Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on Vietnamese migrants in post socialist countries, exploring transnational trading ties after the fall of the Berlin wall. By taking recent critics on methodological nationalism into account, the paper aims at contributing to diversification, mobility, cross border economic practices and market places as sites of encounter in the post-socialist urban landscape.

Paper long abstract:

Prior to the collapse of Communism, hundreds of thousands of migrants arrived in various localities throughout COMECON countries by way of programmes of mutual cooperation and 'socialist solidarity'. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, many have become entrepreneurs mostly engaged in wholesaling and retailing. Local markets, increasingly comprised of diverse peoples, play key roles in post-socialist economic development while they transnationally link a variety of geographical and socio-cultural spaces around the world. Based on ongoing ethnographic fieldwork with Vietnamese in market places in East Berlin, Praha, Warzawa and Hanoi, this paper addresses the following topics and questions

- processes of diversification and social transformation

Market places are arenas in which people from various backgrounds develop relationships of civility, conviviality and sociability. How do they negotiate social and economic relations in the market?

- mobility and transnational social and economic practices

Already prior to 1989, the global flow of people, goods, money and ideas generated new forms of mobility in socialist countries. What impact do contemporary routes of migration have on the kinds of trade and business and on the flows of money and goods, and how are they manifested in the dynamics of market-places and bazaars?

- bazaars as public places and sites of cultural exchange

Bazaars or open market spaces are simultaneously places of recreation, information-gathering, family festivities, cultural performance and religious activity. When and how were these localities transformed into bazaars and how do they fit into the post-socialist urban landscape?