Remittances from the Vietnamese diaspora have played an important role in Viet- nam’s post Cold War economic development, providing important inputs to a range of household spending areas, from education to health care. In the case of Vietnam, however, remittances are also caught up with memories and traumas of war, betray- al, separation and exodus. Conceptually examining remittances as money, but also gifts, this talk illustrates how Vietnam’s particular postwar refugee and remittance histories and channels exacerbate inherent contradictions in the mobile flows of finance, people and goods across borders that define globalization. The observable qualitative correlation between remittance reception and desires for out-migration contributes to affective migratory cultures in which the consumption patterns afforded by remittances may be displaced into a variety of unexpected areas, with unintended effects.

Dr. Ivan Small is associate professor of anthropology and international studies at Central Connecticut State University. He is author of Curren cies  of Imagination: Channeling Money and Chasing Mobility in Vietnam (Cornell 2019). He is also co-editor of Money at the Margins: Technology, Financial Inclusion and Design (Berghahn 2018). Dr. Small has researched, published, and taught on a range of issues related to migration, remittances, money, mobility, transportation, and emerging markets. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology and South- east Asian Studies from Cornell University, and a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University, and was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Money, Technology & Financial Inclusion (IMTFI) at University of California Irvine.

 

 

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