process. The research results will be detailed when the case study concentrates on the comparison between two ancient villages in each region, which are Duong Lam ancient village in Northern Vietnam and Long Tuyen ancient village in Southern Vietnam.
This thesis investigates the Hoa Hao Buddhist charitable movement in the Mekong delta of Vietnam. The Hoa Hao Buddhist sect is heir to a syncretic millenarian tradition originating in the mid nineteenth century Mekong delta. Hoa Hao followers undertake charity in keeping with a prophetic injunction to repay existential debts, be meritorious, and thus save their world from the apocalypse. As a seemingly parochial religious movement with a history of conflict with various outgroups, it could be assumed, in line with secularisation theses, that such a sect would not thrive in a modern Vietnam transformed by communist nation-building, modernisation and globalisation. One might reasonably predict that in such conditions, the Hoa Hao would become obsolete, or at best survive as a marginal vestige. However, the powerful resurgence of Hoa Hao charitable practices throughout the Mekong delta that has occurred in the context of Vietnam's integration into the global market system confounds such expectations. This thesis investigates the beliefs that drive Hoa Hao charity and how Hoa Hao charitable practice has responded to the demands of modernity. It shows that the religious-inspired giving of the Hoa Hao sect has been remarkably adaptive to changing conditions and standards while remaining faithful to its traditional values. The thesis draws upon a year's ethnographic research in a network of Hoa Hao localities in the Mekong delta undertaken in 2016 and 2018. I conducted participant observation with charitable practitioners in a variety of rural and urban settings, such as herbal clinics, processing facilities and farms; house, road and bridge construction sites; and charitable kitchens in state hospitals, markets and schools. I found that, informed by a distinctive belief system, Hoa Hao charity addresses a diverse and changing set of circumstances and needs. In a context of anomie, incertitude and rapid social change, Hoa Hao charitable workers have helped to build social cohesion, secure communities and overcome mistrust between antagonistic groups. Their activities have had a transformative effect in lives and localities, providing an infrastructure for individuals to build social capital and engage in self-cultivation. The findings also show how responsive and flexible Hoa Hao charity groups have been in meeting needs in diverse settings and their ability to offer large-scale, rational and effective services that are compliant with state standards. Hoa Hao charitable actors are able to co-opt local authorities in development projects, despite these actors' divergent visions, methods and rationales. Today Hoa Hao Buddhists are highly visible in social service provision, healthcare and rural infrastructure initiatives, where they are renowned for their high standards, efficiency and transparency. While demonstrating an adaptation to modernity and relevance in rapidly changing conditions, they still act in accordance with the values of their local religious tradition. Indeed, they have stepped up to fill various gaps in social service provision in fulfilment of a religiously-informed conception of social responsibility. The Hoa Hao charitable movement thus could be seen as an example of vernacular development. Acting in keeping with a unique indigenous worldview, the sect's practitioners have managed to adapt to and influence changes in their social environment and in doing so embody an autonomous path of development.
This chapter explores the historiography of the Vietnam War. It focuses on older works that established the broad contours of the “orthodox” and “revisionist” debate, and highlights recent works that have challenged such interpretations, raised new questions, or provided new insights into the origins, conduct, impact, and outcomes of the war. The chapter reveals that the historiography has moved from questions of why the United States lost (or won) the war to new approaches exploring the role of the United States' and North Vietnam's allies, examining how social movements not only shaped but were shaped by the war, and explaining Vietnam and Vietnamese actors within the global story of decolonization.
This article forges connections between two vibrant areas of current research within and beyond Asian studies: visual anthropology and the anthropology of morality and ethics. Its focus is on achieving moral citizenship as represented in Vietnam's visually spectacular capital, Hanoi, and on images as active and morally compelling, not mere reflections of the challenges of late-socialist marketization. The case of Vietnam compares intriguingly with other contexts where visuality has been fruitfully explored, including India and post-socialist Eurasia. The question asked is how images, both personal and official, can work either to provide or deny the viewer a quality of moral agency which they feel to be their due. The answer is found in the intertwining of silence and speech in relation to images. This includes what is said and unsaid in regard to public iconography, including memorial statuary and state message posters. It is proposed that the visuality of the urban street space is a continuum involving significant interaction with the intimacies of home and family image use. The article also seeks to add to our methodological ideas about treating fieldwork photographs as a basis for interaction with interlocutors, hence as active research tools rather than mere adjuncts to observation and analysis.
Located in the centre of the Mekong Delta (MD), Can Tho City (CTC), with a development history of more than three centuries, has affirmed its strategic position as an interregional centre. The city on Hau river is blessed by nature with the identity of a delta landscape associated with riverine dynamics. First, this article presents the development history of CTC, and the correlation between its urbanization history and the existing characteristics of the urban landscape. Then, this study further analyses challenges in urban development, assessing existing water infrastructure and opportunities of current urban and rural landscapes. Finally, urban landscape design strategies have been discussed to suggest improved resilience of the city with flood management in the context of climate change.
This book investigates why collectivised farming failed in south Vietnam after 1975. Despite the strong will of the new regime to implement collectivisation, the effort was uneven, misapplied and subverted. After only 10 years of trying, the regime annulled the policy. Focusing on two case studies—Quảng Nam province in the Central Coast region and An Giang province in the Mekong Delta—and based on extensive evidence, this study argues that the reasons for variations in implementation and the failure and reversal of the policy were twofold: regional differences and local politics.
Free download: https://press.anu.edu.au/publications/vietnam-series/vietnam’s-post-1975-agrarian-reforms
English abstract: Regardless of whether cultural resources are conceptualized as objectified in terms of “culture” or as embodied in human beings cultural resources are arguably located in people as subjects of culture. In my view, this implies that a vision of sustainable development that is predicated on cultural resources should place the subjects of culture first, to the point that these subjects of culture are identical with the subjects of development. This idea is rooted in a distinction (in the English language) between the verb “to develop” as transitive and as intransitive. Whereas in past linguistic practice, “to develop” was intransitive-i.e. had no grammatical object-with the post-World War II emergence of the modern notion of development as we know it now “to develop” became transitive meaning that it acquired an object. In other words, it became possible to develop something or somebody (singular or plural), resulting in a radical separation between the subjects of development (usually development donors, Global North, development organizations, states) and the objects of development (usually but not exhaustively all sorts of “target groups” like the poor ethnic
and other minorities, women and children, farmers, but also entire states in the Global South), resulting in the instrumentalization of the latter in the development process. From this point of departure, I offer a brief overview of past and present development practice and discourse with partial reference to Vietnam, and offer some suggestions how development objects could turn into development subjects by viewing them as embodied cultural resources-hence as cultural agents in their own right-and as subjects of their own development.
Vietnamese: Cho dù các nguồn lực văn hóa được định nghĩa một cách cụ thể với thuật ngữ “văn hóa” hay là gắn liền với con người, các nguồn lực văn hóa có thể được cho là nằm trong con người như là chủ thể của văn hóa. Theo tôi, điều này ngụ ý rằng một cách nhìn về phát triển bền vững dựa trên các nguồn lực văn hóa nên tập trung trước hết vào các chủ thể của văn hóa, với nghĩa là các chủ thể này giống với các chủ thể phát triển. Ý tưởng này bắt nguồn từ sự phân biệt (trong tiếng Anh) giữa động từ “phát triển” ở thể ngoại động từ và nội động từ. Trong khi thực hành ngôn ngữ trước đây, “phát triển” là nội động từ- không có bổ ngữ ngữ pháp- với sự xuất hiện khái niệm mới của phát triển từ sau chiến tranh thế giới thứ 2 như chúng ta biết ngày hôm nay (và như nó được sử dụng trong các văn bản giấy tờ), “phát triển” trở thành ngoại động từ, có nghĩa là nó có bổ ngữ. Nói một cách khác, “phát triển” bây giờ có thể là phát triển cái gì đó hay ai đó (số ít hay số nhiều), dẫn đến sự tách biệt hoàn toàn giữa các chủ thể của phát triển (thường là các nhà tài trợ phát triển, các tổ chức phát triển, nhà nước) và các khách thể phát triển (thường là các “nhóm mục tiêu” như là người nghèo, dân tộc thiểu số, phụ nữ và trẻ em, nông dân, và cả các tiểu bang phía Nam) dẫn đến công cụ hóa khách thể phát triển trong quá trình phát triển. Từ điểm xuất phát này, tôi đưa ra một cái nhìn khái quát về thực hành và diễn ngôn về phát triển trong quá khứ và hiện tại với có liên hệ đến Việt Nam và đưa ra một số gợi ý về việc các khách thể phát triển có thể biến thành các chủ thể phát triển như thế nào bằng cách coi họ như là các nguồn lực văn hoá – các chủ thể văn hóa - và như là chủ thể của sự phát triển của chính họ.
The North Atlantic development establishment has had a blemished track record over the past 65 years. In addition to a sizeable portfolio of failure, the few economic success stories in the developing world, such as South Korea and China, have been achieved by rejecting the advice of Western experts. Despite these realities, debates within mainstream development studies have stagnated around a narrow, acultural emphasis on institutions or the size and role of government. Cultures of Development uses a contrapuntal comparison of Vietnam and Brazil to show why it is important for development scholars and practitioners to broaden their conceptualization of economies to include the socio-cultural. This smartly written book based on original, ethnographic research breathes new life into development studies by bringing cultural studies into conversation with development studies, with an emphasis on improving-rather than merely critiquing-market economies. The applied deployment of critical development studies, i.e., interpretive economics, results in a number of theoretical advances in both development and areas studies, demonstrating the economic importance of certain kinds of cultural work carried out by religious leaders, artists, activists, and educators. Most importantly, the reader comes to fully appreciate how economies are embedded within the subjectivities, discourses, symbols, rituals, norms, and values of a given society. This pioneering book revives development practice and policy by offering fresh insights and ideas about how development can be advanced. It will be of special interest to scholars and students of Development Studies, Sociology, Economics, Anthropology, and Area Studies.
This article examines the discourses, politics, and everyday practices shaping the implementation of water supply and sanitation (WSS) development programs in Vietnam. Biopolitics is used as a theoretical framework to demonstrate how these programs can constitute tools of governance and forms of domination, independent of their success or failure. We explain why, in the case of Can Tho City in the Mekong Delta, access to sustainable WSS remains highly unequal and problematic. We draw on qualitative and quantitative social and health data collected during a ten-month fieldwork period. Our study identifies false narratives of WSS success based on portrayals of rurality and poverty as backward and miasmatic; misleading reporting tactics of local cadres; and misplaced faith in technical indicators. These success narratives legitimize the Vietnamese state as a triumphant bearer of “high modernity” while obscuring the needs and desires of those at risk of disease. We argue that interrogating power/knowledge imbalances on both micro and macro scales can help unravel the nature of persisting problems in WSS coverage. A focus on power/knowledge helps to dispel notions that improving WSS facilities is enough to prevent diarrhea. A health-promoting WSS sector, we conclude, needs to be context-specific, embracing local culture and having social equity at its core.
This article tracks the ways in which Vietnamese diasporic narratives of return are shadowed by history and capital and how the figure of the Vietnamese refugee is critical to the reimagining of Vietnam in terms of culture. In particular, it focuses on Vietnamese American ghost films made in Vietnam. Often produced collaboratively and transnationally, these films are framed by a haunting of history because they incorporate the work and finances of those who were cast outside the national family after the war ended in 1975. While Vietnamese refugees were denounced as traitors to the national family-and thus viewed as symbolically dead by the state-the diaspora are revenants of an interesting and important kind; they return as investors, tourists, artists, and filmmakers. Looking at the making of Vietnamese American ghost narratives, my work traces the ligaments between the national to the transnational, more specifically between southern Viát Nam and southern California, in the making of Vietnamese films today. I use Lê VCrossed D signn Kiát's House in the Alley (2012) as a case example to illustrate how this genre is both commercially viable and politically resonant for Vietnamese American directors who must work under the auspices of the state. The article concludes with the importance of studying what remains repressed in the articulations of a globalized Vietnamese nationhood, that is, diasporic histories. © 2016 MELUS: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States. All rights reserved.
This thesis investigates intermarriages between ethnic Khmer and
Kinh people in a province of southern Vietnam. Khmer-Kinh
interethnic marriage raises paradoxes, for the very possibility
of such unions is sometimes questioned owing to the
socio-economic gaps and assumed differences in cultural practices
between these groups, their historical tension, and mutually
unfavourable stereotypes. Nevertheless, this type of marriage is
real and has been increasing in recent years. This thesis aims to
explore the facilitating factors behind this type of marriage;
how Khmer-Kinh couples experience their relationship with
each-other and with their families; and how ethnic identity is
transmitted to the children of such unions. It demonstrates that
Khmer and Kinh couples engage in a dynamic process of negotiating
multiple constraints and adapting to differences to make their
marriages viable.
This thesis draws upon in-depth interviews and observations from
a field study undertaken by the author in 2012 in An Giang
Province. Thirty-five Khmer-Kinh interethnic couples took part in
the study that examined marriages in rural and urban areas as
well as ethnically segregated and ethnically mixed settings. The
participants were drawn from diverse socio-economic backgrounds
and included couples made up of individuals of similar and
dissimilar socio-economic standing.
The findings highlight that geographical and socioeconomic
disparities are significant barriers to Khmer-Kinh interethnic
marriage. Historical tensions also have led to the development of
pejorative stereotypes between the ethnic groups, which
significantly impede the formation of such intimate unions. The
findings unpack the complex factors and conditions facilitating
the incidence of Khmer-Kinh interethnic marriage, highlighting
the significance of modernization and development factors in
bridging the geographical, social, cultural and psychological
gaps between groups, and the role of new marriage markets and
personal experiences in facilitating such conjugal unions.
By examining couples’ relationship with each-other and with
their families, I found two core factors—class disparity and
cultural differences—account for many of the tensions and
conflicts arising in their marital life. The findings also
highlight the differential capacity of spouses and their families
to cope with cultural differences. Educational level, residential
location, ethnicity, gender expectations and practical utility
were influential factors shaping the capacity of spouses to cope
with the cultural differences encountered in their married lives.
The study further highlights the dynamics and variation in the
transmission of language, identity and heritage to the children
in Khmer-Kinh families, finding that all interviewed couples
supported the proposition that their children embrace both
cultural identities and acquire multicultural capacity.
Nevertheless, the findings show that such transmission to these
mixed children is shaped not only by individual choices or
familial preferences but also by several other factors including
gender, socialization context and socio-economic factors.
The thesis confirms that regardless of the socio-economic
disparities, preconceptions and cultural differences between
these groups, such unions are possible and viable in contemporary
Vietnam. The study uncovers the sources of tension in their
marriages and reveals that when conflicts do arise, most of the
couples in this study make multiple negotiations and adaptations
to make their relationship last.
Ken Burn’s forthcoming documentary on the war in Vietnam and President Obama’s 2012 speech that launched a government funded twelve-year series of Vietnam War 50th-anniversary events will assure a high level of public and academic interest in the war for the foreseeable future. This essay organizes books published between 2000 and 2014 into groups of studies of new commemorative practices, such as those in Australia recognizing the collaboration of Australian and South Vietnamese forces; studies of the cultural and political implications of veteran representations in film and folklore; new biographies and autobiographies of war and antiwar leaders through which Americans can see new facets of the war and postwar years; and studies of the war’s still-unfolding legacy for US foreign policy and military strategy. Focused as it is on remembrance and legacy, the essay necessarily makes excursions into the history of the war itself, with comments on the exciting new work by historians. The paper ends with observations on the state of the field as it stands now, and reflections on where it might go from here.
Performing traditional music in Vietnam presents for many a decisive way to establish oneself as part of history, part of the present and a strategist of future cultural function. In this article, I describe how musicians in southern Vietnam deploy the musical ruin, a sound object that has undergone devastating and alienating alteration against which a musician reacts in order to perform innovative music and educate others, in order to limit the development of and better sustain đờn ca tài tử, a genre of traditional music. The invocation of the musical ruin is not specific to the Vietnamese case but emerges as a creative impetus at particular historical moments to maintain one’s voice in increasingly crowded spheres of musical practice.
How, then, are we to understand Vietnam’s middle class, past and present? As these authors have shown, we would do well to avoid approaches which define a universal “middle class” in terms of income, or political liberalism, since these have arguably hindered efforts by scholars to make sense of the specificity and complexity of their subjects’ lives. In their introduction to this volume, Bélanger, Drummond, and Nguyen-Marshall encourage us, instead, to understand “middle class” not as a clearly-defined category or set of criteria, but as a far more unstable situation, not unlike what Li Zhang, in her research on the middle class in China has called a “process of ‘happening’” (2008, p. 24). Further, they encourage us to see middle class ness as marked, among other things, by practices of consumption, and efforts to acquire, or at least associate oneself with, particular “lifestyles.” In so doing, they draw on the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1977, 1984), who argued that class status is formed and maintained through a complex and changing matrix of knowledge and practices, in which mastery of particular aesthetics are as fundamental as access to material wealth. Drawing on the insights of Bourdieu and others, I explore some ways in which this collection of essays might further our understanding of the relationship between consumption, social distinction, and modernity as well as that between consumption, production, the market, and the state. Finally, I consider some of the middle class practices described in this volume in light of recent scholarly discussions about socialism, liberalism and neoliberalism, governmentality, and the public sphere.
Denne artikel er baseret på etnografisk feltarbejde og fokuserer på mad og spisning i relation til patienter med type 2 diabetes i Vietnams hovedstad Hanoi. Jeg tager udgangspunkt i to konkrete fortællinger om informanterne Mrs. Sau og Viet, hvis liv som velregulerede diabetikere kommer i konflikt med andre måder at investere mening i mad på. I artiklen sætter jeg fokus på officielle, nationale og internationale retningslinjer for diabetesbehandling, ernæring og det at ”være moderne”. Jeg diskuterer efterfølgende hvordan mine informanter forsøger at forholde sig til divergerende moralske og medicinske regimer i hverdagslivet i Vietnam. I denne sammenhæng er mad helt central og jeg viser hvordan den betydning, der knyttes til måltidet kan være mangfoldig, tvetydig og til tider kontrastfuld og krævende. Ydermere foreslår jeg at et teoretisk perspektiv på menneskers moraliteter, ´signifikante rutiner´ og hverdagserfaringer har et anvendelsespotentiale indenfor sundhedsfremme i Vietnam.
This article aims to explain the origins and formation of Europe's Vietnamese communities. It argues that emigration from post-war Vietnam (1975–1995) was a result of the dismantling of two models of Vietnamese society — the southern regime and the structures of socialism. However, the migration routes owe much to Vietnam's international relations in the Cold War. Isolation by western countries led to the formation of a Vietnamese community in Western Europe, consisting of refugees. At the same time, ties with the Soviet Union led to the formation of a community in Eastern Europe, consisting of guest workers. Two case studies present contrasting approaches to integration, and suggest possible alternate futures for Vietnamese communities in Europe.
As vividly depicted by James Scott (1998), environmental transformation and the utilization of natural resources for development have, in modern human history, often been driven by the high-modernist world views of (authoritarian) governments. In this context, environmental historians ascribe a powerful role to (hydraulic) engineers as agents of ecological and social transformation. With their epistemic power arising from their association with rational-modern science and technology development, engineers emerged as protagonists of large-scale landscape engineering and water control ventures coordinated by the nation state in the light of modernization. Against this historical background, this paper traces the post-reunification hydraulic mission in the Mekong Delta (1975–90) and highlights the strategic role that state-led water control efforts guided by hydraulic engineers have played in economic recovery, nation building, and state consolidation under socialism. It is argued that water resources development in the Mekong Delta is deeply embedded in the country’s historical trajectory, which is framed by national division, the struggle for independence, and the subsequent reunification under the Vietnam Communist Party’s leadership. The socialist hydraulic bureaucracy, which arose in the 1950s in North Vietnam, capitalized on the opportune moment of reunification of North and South and systematically expanded its control over the southern waterscape. In this context, the paper presents a historical perspective on how water development strategies and institutional arrangements evolved when North Vietnamese engineers took over water resources management in the Mekong Delta. These past developments still have far-reaching implications for present-day water management dynamics in Vietnam’s largest river estuary.
This article examines the ways in which the Communist Party and the state in Vietnam have become involved in the annual lunar new year (Tet) festival in the name of the nation, and with how this is facilitated by the ancestor cult and linked to their more general involvement in religious events such as the commemoration of national heroes and deities.
This article describes developments in Vietnamese Australian community arts in the context of recent reforms to Community Cultural Development (CCD) funding. While a discussion of two case studies suggests these reforms have encouraged a shift towards post-welfarist and enterprising modes of project development, the article argues that conspicuously ‘cosmo-multiculturalist’ and ‘sentimental aesthetics’ cannot be explained entirely in terms of post-1980s cultural policies of the Australian Labour government. The article concludes that recent attempts to link CCD work to professional arts networks were in fact anticipated by the explicit agendas of Vietnamese Australian CCD workers themselves, although for quite different purposes.
The Communist Party of Vietnam’s (CPV) market reform policies—introduced in the late 1980s and carrying on today—have opened the country to foreign investment, deregulated state-owned enterprises, decollectivized agricultural cooperatives, and encouraged foreign direct investment. However, what the Party has not wanted reformed, and has fought strongly on behalf of, is culture. Using primary source official CPV cultural policy documentation and secondary sources highlighting contemporary meanings of Vietnamese and foreign cultures, this paper evaluates the Party’s use of culture as a resource in the direction and regulation of the nation’s market economy with a socialist orientation. While culture is expedient for all governments, I argue that the CPV’s intent is unique in that it uses culture as an instrument to maintain its ownership, rather than simply to legitimize its regulatory ability, over the national political economy. This paper aims to show how culture is part and parcel of post-socialist governance’s political-economic framework and contributes to debates surrounding the reach and impact of neoliberalism in formerly command economies.
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