Dòng Nội dung
1
“Modern and Strange Things”: Peasants and Mass Consumer Goods in the Mekong Delta / David Hunt. // Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2014, Vol. 9, No. 1.
2014
p. 36-61

Alterations in the spending habits of country people constitute one thread in the history of Vietnamese society in the 1960s. Some welcomed and others objected to mass-produced consumer goods and especially to new forms of dress. The ensuing controversy played out amidst the violent crosscurrents of the Vietnam War and led to dissension within the ranks of the National Liberation Front and in the Sài Gòn milieu. The last word belongs to villagers who, in trying to sort out the meanings of new commodities, were trying to decide what sort of future they wished for their country.
2
A “Biography Not” of General Trần Độ: His Dissident Writings, Elite Politics, and Death in Retrospect./ Ken Maclean. // Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2013, Vol. 8, No. 1.
2013
p. 34-79

This article explores the controversial life, writings, and death of Lieutenant General Trần Độ, a decorated war hero who became Vietnam’s leading political dissident during the final decade of his life. The general made use of his biography to author “open letters” that circulated via elite social networks and later the internet. In them, he called on the Vietnamese Communist Party to democratize itself in order to foster just and equitable development for all. The details illustrate the critical importance of an individual’s biography in shaping not only dissent, but official efforts to censor it as well.
3
An Epistemology of Gender: Historical Notes on the Homosexual Body in Contemporary Vietnam, 1986 - 2005 / Richard Quang – Anh Tran // Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2014, Vol. 9, No. 2
2014
p. 1-45

This article traces the meaning of same-sex sexuality in Vietnamese-language popular sources from the Renovation period to the early years of the millennium to argue that one dominant meaning prevailed: the idea that homosexual identity is synonymous with gender-crossing. Historical studies have shown that in certain times and places, same-sex sexuality was predicated on other variables, such as status and power, not gender. Yet, the Vietnamese sources insist on the centrality of gender in homosexual definition. This article discusses two historical discourses, one medical and the other state-sponsored, that contributed to the shaping of this definition.
4
Bùi Quang Chiêu in Calcutta (1928): The Broken Mirror of Vietnamese and Indian Nationalism / Agathe Larcher - Goscha. // Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2014, Vol. 9, No. 4
2014
p.67 - 114

This article studies the trip to India in late 1928 by Bùi Quang Chiêu and Dương Văn Giáo. These two Vietnamese leaders of the Constitutionalist Party had been invited to participate in the Forty-third Indian National Congress as the “delegates from Annam.” On this occasion, they solemnly affirmed Vietnamese solidarity with the Indian anticolonial cause. Using Bùi Quang Chiêu’s long travelogue published upon his return to Cochinchina, this article seeks to underline a paradox: the Indian non-cooperation movement was discovered and described enthusiastically by the leader of the main Vietnamese nationalist movement who was himself in favor of colonial collaboration with the French in Indochina during the interwar period. This essay analyzes this paradox and presents a mirror-like reflection on the internal breakdown of colonial nationalism in Indochina in the 1920s and how French colonizers undermined it from the outside in a never ending quest for docile Vietnamese interlocutors.
5
Changes in Social Capital: A Case Study of Collective Rice Farming Practices in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam / Le Anh Tuan, Alison Cottrell, David King. // Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2014, Vol. 9, No. 2
2014
p. 68 - 99.

This paper describes how the social capital of rice farmers of the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, as manifested in the tradition of collective farming practice, has changed. Collective rice farming persisted for decades, irrespective of critical events that challenged its continuation, due to two key factors: the high need for collective farming to ensure subsistence, and the availability of a closely knit social network that facilitated the exchange of labor. Despite its longevity, the practice of collective farming, particularly in terms of labor exchange and mutual aid in farming activities, has not been maintained under current agrarian reforms. Land reform, increased mechanization, and shortened crop cycles leading to labor shortages have all resulted in individualized rice farming, making mobilization for spontaneous collective action at the community level challenging.