Communicating memories in Vietnam: ways of engaging with collective pasts in the everyday

Abstract

The dissertation explores how urbanites in contemporary Vietnam communicate about collective pasts in the everyday and how they make sense of them. Drawing from established theoretical concepts of collective, cultural and mediated memories, the thesis conceptualizes the social phenomenon of "communicating memories". Communicating memories conceptually describes collective remembering as an everyday process of communication. In order to assess this process empirically, the dissertation applies and advances the media repertoire approach. The empirical research is based on fieldwork in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, including qualitative research and expert interviews, visual elicitation techniques and museum visits. The findings present typologies of forms and practices of communicating memories in Vietnam and their meaning for social relations, ethics and memory politics. The dissertation thus contributes to a better understanding about how people in post-colonial, post-conflict, post- or late socialist societies engage with collective memories by means of media technologies and in conversation with others.