Saigon's Edge: On the Margins of Ho Chi Minh CityMuch of the world’s population inhabits the urban fringe, an area that is neither fully rural nor urban. Hóc Môn, a district that lies along a key transport corridor on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, epitomizes one of those places. In Saigon’s Edge, Erik Harms explores life in Hóc Môn, putting forth a revealing perspective on how rapid urbanization impacts the people who live at the intersection of rural and urban worlds. Unlike the idealized Vietnamese model of urban space, Hóc Môn is between worlds, neither outside nor inside but always uncomfortably both. With particular attention to everyday social realities, Harms demonstrates how living on the margin can be both alienating and empowering, as forces that exclude its denizens from power and privilege in the inner city are used to thwart the status quo on the rural edges. More than a local case study of urban change, Harms’s work also opens a window on Vietnam’s larger turn toward market socialism and the celebration of urbanization—transformations instructively linked to trends around the globe. |
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agricultural Anthropology Asian binary Burlat café Chi Minh City concept construction country and city countryside critique Củ Chi của cultural dân described Định Doi Moi đồng đường economic emerges everyday factory Gia Định Hà Nội Hồ Chí Minh Hoàn Hóc Môn district household Ibid idea industrial inside kinship labor land linear living Long An province meaning Mekong Delta Minh City modern motorbike move ngoại thành Nguyễn Ninh nông organization orientation oscillation outer city outer-city districts patrilineal peasant phố Hồ Chí political production relationship reproduce road rural and urban rural-urban Saigon sense social action social edginess social relations social space socialist society Southeast Asia spatial structure symbolic Tân Thới Nhì Tây Ninh temporal Thành phố Hồ tion traffic Trans-Asia Highway transformation Tuổi Trẻ văn hóa Việt Việt Nam Vietnam Vietnamese socialism village zones