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Engaging the Spirit World
In many parts of the contemporary world, spirit beliefs and practices have taken on a pivotal role in addressing the discontinuities and uncertainties of modern life. The myriad ways in which devotees engage the spirit world show the tremendous creative potential of these practices and their innate adaptability to changing times and circumstances. Through in-depth anthropological case studies from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam, the contributors to this book investigate the role and impact of different social, political, and economic dynamics in the reconfiguration of local spirit worlds in modern Southeast Asia. Their findings contribute to the re-enchantment debate by revealing that the “spirited modernities” that have emerged in the process not only embody a distinct feature of the contemporary moment, but also invite a critical rethinking of the concept of modernity itself.
Modernity and Re-enchantment
Covers shared logics of spiritual efficacy across a range of practices, which include ancestor veneration, spirit mediumship, Buddhist sectarianism and Catholic myths and miracles. Defines, documents, and discusses each issue relating to Vietnam studies.
Traders in Motion
With essays covering diverse topics, from seafood trade across the Vietnam-China border, to street traders in Hanoi, to gold shops in Ho Chi Minh City, Traders in Motion spans the fields of economic and political anthropology, geography, and sociology to illuminate how Vietnam's rapidly expanding market economy is formed and transformed by everyday interactions among traders, suppliers, customers, family members, neighbors, and officials. The contributions shed light on the micropolitics of local-level economic agency in the paradoxical context of Vietnam's socialist orientation and its contemporary neoliberal economic and social transformation. The essays examine how Vietnamese traders and ...
Performing the Divine
"Vietnam in the last two decades has experienced not only market reform and significant economic growth but also a related, symbiotic revival of popular religion. It is no surprise, then, that popular beliefs and rituals that once were attacked as wasteful and superstitious have again become a conspicuous feature of contemporary urban and rural life. A new blossoming of spirit mediumship has been part of this revival, not least that involving ritual possession by the deities of the Four Palace Pantheon, which this study based in urban Hanoi brings to life with a deft handling of complex theory, historical research, ethnographic material and analysis. This is indeed a sojourn into the world of mediumship in contemporary urban Vietnam - a spirited world full of colour, laughter, music and ritual dance that operates according to its own rules and principles - but it is also an insightful study of spirituality, performance, gender and heritage, one that highlights the fluidity of ritual practice and contestations of ritual performance among practitioners."--Publisher's website.
Area Studies, Business and Culture
As the level of globalization in business relationships rises, the importance of questions and problems pertaining to intercultural communication increases more and more. This gives rise to new tasks for the social sciences, which can only be successfully performed through interdisciplinary cooperation in the sense of area-studies. Between 1995 and 2002 for area, the Bavarian research network for area-studies, drew together numerous members of the scientific community who are specialized in the social sciences to pursue previously unresearched topics in areas of overlap of business and culture as exemplified in non-European regions. The most important results are collated here.
Possessed by the Spirits
The essays in this volume examine the resurgence of the Mother Goddess religion among contemporary Vietnamese following the economic "Renovation" period in Vietnam. Anthropologists explore the forces that compel individuals to become mediums and the social repercussions of their decisions and interactions.
Improvising the Voice of the Ancestors
Cultural heritage and national identity have been significant themes in debates concerning Central Asia following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, not only in academic circles, but more importantly among the general public in the newly independent Central Asian states. Inspired by insights from a popular form of traditional cultural performance in Kyrgyzstan, this book goes beyond cultural revival discourse to explore these themes from a historically informed anthropological perspective. Based on fourteen months of fieldwork and archival research in Kyrgyzstan, this historical ethnography analyses the ways in which political elite in Central Asia attempts to exercise power over its citizens through cultural production from early twentieth century to the present.
Living with Uncertainty
This book is one of the first ethnographies written on the life of farmers in rural Southern Vietnam since the economic reform in the 1980s. It investigates how social, economic and political factors affect the farmers' life in the Mekong Delta in the late socialist era with a particularly focus on the family, which serves as the basic and most significant social unit for the farmers. Dealing with classical anthropological topics of kinship and family, the book examines them as dynamic institutions. With vivid illustrations of the village life, family farming, education of children, jobs outside of farming and everyday politics, it presents new and different pictures of the current Vietnamese family under rapid social changes.The book will contribute to the current ethnographical research in Vietnam and Southeast Asia and also be of particular interest to those working on society and culture in the geographical region from broader disciplines. It will also appeal to readers who are interested in such topics as late socialism, social transformation, and rural development.
Weaving Women's Spheres in Vietnam
Weaving Women’s Spheres in Vietnam offers an in-depth study of the status of women in Vietnamese society through an examination of their roles in the context of family, religious and local community life from anthropological, historical and sociological perspectives. Unlike previous works on gender issues relating to Vietnam which focus on women as passive subjects and are restricted to specific spheres such as family, this book, through a series of case studies and life stories, not only examines the suppressive gender structure of the Vietnamese family, but also demonstrates Vietnamese women's agency in appropriating that structure and creating alternative spheres for women which they ha...
Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Vietnam
The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Vietnam is a comprehensive resource exploring social, political, economic, and cultural aspects of Vietnam, one of contemporary Asia’s most dynamic but least understood countries. Following an introduction that highlights major changes that have unfolded in Vietnam over the past three decades, the volume is organized into four thematic parts: Politics and Society Economy and Society Social Life and Institutions Cultures in Motion Part I addresses key aspects of Vietnam’s politics, from the role of the Communist Party of Vietnam in shaping the country’s institutional evolution, to continuity and change in patterns of socio-political organization, p...
