Spirits, Iconoclasts and the Borders of the Market in Urban Vietnam

his study takes as its object a goddess called the Lady of the Realm, whose jectivity and distinctions of social status. The goddess at the heart of this story is used by some urban residents to map out differences between the countryside and the city. She is a vernacular construct through which urbanites position themselves within a process that is often abstractly referred to as economic ‘integration’ or ‘globalization’. This goddess also features in the telling of urban history as a key figure through which recent societal transformations are imagined and played out. She is a means by which people employ themselves as actors in a history of economic liberalisation and contest the position of others in such terms. As a marker of social status she is also employed to assert competing visions of urban authenticity. She is an instrument through which status differences within urban society are practically secured. In short, this goddess is a construct around which contemporary Vietnamese urban identities are articulated and defended. Through the views expressed about this goddess we can see that a purportedly universal construct such as the ‘market economy’ is symbolically constituted and locally situated in place, time, and status.