A review of “Waste and Wealth” was published by the Society for the Anthropology of Work. Please follow the link for further information [here].

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An exchange forum between sociology faculties of Nanjing University, Vietnam National University (Hanoi) and Bielefeld University takes place on Tuesday, 19^th of January 2021 at 8am German time, 2pm Vietnam time, 3pm China time. Scholars from three institutions will briefly present their current research on a topic related to social transformations, with a view to highlighting forms of global connectivity and interactions in particular contexts.

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The position paper conveys the difficulties of practicing fieldwork and ethnography in times of lockdowns, travel bans, physical and social distancing to university administrations, funding agencies and also the wider public. It is the result of a collective effort by all organizers and participants of the DGSKA (German Anthropological Association) Online Autumn Academy that took place in October 2020. The attached document reads most complementary to the participants' blog contributions 'Fieldwork in Crisis'.

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Minh Nguyen is giving a lecture at the University of Erlangen – Nürnberg on Thursday, 5^th November from 6pm to 8pm.

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The blog Fieldwork meets Crisis is part of the DGSKA Autumn School, which takes its starting point in the current pandemic moment, which substantially affects our discipline. In their blog posts, the participating researchers give insight into challenges and opportunities of ongoing research in times of the pandemic, and document not only pandemic field sites, but also current theoretical debates and emerging fields of anthropological research.

Die Herbstschule nimmt ihren Ausgangspunkt im aktuellen pandemischen Moment, das unser Fach in seiner Gänze betrifft und zu verändern scheint. Selbst wenn die Corona-bedingten Veränderungen der ethnologischen Forschung  (hoffentlich) nicht von Dauer sein werden, provozieren sie wichtige Fragen und Diskussionen, die über den pandemischen Moment hinausgehen und für die Ethnologie relevant bleiben.

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• Professor Dr. Minh Nguyen has published the paper Portfolios of Social Protection, Labour Mobility and the Rise of Life Insurance in Rural Central Vietnam in Development and Change.
• Dr. Jake Lin has published the paper Psyche Matters: Resistance from the Chinese Sweatshop of the World in Perspectives on Global Development and Technology.
• Dr. Phill Wilcox has published a paper “Don't ever change”? Cultural heritage and social development in “timeless” Luang Prabang in Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development.

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Minh Nguyen  is the co-editor of the current South East Asia Research, Volume 28, Issue 1: “Beyond the State? The Moral Turn of Development in South East Asia”. This a special issue of South East Asia Research on moral development in Southeast Asia, edited by Associate Professor Annuska Derks and Professor Minh Nguyen. Looking “beyond the state”, articles in this special issue examine new assemblages of humanitarian and development actors.

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Auf der Seite des "Max-Planck-Instituts für ethnologische Forschung" finden Sie unter dem Titel "Das Alumni-Interview: 10 Fragen an Minh Nguyen" ein kurzes Interview mit Minh Nguyen. Bevor sie 2018 als Professorin für Sozialanthropologie an die Fakultät kam, wirkte Minh Nguyen zwischen 2011 und 2016 als Research Fellow innerhalb der Fokusgruppe "Social Support and Kinship in China and Vietnam" am "Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung" in Halle/Saale. In dem Interview blickt Minh Nguyen auf die Anfänge ihrerer Karriere und ihr damaliges Arbeitsumfeld am MPI zurück.

Link zur deutschen Fassung des Interviews.

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The new volume of the series "TRaNS", which approaches studies of Southeast Asia, has recently been published by Cambridge University Press. Minh Nguyen and Oliver Tappe are featured as special editors. The recent publication consists of chapters written by Oliver Tappe, Minh Nguyen, Indré Balčaitė, Inga Gruß, Gerben Nooteboom and Cheryll Alipio.

 “TRN Volume 7 Issue 1.” TRaNS: Trans -Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia 7, no. 1 (2019): f1–f3. doi:10.1017/trn.2019.7.

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Under the headline "A Scoial Anthropologist Asks: How Do Countries Take Care of Their Citizens?", Minh Nguyen is currently featured in "DAAD's (German Academic Exchange Service) Research in Germany" portal. The initiative launched by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) seeks to present Germany's research achievements to the international scientific community.

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Am 16. Januar hielt Prof. Dr. Minh Nguyen ihre Antrittsvorlesung mit dem Thema  "Waste and Wealth: Labor, Value and Morality in a Vietnamese Recycling Economy".

 Prof. Dr. Minh Nguyen

 

 Dekanin Prof. Dr. Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka und Prof. Dr. Minh Nguyen

 Weitere Bilder finden Sie in der Bildergalerie.

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Am Mittwoch, den 16. Januar 2019 hält Prof. Dr. Minh Nguyen ihre Antrittsvorlesung zum Thema "Waste and Wealth: Labor, Value and Morality in a Vietnamese Recycling Economy". Die Veranstaltung findet um 12 Uhr (c.t.) in X-E0-002 statt.

Bevor Minh Nguyen Anfang 2018 Professorin für Sozialanthropologie an der Faktultät für Soziologie an der Universität Bielefeld geworden ist, hat sie sechs Jahre am Max-Planck-Institut für ethnologische Forschung in Halle (Saale) geforscht.

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Waste and Wealth. An Ethnography of Labor, Value, and Morality in a Vietnamese Recycling Economy (Oxford University Press)

Waste and Wealth examines questions of value, labor, and morality underlining the translocal waste trading networks originating from a rural district in Vietnam. Considering waste as an economic category of global significance, this book shows migrant laborers' complex negotiations with political economic forces to remake their social and moral lives. It also illuminates how the waste traders seek to construct viable identities in the face of stigmatization, insecurity, and precarity. Waste and Wealth makes an important contribution to global studies of human economies and post-socialist transformations, demonstrating how the forces of globalization blend with local historical-cultural dynamics to shape the valuation of people and things.

Waste and Wealth is a volume in the series ISSUES OF GLOBALIZATION: CASE STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY ANTHROPOLOGY, which examines the experiences of individual communities in our contemporary world. Each volume offers a brief and engaging exploration of a particular issue arising from globalization and its cultural, political, and economic effects on certain peoples or groups.

Reviews

"Waste and Wealth is an outstanding ethnography brimming with vivid details and insights about the lives of Vietnamese waste traders. Tracing the livelihood strategies, hopes, dreams, and struggles of Spring Village traders, Minh Nguyen takes readers on a riveting series of journeys throughout the nation's capital city, Hanoi, and surrounding areas. It is a story of hard, dirty labor, but also of resilience, social mobility, and economic uplift. The waste traders in this book are not only turning waste into gold, but literally remaking themselves, their village, and Vietnam's new rural economy."--Erik Lind Harms, Yale University

"With this compellingly written and highly original ethnography, Nguyen shows how informal recyclers remake themselves, their relationships, and their circumstances, laying to rest the assumptions that waste is inherently worthless and that those who work with it are doomed to abject poverty. The book is clearly written, demonstrating complex entanglements of dirty work, class aspirations, and gender politics in a post-socialist context."--Joshua Reno, Binghamton University

"The ethnography is skillfully crafted, drawing readers into people's lives with a keen appreciation of how they juggle competing moralities and demands on their lives. Nguyen's theoretical contribution is deft, efficient, and--as with the best ethnography--lightly and dexterously woven through her material."--Catherine Alexander, Durham University

Link to the book

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Prof. Dr. Minh Nguyen. Foto: Universität Bielefeld

Für ihre sozialanthropologische Forschung über Ost- und Südostasien erhält Minh Nguyen einen ERC Starting Grant des Europäischen Forschungsrats (European Research Council, ERC). Dieser fördert exzellente und vielversprechende Nachwuchswissenschaftlerinnen und Nachwuchswissenschaftler. Minh Nguyens Forschung wird über fünf Jahre mit einer Summe von etwa 1,5 Millionen Euro gefördert. Sie ist die dritte Forschende der Universität Bielefeld, die einen der wichtigsten EU-Förderpreise erhält.

Pressemitteilung der Universität

Minh Nguyen has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for her social anthropological research on Eastern and Southern Asia at the Faculty of Sociology. These grants aim to promote excellent and promising young academics. Minh Nguyen’s research will receive a total of approximately 1.5 million euros funding over a period of five years. She is the third researcher at Bielefeld University to receive one of these major EU prizes to promote science.

Press release of the university

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