Description
Book SynopsisIn Vietnam, international remittances from the Vietnamese diaspora are quantitatively significant and contribute important economic inputs. Yet beyond capital transfer, these diasporic remittance economies offer insight into an unfolding transformation of Vietnamese society through the extension of imaginations and ontological possibilities that accompany them. Currencies of Imagination examines the complex role of remittances as money and as gifts that flow across, and mediate between, transnational kinship networks dispersed by exile and migration.
Long distance international gift exchanges and channels in a neoliberal political economy juxtapose the increasing cross-border mobility of remittance financial flows against the relative confines of state bounded bodies. In this contradiction Ivan V. Small reveals a creative space for emergent imaginaries that disrupt local structures and scales of desire, labor and expectation. Furthermore, the particular characteristics
Trade Review
Throughout Currencies of Imagination, Small masterfully navigates between vividly rendered ethnographic stories and astute interpretations of anthropological and allied theory, challenging readers to rethink the gift and money anew. And that is a gift social scientists can use.
* Cross-Currents *
[An] important contribution and benefit to economic and anthropolohical investigations of mobility, money, identity and imaginaries.
* American Ethnologist *
This book will appeal to anthropologists and sociologists interested in remittance economies, international migration, as well as the diasporic community and social transformations of Vietnam. This reader in particular finds in it an intimate and intriguing portrayal of Vietnam, a nation that is always on a spectacular move but is haunted by its past and troubled by an ambiguous present.
* Pacific Affairs *
Currencies of Imagination, by Ivan Small, is a path-breaking book that draws on over a decade of anthropological research to tell a powerful story about migration and cultural remittances sent to Vietnam. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the dynamic meanings of money in a transnational context.
-- Mytoan Nguyen-Akbar, University of Washington * International Migration Review *
Ivan V. Small's book Currencies of Imagination is a remarkably tight ethnographic account of how affectively complex money becomes when it flows between borders, boundaries, and kin. Small's book is a timely reminder of why it is important to pay attention to the inequalities and opportunities attached to migrant lives in the United States.
* The Journal of Asian Studies *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Money, Gifts, and Flows
1. The "Dangerous" Gift
2. Sà i Gò n, Overlaid by H Chí Minh: Capitalist Desires and Deferrals
3. Coastal Flows and Hypothetical Horizons
4. The Beautiful, Tired Country
5. Crossing the Bridge... Home?
Conclusion: Not Yet Enough: Mobility and Its Malcontents
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index
