Vietnam effectively controlled the Covid-19 pandemic until April 2021, and faced great challenges... more Vietnam effectively controlled the Covid-19 pandemic until April 2021, and faced great challenges afterwards, partly due to the spread of the highly transmissible Delta and Omicron strains of the coronavirus. Adopting Joel Migdal's "state-in-society" approach, this article focuses not on the impact of regime type, but on the fear-driven tension and the process of negotiation among different levels of the state apparatus and between state and society during the covid-19 pandemic in Vietnam. The evolution of this pandemic was shaped not only by state measures but also by citizens' fear-driven situational variation in norm compliance, as well as by the historical and cultural backgrounds of a society, specifically the wide sharing of war experiences and the war metaphor in Vietnamese society, and the non-negative meaning of face masks in daily life.
The research aims at analyzing how the attitude factors affect the intention to buy VietGAP veget... more The research aims at analyzing how the attitude factors affect the intention to buy VietGAP vegetables in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam (HCMC), by intervewing 633 inhabitants. The method of Cronbach's Alpha analysis, EFA analysis, CFA analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) were used with the SPSS and AMOS programs. The result shows that there are 04 attitude factors affects on the intention to buy VietGAP vegetables in HCMC decreasingly: (1) Vegetables safety, (2) Belief, (3) Health concern, (4) Subjective norm. The research also suggests some solutions to the VietGAP vegetable producers to enhance the selling capability.
Postmodernism in Western humanities and social sciences emphasizes multivocality and cultural hyb... more Postmodernism in Western humanities and social sciences emphasizes multivocality and cultural hybridity in the so-called postmodern era. On the basis of data on urban wedding ceremonies and rural spiritual space from northern and southern Vietnam, this paper suggests: 1. Multivocality and cultural hybridity have long existed in Vietnam; 2. The theoretical linkage of multivocality and cultural hybridity to the postmodern era is rooted in the West’s particular historical and cultural trajectories. Such a linkage does not work well in many non-Western contexts, including Vietnam.
Urbanization, Migration and Poverty in a Vietnamese Metropolis, 2009
With the shift to a market economy, Ho Chi Minh City became a magnet for migrants and experienced... more With the shift to a market economy, Ho Chi Minh City became a magnet for migrants and experienced rapid growth. Migration provides labor for economic growth in Ho Chi Minh City, and remittances sent by migrants to rural communities help to limit urban-rural inequality. But rural-urban migration creates a heavy burden for the city's physical and social infrastructure. ""Urbanization, Migration, and Poverty in a Vietnamese Metropolis"" presents the results of a major interdisciplinary research project that gathered data on more than one thousand households in Ho Chi Minh City over a three-year period, and on migration flows at the urban destination and in four sending communities in different regions of Vietnam. The study shows that migration to Ho Chi Minh City has been shaped both by urban-rural inequality and by regionally diverse socio-cultural dynamics. It also demonstrates that despite official claims concerning poverty reduction in Ho Chi Minh City, urban poverty rose, particularly among migrants. The research findings indicate that microcredit and other poverty reduction programs had little impact on the socio-economic mobility of households, but that the well-being of many households improved as a result of growth-related economic opportunities as well as the effects of social networks and processes of household formation.
Trâǹ's monograph Ties that bind: Cultural identity, class, and law in Vietnam's labour resistance... more Trâǹ's monograph Ties that bind: Cultural identity, class, and law in Vietnam's labour resistance is a theoretically grounded analysis of labour resistance in Vietnam from the French colonial period to the current era of accelerated globalisation. Data sources include publications on French-colonial-period labour unrest, newspapers in the past six decades, and 41 interviews, mainly in southern Vietnam, with workers, labour resistance organisers, reporters, and a few enterprise managers/owners and state and union officials. The examined forms of resistance range from public denunciation of labour exploitation and labour regulation/contract violations, to work stoppages and strikes. The resistance can be of the Polanyi-type, based on 'the need to protect social substances imperiled by the "self-regulating" market' (p. 8), and taking the form of a fight 'against labour commodification for human dignity, justice, and self-preservation' (ibid.). Or the resistance can be of the Marxist type, 'based on class, and on the fight against capitalist exploitation for better wages and other labour rights' (ibid). Or the resistance can combine both types. In Ties that bind capitalists and management are portrayed as highly exploitative. Trâǹ also suggests that the current Vietnamese state, despite its socialist rhetoric, has tried to control labour unrest in order to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), and that its executive and judicial branches in numerous cases have sided with foreign and domestic capital. For example, from 1999 to 2006, despite the cumulative inflation rate of 35 per cent, the Vietnamese state did not adjust the minimum wage in the foreign sector, thus allowing the exploitation of Vietnamese workers by foreign capitalists. The minimum wage was also considerably lower in the domestic sector than in the foreign sector, thus allowing the exploitation of workers by domestic capital. Enterprise-based union leaders tend not to support work stoppages or strikes because they act in accordance with state guidelines and because they receive their union salaries from enterprise management. Through its hộ khâủ (household registration) system, the current Vietnamese state erects institutional barriers against migrant workers who constitute a significant part of contemporary industrial labour in Vietnam. Trâǹ suggests that this has led to higher rent and utility rates for migrant workers, as well as
Vietnam effectively controlled the Covid-19 pandemic until April 2021, and faced great challenges... more Vietnam effectively controlled the Covid-19 pandemic until April 2021, and faced great challenges afterwards, partly due to the spread of the highly transmissible Delta and Omicron strains of the coronavirus. Adopting Joel Migdal's "state-in-society" approach, this article focuses not on the impact of regime type, but on the fear-driven tension and the process of negotiation among different levels of the state apparatus and between state and society during the covid-19 pandemic in Vietnam. The evolution of this pandemic was shaped not only by state measures but also by citizens' fear-driven situational variation in norm compliance, as well as by the historical and cultural backgrounds of a society, specifically the wide sharing of war experiences and the war metaphor in Vietnamese society, and the non-negative meaning of face masks in daily life.
The research aims at analyzing how the attitude factors affect the intention to buy VietGAP veget... more The research aims at analyzing how the attitude factors affect the intention to buy VietGAP vegetables in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam (HCMC), by intervewing 633 inhabitants. The method of Cronbach's Alpha analysis, EFA analysis, CFA analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM) were used with the SPSS and AMOS programs. The result shows that there are 04 attitude factors affects on the intention to buy VietGAP vegetables in HCMC decreasingly: (1) Vegetables safety, (2) Belief, (3) Health concern, (4) Subjective norm. The research also suggests some solutions to the VietGAP vegetable producers to enhance the selling capability.
Postmodernism in Western humanities and social sciences emphasizes multivocality and cultural hyb... more Postmodernism in Western humanities and social sciences emphasizes multivocality and cultural hybridity in the so-called postmodern era. On the basis of data on urban wedding ceremonies and rural spiritual space from northern and southern Vietnam, this paper suggests: 1. Multivocality and cultural hybridity have long existed in Vietnam; 2. The theoretical linkage of multivocality and cultural hybridity to the postmodern era is rooted in the West’s particular historical and cultural trajectories. Such a linkage does not work well in many non-Western contexts, including Vietnam.
Urbanization, Migration and Poverty in a Vietnamese Metropolis, 2009
With the shift to a market economy, Ho Chi Minh City became a magnet for migrants and experienced... more With the shift to a market economy, Ho Chi Minh City became a magnet for migrants and experienced rapid growth. Migration provides labor for economic growth in Ho Chi Minh City, and remittances sent by migrants to rural communities help to limit urban-rural inequality. But rural-urban migration creates a heavy burden for the city's physical and social infrastructure. ""Urbanization, Migration, and Poverty in a Vietnamese Metropolis"" presents the results of a major interdisciplinary research project that gathered data on more than one thousand households in Ho Chi Minh City over a three-year period, and on migration flows at the urban destination and in four sending communities in different regions of Vietnam. The study shows that migration to Ho Chi Minh City has been shaped both by urban-rural inequality and by regionally diverse socio-cultural dynamics. It also demonstrates that despite official claims concerning poverty reduction in Ho Chi Minh City, urban poverty rose, particularly among migrants. The research findings indicate that microcredit and other poverty reduction programs had little impact on the socio-economic mobility of households, but that the well-being of many households improved as a result of growth-related economic opportunities as well as the effects of social networks and processes of household formation.
Trâǹ's monograph Ties that bind: Cultural identity, class, and law in Vietnam's labour resistance... more Trâǹ's monograph Ties that bind: Cultural identity, class, and law in Vietnam's labour resistance is a theoretically grounded analysis of labour resistance in Vietnam from the French colonial period to the current era of accelerated globalisation. Data sources include publications on French-colonial-period labour unrest, newspapers in the past six decades, and 41 interviews, mainly in southern Vietnam, with workers, labour resistance organisers, reporters, and a few enterprise managers/owners and state and union officials. The examined forms of resistance range from public denunciation of labour exploitation and labour regulation/contract violations, to work stoppages and strikes. The resistance can be of the Polanyi-type, based on 'the need to protect social substances imperiled by the "self-regulating" market' (p. 8), and taking the form of a fight 'against labour commodification for human dignity, justice, and self-preservation' (ibid.). Or the resistance can be of the Marxist type, 'based on class, and on the fight against capitalist exploitation for better wages and other labour rights' (ibid). Or the resistance can combine both types. In Ties that bind capitalists and management are portrayed as highly exploitative. Trâǹ also suggests that the current Vietnamese state, despite its socialist rhetoric, has tried to control labour unrest in order to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), and that its executive and judicial branches in numerous cases have sided with foreign and domestic capital. For example, from 1999 to 2006, despite the cumulative inflation rate of 35 per cent, the Vietnamese state did not adjust the minimum wage in the foreign sector, thus allowing the exploitation of Vietnamese workers by foreign capitalists. The minimum wage was also considerably lower in the domestic sector than in the foreign sector, thus allowing the exploitation of workers by domestic capital. Enterprise-based union leaders tend not to support work stoppages or strikes because they act in accordance with state guidelines and because they receive their union salaries from enterprise management. Through its hộ khâủ (household registration) system, the current Vietnamese state erects institutional barriers against migrant workers who constitute a significant part of contemporary industrial labour in Vietnam. Trâǹ suggests that this has led to higher rent and utility rates for migrant workers, as well as
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