Overview

This volume is the first to document the impact on everyday lived experience of the key political and economic transformations that have occurred in Vietnam in recent times. Vietnam is presently undergoing a metamorphosis from a relatively closed society with a centrally planned economy, to a rapidly urbanising one with a globalising cultural outlook. These changes have been the catalyst for an exciting ferment of activity in the domain of popular culture. Artists, musicians, writers, television producers and film directors have all benefited from the diversification in patterns of consumption, the slowly increasing levels of wealth, and the gradual freeing up of state control over the activities of the populace. The key themes of the volume are the widespread ambivalence throughout Vietnam about the changes taking place, the need for external cultural influences to be indigenised in culturally meaningful ways, and the consistent blurring of the boundaries between the operation of informal, non-state cultural activities and formal institutional structures in the evolution of a civil society in Vietnam. The chapters in this volume represent the work of not only well-known Vietnam scholars from Vietnam and elsewhere, but also some of Vietnam's most popular cultural producers who are forging new ways of imagining the present whilst at the same time engaging actively in reinterpreting the past. In Vietnam, the embrace of popular culture has arisen simultaneously with a nostalgia for modes of life that are dramatically changing. This important volume reveals the diverse ways that Vietnam is culturally and socially negotiating the future. Peter Higgs, The Centre for Harm Reduction, The Macfarlane Burnet Institute for medical Research and Public Health, Fairfield, Australia; Associate Professor Cheryl Stock, QUT Creative Industries F

Full Product Details

Author:   Lisa Drummond ,  Mandy Thomas
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.660kg
ISBN:  

9780415296892

ISBN 10:   0415296897
Pages:   272
Publication Date:   05 June 2003
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Contents; Acknowledgements; List of Contributors; Introduction; 1 Introduction, Mandy Thomas and Lisa Drummond; The background to recent changes; 2 Political Developments in Vietnam: the rise and demise of Le Kha Phieu, 1997-2001, Carl Thayer; 3 Culture and Economy: dyed in the wool tigers?, Adam Fforde; 4 The Politics of the Greenback: the interaction between the formal and black markets in Ho Chi Minh City, Martin Gainsborough; Everyday life and cultural change in contemporary Vietnam; 5 Footpath Trading: the dynamics of one Hanoi neighbourhood, Peter Higgs; 6 Speaking Pictures: biem hoa or satirical cartoons on government corruption and popular political thought in contemporary Vietnam, Thuy Pham; 7 'Bia Om' and Karaoke: HIV and everyday life in urban Vietnam, Stephen McNally; Vietnamese popular culture; 8 Pilgrims and Pleasure Seekers, Alexander Soucy; 9 'Doi Moi' and cultural identity in Ho Chi Minh City's 'cai luong' opera, Philip Taylor; 10 Popular television and images of urban life, Lisa Drummond; 11 Out of Control: emergent cultural landscapes and political change in urban Vietnam, Mandy Thomas; The view from within: the changing world of Vietnamese cultural practitioners; 12 Representations of Doi moi and Cultural Change in Vietnamese Cinema, Dang Nhat Minh and Thuy Pham; 13 Let's Talk about Love: Depictions of Love and Marriage in Contemporary Vietnamese Short Fiction, Phan Thi Vang Anh and Thuy Phamq; 14 Doi moi and the crisis in Vietnamese dance, Cheryl Stock.

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Author Information

Lisa Drummond is an Assistant Professor in Urban Studies at York University in Toronto. Her doctoral research in geography at the Australian National University was on everyday life and social change in urban Vietnam. Lisa has worked in Vietnam since 1991 and lived there for 6 years, undertaking research as well as being employed on development projects with bilateral and multilateral donors and NGOs. Her earlier research was on women in the informal sector in Hanoi; her most recent work is on the Vietnamese state's programme of social modernization and transformations in urban society. Mandy Thomas, an anthropologist, is a research fellow and Deputy Director of the Institute for Cultural Research, University of Western Sydney. She has published widely on the overseas Vietnamese communities in Australia, including the book 'Dreams in the Shadows: Vietnamese-Australian lives in transition' (Allen and Unwin 1999). She has recently been researching and writing about Vietnamese popular cultural movements such as celebrity-watching and crowd formation and has also been involved in development consultancy projects in Vietnam.

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