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Trading in Uncertainty

Entrepreneurship, Morality and Trust in a Vietnamese Textile-Handling Village

Palgrave Macmillan

Authors:

  • Takes an economic anthropological approach to Vietnam's textile trading and local economies

  • Provides in-depth ethnographic analysis of economic life in a Vietnamese village

  • Trade and traders are not looked at through a primarily economic angle, but as enmeshed in the political, social and moral context of contemporary Vietnam

  • Captures the complexities and diversities of family businesses in Vietnam

  • Highlights the shifting notions of gender in small-scale trade in Vietnam

  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xv
  2. The Village in the Market

    • Esther Horat
    Pages 37-60
  3. Trading in Uncertainty

    • Esther Horat
    Pages 61-91
  4. Building Families, Building Businesses

    • Esther Horat
    Pages 93-119
  5. The Gendering of Market Trade

    • Esther Horat
    Pages 121-143
  6. Trust and Entrepreneurialism

    • Esther Horat
    Pages 145-172
  7. The Spatial Organisation of Trade

    • Esther Horat
    Pages 173-188
  8. Morality and the Making of a Community

    • Esther Horat
    Pages 189-216
  9. Conclusion

    • Esther Horat
    Pages 217-227
  10. Back Matter

    Pages 229-239

About this book

This book is an ethnographic case study, based on first hand observation, of family businesses in the northern Vietnamese village of Ninh Hiệp along the Red River Delta, which became a major hub for textiles in the wake of the country’s shift towards market socialism. The author explores how the traders experience, negotiate and react to a marketization process that is markedly shaped by the state’s morally ambivalent governance, and which can be thus characterised as an admixture of socialist and neoliberal ideologies.

How are traders shaping the political economy of Vietnam? How has the labour force changed as textile-handling has become an increasingly profitable undertaking? Horat explores the relationships between traders and local authorities, as well as changing ideas of masculinity and femininity. Focusing on the redevelopment of the market landscape and the increasing share of private ownership that have given rise to great uncertainty, this book provides a we


ll-timed inquiry into current debates of economic development in a uniquely shaped market environment. 

Keywords

  • Economic anthropology
  • Family business
  • Gender
  • Post-socialism
  • Political economy
  • Trade
  • Heterodox economics
  • Neoliberal governance
  • Socialist
  • Gender
  • Economic growth

Reviews

 

Authors and Affiliations

  • Universität Zürich , Zurich, Switzerland

    Esther Horat

About the author

Esther Horat is Lecturer and Researcher at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. She wrote her doctoral thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale, Germany, as well as at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Trading in Uncertainty

  • Book Subtitle: Entrepreneurship, Morality and Trust in a Vietnamese Textile-Handling Village

  • Authors: Esther Horat

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55648-2

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Economics and Finance, Economics and Finance (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-55647-5Published: 12 July 2017

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-85716-9Published: 14 August 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-55648-2Published: 04 July 2017

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XV, 239

  • Number of Illustrations: 7 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Cultural Economics, Asian Economics, Economic History, Development Economics, Ethnography, Cultural Anthropology

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 99.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access