Guest Editors' Introduction: How Is Neoliberalism Good to Think Vietnam? How Is Vietnam Good to Think Neoliberalism?

Abstract

The recent global economic crisis has called into question triumphalist narratives of neoliberal capitalism and its global uniformity. In this introduction to the special issue on Vietnam, we examine Vietnamese “market socialism” as a fertile site for considering how transnational neoliberalism and state socialism have intersected to shape knowledge, governmentality, and everyday cultural practices. We ask, how does the endurance of socialist interpretive frameworks and logics of morality contest or rework neoliberalism and its global modes of regulation? Conversely, how might socialist continuities work in conjunction with neoliberalism to affirm its basic tenets? We argue for an understanding of transnational neoliberalism as a globally diverse set of technical practices, institutions, modes of power, and governing strategies informed by cultural and historical particularities. We caution against addressing “neoliberalism” as a uniform project that signifies the retreat of government or the triumph of a global market economy that fetishizes the “free”; instead we call for more attention to the ways in which socialism is deeply, though unevenly, woven into particular cultural forms, political practices, and historical legacies to ask, What if anything is unique about “neoliberalism” in socialist Vietnam, and to what extent is neoliberalism a useful lens for thinking through contemporary socioeconomic change in Vietnam?

Beyond the Global Care Chain: Boundaries, Institutions and Ethics of Care

“…As 'hyperexploitation is wedded to intense moralization, nonremuneration to a public fetishization of sacrifice', she writes, an affective self is produced, one that 'participates in generating a public fantasy of affectively animated individuals made productive through state law, policy and citizen's sentiments themselves' (Muehlebach 2012, 6, 11). Such moralization of neoliberal restructuring helps to produce self-reliant citizens pursuing their private goals yet politically governable by the state, similar to what has been observed in post-socialist East Asia (Zhang and Ong 2008;Schwenkel and Leshkowich 2012).…”

Health dispossessions and the moralization of disease: the case of diarrhea in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

“…Vietnamese authorities prefer survey-based quantitative studies, discounting qualitative social studies (Waibel and Ehlert 2012). There is an ongoing debate about how to discern the reverberations of global capitalism in a nation-state that still claims to be socialist, and whether neoliberalism is a useful concept for understanding market-state-society interactions in the country (Gainsborough 2010;Schwenkel and Leshkowich 2012). Anglo-American neoliberal tendencies have deprioritizing social welfare since the 1970s, favoring free market activity and the ethics that accompany it.…”

Shifting configurations of shopping practices and food safety dynamics in Hanoi, Vietnam: a historical analysis

“…Whereas "urbanites" traditionally produced their own vegetables, this development necessitated new ways of food appropriation. Urbanization and socio-economic development resulted in dispersed family ties and a decrease in kinship interdependence (Bich 1999;Hirschman and Vu 1996;Knodel et al 1998;Schwenkel and Leshkowich 2012). This development opened up the way for more individualistic household decision-making.…”