Kung Fu Fighting: The Cultural Pedagogy of the Body in the Vovinam Overseas Vietnamese Martial Arts School

Abstract

This paper explores the pedagogic practices by which Overseas Vietnamese elites seek to enlist the young in a shared conception of Vietnamese identity in the context of a martial arts organisation. It shows how the contradictory principles of gerontocratic and meritocratic social structuration, identified in the Vietnamese system of person reference, are given embodied form in the school's practice. The paper concludes with a reflection on how incorporation into this habitus and the relation to the Vietnamese body it offers may act as a defence, albeit an ambivalent one, against classifications of the Vietnamese body as abject emanating from the host society.

The Accumulation of National Belonging in Transnational Fields: Ways of Being at Home in Vietnam

“…"A boss has to act like a boss." This formulation beautifully expresses the movement back and forth between proximity and distance, communitas and hierarchy, the molecular and the molar, which is familiar and intelligible to actors in the context of contemporary Vietnamese social National Belonging in Transnational Fields: Vietnam institutions (Carruthers 1998). An went on to say that, when working in midmanagement in an overseas Vietnamese-owned firm, he consciously kept his distance from the local staff.…”

From Gangs to Shopping Malls: Sentimental Aesthetics in Vietnamese Australian Community Arts

“…The bilingual Vietnamese/English karaoke video 'Vovinam Shops' shows a suited martial arts instructor drilling bemused Vietnamese shopkeepers and customers in Vovinam, a form of martial arts indigenous to Vietnam that was reputedly developed in the late colonial era by Grand Master Nguyen Loc. According to a somewhat gloomy analysis by Ashley Carruthers, Vovinam functions in community settings as a practical resource for cultural maintenance, one that is appropriate for inculcating traditional values (such as filial piety and deference to gerontocratic social structures) in young people who are regarded as especially vulnerable to 'loosing' their cultural roots (Carruthers 1998). The portrait here is of a migrant community more or less in thrall to the ideological indoctrination of first wave Vietnamese refugees seeking to preserve the memory of the Republic of Vietnam.…”

Approaching the Gendered Phenomenon of ‘Women Warriors’

“…The cultivation of fitness or some other form of body management; development of various self-defence competencies; pursuit of competitive success within inter-or intra-club sparring matches; or the opportunity to give public demonstrations may all be a feature of practice in a variety of activities which might be broadly described as 'martial arts'. In addition, both men and women participating within them may be motivated by several other factors, including the pursuit of spiritual or moral self-development (e.g., Abramson and Modzelewski, 2011;Boddy, 2014;Brown and Leledaki, 2010); educational benefits, particularly among children or younger people (e.g., Brown and Johnson, 2000;Lakes and Hoyt, 2004;Vertonghen et al, this volume); the enjoyment or excitement of the activity and its socio-cultural significance (e.g., McCaughey, 1998;Mierzwinski and Phipps, this volume;Mierzwinski et al, 2014;Thing, 2001); the sociability and social capital of club membership (e.g., Jennings, 2010;Lantz, 2002;Looser, 2006); the chance to experience 'other' cultures, or preserve/reinvent one's own cultural tradition or ethnic heritage (e.g., Brown and Leledaki, 2010;Carruthers, 1998;Farrer, 2011;George Jennings, this volume;Joseph, 2008;; and yet more besides. Given this multiplicity of possible training goals and outcomes, great variation inevitably exists within the (gendered) physical practices which might be observed in such settings.…”