Saigon from the diaspora

Abstract

In the wake of reform in Vietnam and the end of the cold war, overseas Vietnamese are returning to their former homeland in increasing numbers. For most of the first generation in the diaspora, memories of wartime Saigon are now being augmented by a touristic experience of contemporary Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. This essay asks how the co-presence of these differently spatialized and temporalized ways of knowing the city affects the production and consumption of images of Saigon in overseas Vietnamese communities in the West. Based on media ethnography carried out in Vietnamese households in Sydney, the paper argues that changes in the way Saigon is represented in overseas Vietnamese popular culture reflect a shift in the larger politics of diasporic identity. While narratives of exile and refugeehood remain potent forms of affective (if not instrumental) politics in overseas Vietnamese contexts, transnational forms of consciousness and identification are beginning to enter into diasporic public culture, albeit in a highly contested way.

Governing through mobilities and the expansion of spatial capability of Vietnamese marriage migrant activist women in South Korea

“…Such studies range in subject from resistance and sociocultural empowerment (Piper, ) to identity negotiation (Yea, ) where the role of society and family appear as key themes. For example, a number of scholars (Yeoh et al ., ; Bélanger & Tran, ; Kim MJ, 2013) have focused on the financial needs of the natal family as well as the sending state (Hickey et al ., ; Carruthers, ). Yeoh et al .…”

Bringing the countryside to the city: Practices and imaginations of the rural in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

“…In turn, Ho Chi Minh City residents produce spatial discourses that represent ‘the rural’ with ‘both reverence and paternalistic subordination to the urban centre’ (Harms, 2011b: 457). Ho Chi Minh City is imagined as a powerful yet temporary tool to amass wealth, solidify connections, run a business or work in a chosen field but suffers from some of the same problems Western urban commentators cite in their analyses of Asian cities: the city is described as depraved (Hoang, 2011), polluted (Mitchell, 2009), unsafe (Carruthers, 2008) and lacks the appropriate conditions for family life and community building because it is a haven for individuality and selfishness (Drummond and Thomas, 2003). In short, this section seeks to show the ways in which rural space serves as a discursive proxy for the aspirational possibilities and challenges of Ho Chi Minh City residents in light of the country’s urban-minded reform-era policies.…”

The Tensions of Diasporic ‘Return’ Migration

“…Though my data relies primarily on observations and interviews from Vietnamese Americans, some aspects of the Viet Kieu “returnees” who originate from Australia, Canada, and Western Europe can be included in the term “Vietnamese diaspora” because of the history of post-1975 refugee outmigration that characterized the majority of migratory flows from the homeland. The diasporic Vietnamese Americans and Australians in particular share more commonalities, as Carruthers (2008, 71) suggests that they share roughly “the same vision of diasporic identity and participate in the same public sphere, for instance over the Internet, in popular cultural products such as music videos produced in California”; a further similarity between the two is that they both were situated in immigrant receiving societies opposed to Ho Chi Minh in the Vietnam War/American War. Geopolitics of sending and host countries in these migratory flows continues to play an instrumental role in shaping the reception of these diasporic subjects.…”