DOCSLIB.ORG

New Economies of Sex and Intimacy in Vietnam by Kimberly Kay Hoang

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
New Economies of Sex and Intimacy in Vietnam by Kimberly Kay Hoang New Economies of Sex and Intimacy in Vietnam by Kimberly Kay Hoang A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Raka Ray, Chair Professor Barrie Thorne Professor Irene Bloemraad Professor Peter Zinoman Fall 2011 New Economies of Sex and Intimacy Copyright 2011 by Kimberly Kay Hoang Abstract New Economies of Sex and Intimacy in Vietnam by Kimberly Kay Hoang Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality University of California, Berkeley Professor Raka Ray, Chair Over the past two decades, scholars have paid particular attention to the growth of global sex tourism, a trade marked by convergence between the global and local production and consumption of sexual services. In the increasingly global economy, the movement of people and capital around the world creates new segments of sex work, with diverse groups of consumers and providers. This dissertation examines the dialectical link between intimacy and political economy. I examine how changes in the global economy structure relations of intimacy between clients and sex workers; and how intimacy can be a vital form of currency that shapes economic and political relations. I trace new economies of sex and intimacy in Vietnam by moving from daily worlds of sex work in Ho Chi Minh City [HCMC] to incorporate a more structural and historical analysis. Drawing on 15 months of ethnography (2009-2010) working as a bartender and hostess I analyze four different bars that cater to wealthy local Vietnamese men and their Asian business partners, overseas Vietnamese men living in the diaspora, Western expatriates, and Western budget travelers. Drawing on 180 informal interviews with 90 clients and 90 sex workers across four niche markets of HCMC’s sex industry, my dissertation incorporates three levels of analysis. I show how contemporary processes of globalization re-stratify an already stratified sex industry in HCMC, as well as how the industry is a vital player in the generation of business. Vietnam’s opening to foreign direct investment since Doi Moi in 1986 has created a domestic super-élite, connected to the levers of political power, who channel incoming foreign capital to specific projects in real estate and manufacturing. For this super-élite, conspicuous consumption provides both a lexicon of distinction and a means of communicating hospitality to potential investors from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other East Asian countries — and, using a different symbolic vocabulary, to Western investors. A new, ultra-high-end tier of sex workers has emerged in tandem with the emergence of this new group of clients. These sex workers only succeed to the extent that they can deploy the right vocabularies of consumption and sexuality in an elaborate 1 symbolic dance tailored to the needs of individual capital deals. They are valued not only for their beauty, but also for their ability to help their clients project masculinity, deference, and collegiality in the specific context of entertaining foreign investors: they must also be able to modify this performance for East Asian clients as well as white clients. As a result, racialized desires, social status, business success, and hope for upward mobility are all played out in the bars of HCMC. The same is true in the middle and lower tiers of the industry, but in radically different ways. In short, HCMC’s sex industry is not just a microcosm of the global economy, but also a vector shaping financial globalization itself. I examine how sex workers, male clients, bar owners, mommies (formally known as madams), and the police all work to create and maintain certain types of raced and gendered hierarchies according to the niche in which they are involved. I also focus on the practices of everyday life in the bars and examine how men and women construct their relations with each other, which lead to different kinds of intimate and emotional relationships that sometimes allow women to experience mobility, but at other times are self-destructive. Sex work, I argue, provides a unique lens through which to examine not only how transformations in the global economy reshape intimate life but also how the emotional intimacy (and not merely sex) provided by sex workers serves as an important currency in transnational business deals. Comparing four niche markets within HCMC’s sex industry, I found that local Vietnamese men and their Asian business partners participate in business-related entertainment while Western expatriates, in contrast, participate in HCMC’s sex industry for recreational purposes outside of work. Racialized desires, status, business success, and hope for upward mobility are all played out in the bars of HCMC, where dreams and deals are traded. This sex industry is not just a microcosm of the global economy; it also helps fuel its growth. 2 To my parents Richard Men Hoang and Nancy Ha Hoang who have made countless sacrifices in their own lives so that I could chase after my dreams. I am humbled by your grace, dedication, and extraordinary courage. i Acknowledgments This dissertation project has taken me on an incredible journey filled with high highs, low lows, some tears, and a lot of laughter. When I embarked on this journey, I could have never imagined how many people it would take to guide and inspire me through the myriad of twists and turns that this dissertation has taken from the initial project proposals to fieldwork and theorizing to writing and re-writing. Although I bear responsibility for whatever faults you may find with this dissertation, I owe my work to so many people who provided me with their generous assistance along the way. My greatest debt goes to the men and women who let me into the most private and intimate spaces of their lives and who taught me how to manage a broad range of relationships in the field. The social debt that I owe these individuals is enormous. There are many individuals who I cannot name here without bringing unnecessary complications into their lives. However, I would like to thank a few people using their chosen pseudonyms. First and foremost, I am deeply indebted to CQ, TTV, TinTin, and Anh Cua Ti who risked their reputations, businesses, and social connections in order to help me gain access to the highest-end bar in Ho Chi Minh City that catered to some of the most powerful local elites. These men taught me how to manage a range of relationships between local bar owners, local officials, the police, clients, mommies, and women working in the bar. They introduced me as a trusted researcher to high-level officials, elite businessmen, and various others. Without their support, this research would not be possible. I would also like to thank Anh Dung, Lilly, and Tina all who welcomed me into their bars, teaching me the ropes and allowing me to make several mistakes at their expense. I am enormously grateful to all of the women who “adopted” me into their bars, sharing their clothing, makeup tips, and other insights about how to manage the clients who came through the bar. At the University of California, Berkeley my faculty advisors provided me with a great deal of intellectual support. I would like to first thank Raka Ray, my dissertation chair, for providing me with more intellectual and emotional support that I could have ever imagined. In this postmodern era, Raka met with me several times over Skype in order to guide me through my fieldwork and help me think through many of the emergent themes that eventually became the chapters of this dissertation. She believed and encouraged me every step of the way and she trusted me to find my own way in the field and in the writing process. She also taught me the importance of learning how to find balance both in the field and through the writing process so that I would bend rather than break when moving across rough terrain. Barrie Thorne provided me with a great deal of mentorship and guidance along the way that pushed me to pay attention to subtle details, slippages, and contradictions in the field. She also taught me how to engage with larger theoretical debates while paying attention to the ethnographic detail that emerged in my field research. Irene Bloemraad read several drafts of my papers and pushed me to think about the empirical puzzle and how each piece fits with the others. She provided numerous insights and suggestions that challenged me to think not only about micro-processes in everyday life but about how macro-processes linked to the global political-economic structure shape relations on the ground. Peter Zinoman has been enormously supportive with his time, reading every draft that has come across his desk and providing me with valuable insights about Vietnam and historical works that describe colonial relations. I am grateful to all of them for sharing their ideas and expertise with me and for critically engaging with my work. I also benefited a great deal from conversations that I had with Michael Buroway, Neil Fligstein, Claude Fischer, Anne Swidler, Marion Fourcade, and Sandra Smith. At Stanford ii University, I had the privilege to have the mentorship of several great people including Paula England, Karen Cook, Monica McDermott, Michael Rosenfield, David Grusky, and Lawarence Bobo. I have benefited tremendously from the informal mentorship that I have received from Catherine Kay Valentine and Patti Giuffre. In addition, I would like to thank Rhacel Parrenas for providing me with invaluable advice and intellectual support over the years.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • George C. Herring Graduate Student Writing Award “Uneasy Allies: The
    2014 George C. Herring Graduate Student Writing Award “Uneasy Allies: The Americanization of Sexual Politics in South Vietnam” By Amanda Boczar University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky Dr. Lien‐Hang Nguyen, faculty sponsor 10/18/2014 Uneasy Allies: The Americanization of Sexual Politics in South Vietnam If the military aspects of this war could be separated from the political, social and economic -- and they can't -- I'd say we have come a long way in a year.1 – General William C. Westmoreland, Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, 1966 What Westmoreland and his contemporaries living in Vietnam had already recognized in 1966, few in Washington chose to fully engage. U.S. nation building efforts in Vietnam focused on the countryside by securing hamlets or promoting the growth of more hearty rice crops, but the practice of side-stepping urban problems, where the majority of U.S. troops serving in- country lived and worked among civilians, allowed economic inflation, corruption, and the sex trade to flourish. Westmoreland’s comment came during Senator J. William Fulbright’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearings on the legitimacy of the war in Vietnam, and only days after the titillating accusation from the Senator that Saigon was “both figuratively and literally an American brothel.”2 The Whitehouse quickly swept the issue aside as an irrelevant distraction. Sex, they felt along with many other Americans, was just a part of war. They failed to recognize in those early days, however, that sexual politics wove into many aspects of society upsetting traditional social and power boundaries, as well as disrupting political relations.
    [Show full text]
  • ARLT 101G | the American War in Vietnam Prof. Viet Nguyen Class
    ARLT 101G | The American War in Vietnam Prof. Viet Nguyen Class meets TTH 12:30-1:50, in THH 201, with an additional discussion section and film screenings. Film screenings and locations are in the syllabus below. Office hours: T 2-4, W 1-2, and by appointment Office location: THH 404D Contact information: [email protected] or 213-740-3746. Emails preferred, as I hardly ever check my office voicemail. Teaching assistants Deborah Al-Najjar, Robert Eap, and Viet Le will provide their own section syllabi with office hours and contact information. COURSE OVERVIEW The Vietnam War is still invoked in debates over current American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This course provides an introduction to the war’s history in order for today’s Americans to understand some of the key factors leading the US into its current geopolitical situation. Since the war remains poorly understood and remembered, the course begins over a century ago in the French colonial era (1887-1954), spends the bulk of its time on the period of American involvement (1954-1975), and ends with postwar legacies in Southeast Asia and the United States. The course is a multidisciplinary, multicultural and international overview of the war’s history and its afterlife in American and Vietnamese memory. Student reading will draw primarily from films, literature, art, journalism, historical writing, and political discourse, while lectures will provide necessary historical and political background. The course corrects a fundamental flaw in the American pedagogy and scholarship on Vietnam, which mostly sees the country, people, and war purely from the perspective of American self-interest and ethnocentrism.
    [Show full text]
  • “In Vietnam - We Call It The
    P A G E 1 Le Ly Hayslip Le Ly Hayslip is born in Ky La outside Da Nang in South Vietnam 1949. She shares her time between Escondido California and Vietnam. Le Ly Hayslip is an award-winning author of two memoirs that later served as the basis for the Oliver Stone film Heaven and Earth. She has founded two charitable organizations: East Meets West Foundation and Global Village Foundation for humanitarian and emergency assistance to the needy in Vietnam. “In Vietnam - We call it The American War ” "In Vietnam - We call it The American War. When you say "The Vietnam War" to an American in the general public people think it's a - Hellhole. A killing field. A battle zone. A Hamburger Hill. A test of friendship. A red communist. Boatpeople. POW. MIA. Viet Cong. Charlie. Big bombs, little bombs, hand grenades, bullets. Condoms, Whiskey, cigarettes. There's is nothing good about my country. But the question is - How did it get that way? How did it become a Hamburger Hill? We don't know what hamburger is". P A G E 1 P A G E 2 As the government and Viet Cong fought in and around Ky La, both sides recruited children as spies and saboteurs. Le Ly was one of those children. The youngest of six children in close-knit Buddhist family, Le Ly was twelve years old when the U.S helicopters landed in Ky Ly, her small village in central Vietnam. Before the age of sixteen, she had suffered near starvation, imprisonment, torture and rape.
    [Show full text]
  • Human Trafficking Poster in English and Spanish
    Victims of slavery and human trafficking Las víctimas de esclavitud y trata de personas are protected under United States and Illinois law están protegidas bajo las leyes de Estados Unidos y de Illinois If you or someone you know: Si usted o alguien que usted conoce: • Is being forced to engage in any activity and cannot leave, • Es forzado a participar en cualquier actividad y no puede whether it is: dejarla, ya sea de: • Commercial sex industry (street prostitution, strip clubs, • La industria del sexo comercial (prostitución callejera, clubes, salas de masaje, servicios de acompañante, burdeles, Internet) massage parlors, escort services, brothels, internet), • Residencias privadas (trabajo doméstico, cuidado de niños, • Private Homes (housework, nannies, servile marriages), matrimonios serviles) • Farm work, landscaping, construction, • Trabajo en fincas, jardinería, construcción. • Factory (industrial, garment, meat-packing), • Fábricas (industrial, textil, empacado de carnes). • Peddling rings, begging rings, or door-to-door sales crews • Grupos de venta ambulante, limosneros o grupos de ventas • Hotel, retail, bars, restaurant work or callejeras • Any other activity • Hoteles, tiendas, bares, trabajo en restaurantes o • Had their passport or identification taken away or • Cualquier otra actividad. • Is being threatened with deportation if they won’t work • Le quitaron su pasaporte u otra forma de identificación. • Le amenazan con deportación si rehúsa trabajar. National Human Trafficking Resource Center Centro Nacional de Recursos Para la Trata de Personas 1-888-373-7888 1-888-373-7888 Or Text “HELP” to 233733 O para acceso a servicios y ayuda, to access help and services. envíe un texto con la palabra “HELP” al 233733 La línea: The hotline is: • Está disponible las 24 horas del día, los 7 días de la semana.
    [Show full text]
  • Employee Rights in Sex Work: the Struggle for Dancers' Rights As Employees
    Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality Volume 14 Issue 2 Article 4 December 1996 Employee Rights in Sex Work: The Struggle for Dancers' Rights as Employees Carrie Benson Fischer Follow this and additional works at: https://lawandinequality.org/ Recommended Citation Carrie Benson Fischer, Employee Rights in Sex Work: The Struggle for Dancers' Rights as Employees, 14(2) LAW & INEQ. 521 (1996). Available at: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/lawineq/vol14/iss2/4 Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality is published by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. Employee Rights in Sex Work: The Struggle for Dancers' Rights as Employees Carrie Benson Fischer* Introduction The legal sex industry1 in Minneapolis has boomed in recent years,2 and will likely continue to grow.3 The number of women * J.D., University of Minnesota Law School, expected 1997; B.A., St. Olaf Col- lege, 1993. I gratefully acknowledge Sandra Conroy, Kent Klaudt, Sarah Garb and Amy Chiericozzi for their thoughtful editing. I am especially thankful to Kelly Hol- sopple and the entire staff of WHISPER, to whom this article is dedicated, for provid- ing research materials and personal insight into the sex industry. Finally, I am indebted to the partner of my life, David Fischer, who not only provided me with infinite support and encouragement, but who sincerely understands why this article needed to be written. 1. "Legal sex industry" refers to commercial facilities, bars or clubs, that fea- ture strip shows, nude dancing, and other live entertainment for the sexual gratifica- tion of their patrons. Sexually-oriented clubs typically feature female dancers performing in various ways for an almost entirely male audience.
    [Show full text]
  • Sex and the City: Branding, Gender and the Commodification of Sex Consumption in Contemporary Retailing
    Sex and the city: Branding, gender and the commodification of sex consumption in contemporary retailing Martin, A. and Crewe, L. (2016) Urban Studies Abstract This paper explores the changing spatiality of the sex retail industry in England and Wales, from highly regulated male orientated sex shops, pushed to the legislative margins of the city and social respectability, towards the emergence of unregulated female orientated ‘erotic boutiques’ located visibly in city centres. This is achieved through an exploration of the oppositional binaries of perceptions of sex shops as dark, dirty, male orientated, and ‘seedy’ and erotic boutiques as light, female orientated and stylish, showing how such discourses are embedded in the physical space, design and marketing of the stores and the products sold within them. More specifically, the paper analyses how female orientated sex stores utilise light, colour and design to create an ‘upscaling’ of sexual consumerism and reflects on what the emergence of up-scale female spaces for sexual consumption in the central city might mean in terms of theorisations of the intersectionality between agency, power, gender and class. The paper thus considers how the shifting packaging and presentation of sex-product consumption in the contemporary city alters both its acceptability and visibility. Keywords Consumption, Retailing, Sex Shop, Brands, The City, Space, Gender 1 1. Introduction One of the most interesting developments in the recent study of sexuality has been an increasing focus on its spatial dimensions. In this paper we address the spatial, social and gendered contours of sex shops. This is significant as part of a broader project to theorise both the emotional and the corporeal dimensions of the consuming body, and its classed and gendered composition.
    [Show full text]
  • Recommendations for the Sex Industry
    Recommendations for the sex industry As at 12/05/2021 Recommendations for the sex industry These recommendations are for people working in the sex industry and their clients. The general regulations that apply to the population on how to protect themselves and others from a SARS-CoV-2 infection must be observed (https://www.sozialministerium.at/Infor- mationen-zum-Coronavirus.html). Information and communication • If you have any questions regarding the coronavirus, the AGES Hotline can be con- tacted 24 hours a day on 0800 555 621. Information is also available in English at www.sozialministerium.at/en.html. • If a person is suspected of being ill (e.g. high temperature, coughing, shortness of breath, breathing difficulties), they should stay at home and dial the healthcare num- ber 1450 for advice on what to do next (diagnostic questioning). The healthcare num- ber can be called 24 hours a day. • The operator or owner of the brothel establishment (e.g. club, studio, brothel, etc.), in which the services are provided, must draw up and implement a COVID-19 prevention concept for the various areas of the establishment. In addition to this, a COVID-19 rep- resentative must be appointed. • The operator must ensure that clients only enter the establishment between 5:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. • If food and drinks are served within the brothel, the rules for gastronomy apply. • In places where sex work is performed, it is recommended that information leaflets for sex workers and clients translated into many languages are visibly displayed and made available for distribution.
    [Show full text]
  • Victims of Slavery and Human Trafficking
    Victims of slavery and human trafficking Las víctimas de esclavitud y trata de personas are protected under United States and Illinois law están protegidas bajo las leyes de Estados Unidos y de Illinois If you or someone you know: Si usted o alguien que usted conoce: • Is being forced to engage in any activity and cannot leave, • Es forzado a participar en cualquier actividad y no puede whether it is: dejarla, ya sea de: • Commercial sex industry (street prostitution, strip clubs, • La industria del sexo comercial (prostitución callejera, clubes, salas de masaje, servicios de acompañante, burdeles, Internet) massage parlors, escort services, brothels, internet), • Residencias privadas (trabajo doméstico, cuidado de niños, • Private Homes (housework, nannies, servile marriages), matrimonios serviles) • Farm work, landscaping, construction, • Trabajo en fincas, jardinería, construcción. • Factory (industrial, garment, meat-packing), • Fábricas (industrial, textil, empacado de carnes). • Peddling rings, begging rings, or door-to-door sales crews • Grupos de venta ambulante, limosneros o grupos de ventas • Hotel, retail, bars, restaurant work or callejeras • Any other activity • Hoteles, tiendas, bares, trabajo en restaurantes o • Had their passport or identification taken away or • Cualquier otra actividad. • Is being threatened with deportation if they won’t work • Le quitaron su pasaporte u otra forma de identificación. • Le amenazan con deportación si rehúsa trabajar. National Human Trafficking Resource Center Centro Nacional de Recursos Para la Trata de Personas 1-888-373-7888 1-888-373-7888 Or Text “HELP” to 233733 O para acceso a servicios y ayuda, to access help and services. envíe un texto con la palabra “HELP” al 233733 La línea: The hotline is: • Está disponible las 24 horas del día, los 7 días de la semana.
    [Show full text]
  • Asian American Studies Department
    Asian American Studies Department University of California, Irvine E-Newsletter Winter Quarter 2006 Happy Lunar New Year! From January 29 through 31, many Asian Americans celebrated the Lunar New Year, one Newsletter Spotlights of the most festive holidays in Asian America. This is year is the Year of the Dog in the Lunar Calendar. Diverse Asian American communities throughout the United States welcomed the New Year according to their own traditions and customs. - Past Events Highlights - Upcoming Events - Asian Am Undergrads received UROP Grants! - Scholarships and Photo by Quan Tran Photo courtesy of Ben Hamatake Internships Built in 1988 by the Taiwanese Buddhist Asian Am major Ben Hamatake (middle) on Organization of Fo Guang Shan, the Hsi stage in traditional Vietnamese groom - Faculty Updates Lai Temple in Hacienda Heights hangs red attire at the Tet Festival in Garden Grove. lanterns across its entrance gate to Organized by the Union of Vietnamese - Spring 2006 welcome the Year of the Dog. Thousands Student Associations, the Tet Festival Courses of visitors visit the temple to pray and attracts visitors with traditional Vietnamese celebrate the arrival of Spring. games, food, and performances. Past Events Highlights On November 8, 2005 filmmaker Grace Lee presented a talk in Professor Linda Vo’s “Asian American Women” class and later screened her newest documentary The Grace Lee Project in Dr. John Liu’s class. Grace Lee is the quintessential Asian American woman's name, the Asian American Jane Smith. The film humorously explores what it means to be an Asian woman in America by looking at the stories of several women named Grace Lee and pursuing the Asian American female identity, revealing a surprising complexity and diversity of experiences.
    [Show full text]
  • War, Women, Vietnam: the Mobilization of Female Images, 1954-1978
    War, Women, Vietnam: The Mobilization of Female Images, 1954-1978 Julie Annette Riggs Osborn A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2013 Reading Committee: William J. Rorabaugh, Chair Susan Glenn Christoph Giebel Program Authorized to Offer Degree: History ©Copyright 2013 Julie Annette Riggs Osborn University of Washington Abstract War, Women, Vietnam: The Mobilization of Female Images, 1954-1978 Julie Annette Riggs Osborn Chair of the Supervisory Committee: William J. Rorabaugh, History This dissertation proceeds with two profoundly interwoven goals in mind: mapping the experience of women in the Vietnam War and evaluating the ways that ideas about women and gender influenced the course of American involvement in Vietnam. I argue that between 1954 and 1978, ideas about women and femininity did crucial work in impelling, sustaining, and later restraining the American mission in Vietnam. This project evaluates literal images such as photographs, film and television footage as well as images evoked by texts in the form of news reports, magazine articles, and fiction, focusing specifically on images that reveal deeply gendered ways of seeing and representing the conflict for Americans. Some of the images I consider include a French nurse known as the Angel of Dien Bien Phu, refugees fleeing for southern Vietnam in 1954, the first lady of the Republic of Vietnam Madame Nhu, and female members of the National Liberation Front. Juxtaposing images of American women, I also focus on the figure of the housewife protesting American atrocities in Vietnam and the use of napalm, and images wrought by American women intellectuals that shifted focus away from the military and toward the larger social and psychological impact of the war.
    [Show full text]
  • UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Lê Thị Huệ: Writing between Exilic Homelessness and Situated Nomadism Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6m18261n Author NGUYEN, KHUYEN VU Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Lê Thị Huệ: Writing between Exilic Homelessness and Situated Nomadism By Khuyen Vu Nguyen A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, Chair Professor Evelyn Nakano Glenn Professor Hertha D. Sweet Wong Fall 2012 ABSTRACT Lê Thị Huệ: Writing between Exilic Homelessness and Situated Nomadism By Khuyen Vu Nguyen Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Sau-ling Cynthia Wong, Chair Over the past three decades, more than 300 Vietnamese American authors have produced at least 550 novels, 200 collections of short stories and poetry in addition to over 100 volumes of informal reflective and formal commentary essays in their native language. Nonetheless, a majority of this literature remains in utter obscurity, both within and beyond the borders of Vietnamese America. My dissertation focuses on the body of work of the feminist writer Lê Thị Huệ whose expansive breadth and constantly evolving aesthetics render her an appropriate representative and a singular phenomenon among her contemporaries in the Vietnamese diaspora. I propose the double concept exilic homelessness and situated nomadism as the theoretical framework to read Lê’s body of work and as a means through which to understand Lê’s ethics and aesthetics.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding HIV and AIDS-Related Stigma and Discrimination in Vietnam
    Design: Manu Badlani Copyright© 2004 International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). All rights reserved. Sections of this document may be reproduced without express permission of but with acknowledgment to the International Center for Research on Women. “Because this is the disease of the century” Understanding HIV and AIDS-related Stigma and Discrimination in Vietnam Khuat Thu Hong & Nguyen Thi Van Anh Institute for Social Development Studies, Hanoi Jessica Ogden International Center for Research on Women, Washington, DC Acknowledgments We are grateful for the support of Billy Pick, Clif Cortez and Elizabeth Fox at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-Washington, and of Daniel Levitt at USAID-Vietnam; of Anton Schneider and Susan Zimicki at the CHANGE Project/Academy for Educational Development (AED); and of Scott Purdon at GlaxoSmithKline/Positive Action program (GSK). We are also indebted to Professor Chung A and Dr. Le Ngoc Yen, formerly of the National AIDS Standing Bureau, Vietnam, for their generous guidance and support—from helping to get the project underway, to facilitating contacts in the provinces and giving guidance and support throughout the project. We would like to thank also all of those in Can Tho and Hai Phong who gave so generously of their time, energy and creativity—including our study participants and the leaders of provincial department of health of the two cities as well as dedicated staff of the Provincial AIDS Standing Bureaus and local authorities who provided valuable assistance for organization of fieldwork. The research cannot be successful without valuable advice by the Leadership Advisory Group. Therefore, special thanks go to members of the Leadership Advisory Group, Dr.
    [Show full text]