In: Plural Ecologies in Southeast Asia. Hierarchies, Conflicts, and Coexistence, edited by Timo Duile, Kristina Großmann, Michaela Haug and Guido Sprenger, 169-186. London and New York: Routledge, 2023
The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 23 (3): 232-249, 2022
ABSTRACT: After the end of the colonial regime in Vietnam, the French Cemetery in Hanoi was level... more ABSTRACT: After the end of the colonial regime in Vietnam, the French Cemetery in Hanoi was levelled to make way for newly planned collective apartment blocks. Due to rural migration to the city and the subsequent housing shortage in the 1960s, people settled there, some occupying the lower rooms of the mortuary as accommodation. Humans were not the only residents; they cohabited with wandering ghosts of tirailleurs Sénégalais, French colonial soldiers from Africa. This article traces the building of socialism after the First Indochina War by investigating the implications of urban planning and construction work on the territory of the former French graveyard. As this urban area is conceived of as being animated by spirits, I argue that it emerges as a potent site where colonial ghosts appear protesting against their displacement. Over the last ten years, however, human residents are also threatened by eviction due to urban redevelopment.
ABSTRACT: The “Cowshed Tree” (Cây đa nhà Bò), located next to a maternity hospital in urban Hanoi... more ABSTRACT: The “Cowshed Tree” (Cây đa nhà Bò), located next to a maternity hospital in urban Hanoi, has long been a destination for women and men who offer prayers to ensure a successful birth and to give thanks for a healthy baby. As the nearby hospital also performs abortions, the crown of the huge banyan tree with its aerial roots has come to be regarded by many city residents as a home for unredeemed souls. But the history of the tree and narratives about its existence predate the construction of the hospital in the early 1960s and refer to the arrival of migrants from India in the French colonial period. In this article, I explore how the Cowshed Tree became a location where affective relations between the living and the dead are created and fostered through prayers and offerings, and hence as a site where sensations and material objects mediate between this world and other worlds. Taking the performance of popular religious practices at the Cowshed Tree as an ethnographic example, this essay aims to contribute to ongoing debates on the urban sacred in late socialist Vietnam and on unfortunate deaths and commemoration in times of rapid transformation; it also contributes to recent research on the relationship between humans, trees, and spirits in the urban environment.
SOJOURN, Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 37 (1): 182-200, 2022
ABSTRACT: Situated on the banks of the Red River in the centre of Hanoi, Phúc Tân ward was once a... more ABSTRACT: Situated on the banks of the Red River in the centre of Hanoi, Phúc Tân ward was once a thriving wharf and trading site but has long been considered a neglected area.1 In past centuries, merchant ships docked at this trading gateway, providing the imperial city with goods from many different parts of the world. The former trading place is located at the foot of the famous Long Biên Bridge, which was designed in 1899–1902 by a French construction company. For the French colonial government, it was of strategic importance for securing control of the northern part of Vietnam. Heavily bombed during the American Vietnam War, it became a landmark of the city. At various times, a number of poor families lived in boats along the Red River, many of them migrants from different regions of Vietnam. Over the last few decades, the site adjacent to the bridge and next to the river was used by homeless people and scrap-iron dealers; the area became polluted and gradually turned into a garbage dump. In collaboration with the Hoàn Kiếm District People's Committee, and in line with the government's slogan about a "green, clean and beautiful" Hanoi (DiGregorio, Rambo and Yanagisawa 2003, p. 171), a group of artists has been engaged in enhancing the neighbourhood next to the riverbanks.
In The Vietnamese Diaspora in a Transnational Context. Contested Spaces, Contested Narratives, edited by Anna Vu and Victor Satzewich, 83-100. Leiden: Brill, 2022
ABSTRACT: In the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, the majority of migrants entering Germany from southern E... more ABSTRACT: In the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, the majority of migrants entering Germany from southern European countries and Turkey came as guest workers. However, after the end of the Cold War and German reunification in 1990, Germany increasingly became a country of destination for migrants from Africa, Latin America and Asia. Focusing on Vietnamese migrants, particularly on former contract workers, this chapter argues that the arrival of new migrants not only changed the formerly divided Germany in terms of it becoming a multi-ethnic society, but also in terms of its economic and religious landscape.
Mattering the Invisible. Technologies, Bodies, and the Realm of the Spectral, edited by Diana Espírito Santo and Jack Hunter, 67-89. New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2021
Bildagenten. Historische und zeitgenössische Bildpraxen in globalen Kulturen, herausgegeben von Christiane Kruse und Birgit Mersmann, 221-239, Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2021
The Sociolinguistic Economy of Berlin. Cosmopolitan Perspectives on Language, Diversity and Social Space, edited by Theresa von Heyd, Ferdinand von Mengden und Britta Schneider, 2019
SOJOURN. Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia. Vol 33, no 2. (2018) pp. 291-318., 2018
Drawing on ideas of a "clean and green city", recent municipal development policies in Hanoi have... more Drawing on ideas of a "clean and green city", recent municipal development policies in Hanoi have resulted in the demolition of a number of traditional marketplaces in favour of high-rise buildings. In its efforts to implement environmentalist policies, the city government and investors find themselves confronted with agentive forces of spirits and other non-humans, which play a significant role in negotiating and protecting urban space in a society increasingly characterized by the manifold dynamics of market socialism. An approach referring to the ecologies of urbanism permits examination of encounters between urban renewal and the spirit world.
In: Traders in Motion. Identities and Contestations in the Vietnamese Marketplace. Edited by Kirsten W. Endres and Ann Marie Leshkowich. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 126-148., 2018
In: Gendered Encounters between Germany and Asia. Transnational Perspectives since 1800. Edited by Joanne Miyang Cho and Douglas T. McGetchin. Palgrave MacMillan. 275-290, 2017
In: Plural Ecologies in Southeast Asia. Hierarchies, Conflicts, and Coexistence, edited by Timo Duile, Kristina Großmann, Michaela Haug and Guido Sprenger, 169-186. London and New York: Routledge, 2023
The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 23 (3): 232-249, 2022
ABSTRACT: After the end of the colonial regime in Vietnam, the French Cemetery in Hanoi was level... more ABSTRACT: After the end of the colonial regime in Vietnam, the French Cemetery in Hanoi was levelled to make way for newly planned collective apartment blocks. Due to rural migration to the city and the subsequent housing shortage in the 1960s, people settled there, some occupying the lower rooms of the mortuary as accommodation. Humans were not the only residents; they cohabited with wandering ghosts of tirailleurs Sénégalais, French colonial soldiers from Africa. This article traces the building of socialism after the First Indochina War by investigating the implications of urban planning and construction work on the territory of the former French graveyard. As this urban area is conceived of as being animated by spirits, I argue that it emerges as a potent site where colonial ghosts appear protesting against their displacement. Over the last ten years, however, human residents are also threatened by eviction due to urban redevelopment.
ABSTRACT: The “Cowshed Tree” (Cây đa nhà Bò), located next to a maternity hospital in urban Hanoi... more ABSTRACT: The “Cowshed Tree” (Cây đa nhà Bò), located next to a maternity hospital in urban Hanoi, has long been a destination for women and men who offer prayers to ensure a successful birth and to give thanks for a healthy baby. As the nearby hospital also performs abortions, the crown of the huge banyan tree with its aerial roots has come to be regarded by many city residents as a home for unredeemed souls. But the history of the tree and narratives about its existence predate the construction of the hospital in the early 1960s and refer to the arrival of migrants from India in the French colonial period. In this article, I explore how the Cowshed Tree became a location where affective relations between the living and the dead are created and fostered through prayers and offerings, and hence as a site where sensations and material objects mediate between this world and other worlds. Taking the performance of popular religious practices at the Cowshed Tree as an ethnographic example, this essay aims to contribute to ongoing debates on the urban sacred in late socialist Vietnam and on unfortunate deaths and commemoration in times of rapid transformation; it also contributes to recent research on the relationship between humans, trees, and spirits in the urban environment.
SOJOURN, Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 37 (1): 182-200, 2022
ABSTRACT: Situated on the banks of the Red River in the centre of Hanoi, Phúc Tân ward was once a... more ABSTRACT: Situated on the banks of the Red River in the centre of Hanoi, Phúc Tân ward was once a thriving wharf and trading site but has long been considered a neglected area.1 In past centuries, merchant ships docked at this trading gateway, providing the imperial city with goods from many different parts of the world. The former trading place is located at the foot of the famous Long Biên Bridge, which was designed in 1899–1902 by a French construction company. For the French colonial government, it was of strategic importance for securing control of the northern part of Vietnam. Heavily bombed during the American Vietnam War, it became a landmark of the city. At various times, a number of poor families lived in boats along the Red River, many of them migrants from different regions of Vietnam. Over the last few decades, the site adjacent to the bridge and next to the river was used by homeless people and scrap-iron dealers; the area became polluted and gradually turned into a garbage dump. In collaboration with the Hoàn Kiếm District People's Committee, and in line with the government's slogan about a "green, clean and beautiful" Hanoi (DiGregorio, Rambo and Yanagisawa 2003, p. 171), a group of artists has been engaged in enhancing the neighbourhood next to the riverbanks.
In The Vietnamese Diaspora in a Transnational Context. Contested Spaces, Contested Narratives, edited by Anna Vu and Victor Satzewich, 83-100. Leiden: Brill, 2022
ABSTRACT: In the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, the majority of migrants entering Germany from southern E... more ABSTRACT: In the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, the majority of migrants entering Germany from southern European countries and Turkey came as guest workers. However, after the end of the Cold War and German reunification in 1990, Germany increasingly became a country of destination for migrants from Africa, Latin America and Asia. Focusing on Vietnamese migrants, particularly on former contract workers, this chapter argues that the arrival of new migrants not only changed the formerly divided Germany in terms of it becoming a multi-ethnic society, but also in terms of its economic and religious landscape.
Mattering the Invisible. Technologies, Bodies, and the Realm of the Spectral, edited by Diana Espírito Santo and Jack Hunter, 67-89. New York and Oxford: Berghahn, 2021
Bildagenten. Historische und zeitgenössische Bildpraxen in globalen Kulturen, herausgegeben von Christiane Kruse und Birgit Mersmann, 221-239, Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2021
The Sociolinguistic Economy of Berlin. Cosmopolitan Perspectives on Language, Diversity and Social Space, edited by Theresa von Heyd, Ferdinand von Mengden und Britta Schneider, 2019
SOJOURN. Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia. Vol 33, no 2. (2018) pp. 291-318., 2018
Drawing on ideas of a "clean and green city", recent municipal development policies in Hanoi have... more Drawing on ideas of a "clean and green city", recent municipal development policies in Hanoi have resulted in the demolition of a number of traditional marketplaces in favour of high-rise buildings. In its efforts to implement environmentalist policies, the city government and investors find themselves confronted with agentive forces of spirits and other non-humans, which play a significant role in negotiating and protecting urban space in a society increasingly characterized by the manifold dynamics of market socialism. An approach referring to the ecologies of urbanism permits examination of encounters between urban renewal and the spirit world.
In: Traders in Motion. Identities and Contestations in the Vietnamese Marketplace. Edited by Kirsten W. Endres and Ann Marie Leshkowich. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 126-148., 2018
In: Gendered Encounters between Germany and Asia. Transnational Perspectives since 1800. Edited by Joanne Miyang Cho and Douglas T. McGetchin. Palgrave MacMillan. 275-290, 2017
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Papers by Gertrud Hüwelmeier