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Wandering Money: Valuating and Mediating Post-War Remittances in Vietnam

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2020

Ivan V. Small
Ivan V. Small*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Anthropology, Central Connecticut State University, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: ivansmall@ccsu.edu
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Abstract

Remittances from the Vietnamese diaspora have played an important role in Vietnam's post-Cold War economic development, providing important inputs to a range of household spending areas, from education to health care. In the case of Vietnam, however, remittances are also caught up with memories and traumas of war, betrayal, separation, and exodus. This article traces that history and illustrates how Vietnam's particular post-war refugee and remittance situations and channels illuminate networks and exacerbate inherent contradictions and comparisons in the mobile flows of finance, people, and goods across borders. Examining genealogies of remittance reception and management offers insight and intervention into analytical assumptions of the distancing and mediating functions inherent to classic conceptions of money, as well as the reciprocity and recognition perceptions mapped onto gift economies.

Keywords

MigrationRemittancesGiftsMoneyVietnam
Type
Original Article
Information
TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , May 2021 , pp. 31 - 43
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Copyright
Copyright © Institute for East Asian Studies, Sogang University 2020

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