Organizer: Christina Schwenkel, University of California, Riverside
Chair: Ken MacLean, Clark University
Discussant: Ann Marie Leshkowich, College of the Holy Cross
This panel examines the production, representation,
and contestation of neoliberal forms of knowledge at sites where capitalist
forms of globalization and market socialism intersect in contemporary Vietnam.
Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork, panelists address the complexities of
neoliberal reform in relation to global and national regulatory processes through
which knowledge about Vietnam and its reform practices is constructed and often
contested. Particular attention is focused on the ways neoliberal knowledge
production is embedded in a language of “rights” and “progress” that
disciplines and defines im/proper practices and values at state and individual
levels. We address neoliberalism not as a uniform project that signifies the
demise of national sovereignty and the triumph of a global market economy.
Rather, we approach it as a globally diverse set of social, economic, and geopolitical
policies and practices, informed by cultural-historical particularities, that
continually work to reframe and at times reconfirm neoliberal forms of subjectivity
and knowledge formation. The panel asks: how do people make sense of neoliberalism
and its dominant constructions of knowledge in their everyday lives and practices?
In what ways do imperial and socialist histories, as well as current global
capitalist processes shape local contexts that in turn both enable and limit
the adoption of neoliberal practices? How does the endurance of socialist interpretive
frameworks and forms of knowledge contest or rework neoliberalism and its global
modes of regulation, and, conversely, how might socialist continuities work
in conjunction with neoliberalism to affirm its basic tenets?
Melissa J. Pashigian, Bryn Mawr College
This paper concerns the production of forms of knowledge particularly
associated with reproduction, infertility and technical treatments for
infertility in Vietnam, and the ways these forms have been harnessed to
promote representations of national progress and success. I suggest that
processes of counting, enumeration, accounting and accountability (or lack
thereof) in reproductive medicine (both traditional medicine and biomedicine)
shape individual perceptions of national progress in Vietnam and operate
as a tool for both public and private for-profit institutions to shape,
promote and define “im/proper
neoliberal practices.” The paper explores, first, how individuals
consume or eschew forms of quantification in their medical diagnostics
and treatments to create individual methods of verification by which to
evaluate their care; second, how efforts on the part of a public hospital,
pharmaceutical companies, and the national media have intersected to construct
reproductive success associated with infertility and in vitro fertilization;
and third, how transfers of reproductive technology, training and medical
personnel across international borders have contributed to a construction
of Vietnam as an emerging global site of reproductive success. Finally,
the paper questions the basis of counting and accountability of reproductive
success and the fine line between neoliberal and socialist interpretations
of counting and quantification long associated with births and bodies.
Erik Harms, Duke University
What does it mean that most Ho Chi Minh City residents call the city Saigon?
Or that they enjoy the pleasures of consumerism? For many foreign observers,
the popular use of the toponym "Saigon", coupled with efflorescent
conspicuous consumption, offers metonymic proof that "the People" have
overturned socialism. In this thinking, "Ho Chi Minh City" stands
for socialism, "Saigon" stands for neoliberal capitalism, any autonomous
activity refutes central planning, and all forms of consumption signal the
triumph of market-based capitalism. The people, we might assume, have voted
for the market with their consumer practices, and everyday fence-breaking activities
represent nothing other than autonomous resistance to state control.
This celebration of popular practices, despite its professed sensitivity
to "local knowledge", obscures key criticisms of neoliberal programs.
By focusing exclusively on popular resistance and by highlighting extensive
conspicuous consumption, many bottom-up studies celebrate the immediate pleasures
and gains of economic restructuring without documenting the negative social
consequences that come along with it. In this paper, I liken neoliberal transitions
to the perils of a Saigon drinking circle, where the ebullient thrill of
today's consumption is soon followed by a host of social consequences. Furthermore,
I use the model of the drinking circle to present an alternative conception
of Vietnamese economic rationality. Any bottom-up study of Saigon life must
look beyond the joyful cheer of highly visible public consumption practices
in order to account for less visible relations of power, as well as more
sobering, yet largely silent, alternative voices.
Christina Schwenkel, University of California, Riverside
Shortly after the photographs of tortured bodies in Abu Ghraib prison appeared
in the global media, Voice of America aired a controversial report in Vietnam
that traced a history of abuse and humiliation of U.S. soldiers during war,
including that experienced by American POWs in Hanoi. Not unexpectedly, Vietnamese
listeners vehemently protested this broadcast and contested such representations
of Vietnam as a gross violator of human rights by citing counter-examples
to highlight its tradition of humanitarianism. This paper examines the controversy
over in/humane wartime acts and the complex ways it shapes current Vietnamese
understandings of neoliberalization. Ongoing U.S. allegations of human rights
abuses and restricted freedoms in past and present day Vietnam have more
recently accompanied charges of global capitalist misconduct, with accusations
of dumping and other trade violations leveled against Vietnamese small-scale
producers. The paper approaches neoliberalism as an enduring aspect of U.S.
empire, and as a tool imagined by U.S. policymakers to solve Vietnam’s human rights “problem” and
rescue its economy from the failures of socialism. This logic, I argue, informs
U.S. neoliberal interventions in Vietnam, evident in the discourse of “rights” that
has been mobilized in a concerted effort to reform and discipline “proper” neoliberal
economic and humanistic practices. In a clash of competing regimes of knowledge,
Vietnamese responses reveal ambiguous sentiments toward U.S. neoliberal policies
that are linked not to freedom as envisioned in the West, but to suppression;
that is, to the silencing of particular histories of U.S. violence and their
aftermaths.
Ken MacLean, Clark University
Reports of a multi-million dollar scandal unexpectedly appeared in Vietnam’s
state-controlled press in early 2006. While security officials maintain tight
control on what kinds of information can be reported, restrictions against covering
corruption cases have relaxed in recent years. Nonetheless, most Vietnamese
found official coverage of the scandal, known as PMU-18, to be unprecedented
in both scope and reach. This was particularly surprising as it dealt with a
very sensitive topic: the criminal misuse of overseas development assistance
(ODA) by high-ranking government officials. In the months that followed, media
reports regularly provided further information detailing how 200 officials within
the Ministry of Transportation embezzled ODA funds to pay bribes, cover gambling
debts, purchase luxury vehicles, and procure prostitutes. This paper explores
three inter-related facets of the scandal: 1) efforts by international donors
to pressure the Government of Vietnam to implement a range of anti-corruption
measures it passed in 2004 and 2005; 2) the Communist Party’s attempts
to discipline its members via the “war” on corruption that followed;
and 3) how urban Vietnamese understood these competing efforts to promote greater
transparency, accountability, and other “best practices” associated
with neo-liberal models of good governance. Attention to the points of overlap
between them offers insights into the emergence of “audit culture” in
Vietnam, i.e. the forms of knowledge and procedures donors and government
agencies alike increasingly use to assess official compliance with anti-corruption
measures. The unintended consequences highlight how socialist interpretive frameworks
continue to contest and rework neo-liberal practices in the Vietnamese context.
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