B.A. M.A. (Vietnam National, Vietnam), Ph.D. (Trent)
Thesis: Politics of Memory: (Re) Construction of the Past in Post-Socialist Vietnam
Examining Committee:
Ian McLachlan (Supervisor), Van Nguyen-Marshall and Alan O'Connor
External Examiner: Dr. Hy Van Luong, University of Toronto
Internal Examiner: Haroon Akram-Lodhi
Chair: Jonathan Bordo
Abstract
In dialogue with the critical scholarship on war and remembrance, my research deals with the construction, contestation and negotiation of collective memory in contemporary Vietnam with a focus on commemorations devoted to dead soldiers. Utilizing the methodologies of cultural studies and ethnography, this research seeks to comprehend the politics of memory which characterize collective memory as a social phenomenon whose meanings, interpretations and forms are variedly constructed from a certain social group to the next. Empirically, in this research, constitutive elements of Vietnamese postwar memoryscapes including the hero-centered discourse sanctioned by the Communist Party and the Socialist state, the family remembrance rooted in religious and kinship mandates and the newly emerged online ecology of memory are examined in their own nature as well as in their complicated intertwinements and constant interactions with each other. Case studies and specific methods of individual interview, participant observation and cultural analysis enable the author to approach and identify a wide range of forms and intersections between official and vernacular practices, between oral and living history and institutionalized and cultural presentations of memory. While considering these issues specifically in the Vietnamese context, my dissertation contributes to the increasing theoretical debates in the field of memory studies by exploring the relation of power and the symbolic struggle within and between different social agents involved. As it emphasizes the dynamic and power of memory, this research furthermore situates the phenomenon of collective memory in its dialogues with a broader cultural political environment of postwar society, which is characterized as a hybrid condition embracing processes of nationalism, modernization and post-socialist transformation. Significantly, during these dialogues, as demonstrated in this research, memory works embrace presentism and future-oriented functions which require any social group who is involved to negotiate and renegotiate its position, and to structure and restructure its power. Last but not least it must construct and reconstruct its own versions of the past.
Hoa Nguyen received her B.A. in History (2004) and M.A. in Anthropology (2007), both from Vietnam National University. Her research interest, broadly speaking, include but are not limited to: memory studies, nationalism, modernity, war commemoration, identity and representation. Her current research at Trent deals with the construction, contestation and negotiation of social memory in contemporary Vietnam with a focus on commemorations devoted to dead soldiers. She is interested in exploring the relation of power that structures the ways in which dead soldiers can be remembered. With a focus on politics of memory, her research signals various meanings and interpretations that occur within and between different forms and practices, ranging from public commemorations orchestrated by the state to family rituals and mourning activities of the bereaved.
Aside from her current research, Hoa Nguyen is also interested in the field of visual anthropology and documentary making.