Paper short abstract:

The idea of ethical citizenship is not only associated with the logic of self-government but also derived from the feminised labour and identity embedded in Vietnam’s socialist and patriarchal culture. The paper discusses the symbolic values of women’s sacrifice when working in the NGO sector.

Paper long abstract:

The form of ethical citizenship presented by this paper is associated with the governmental techniques used by the socialist state in Vietnam as it promotes market liberalisation for the maximisation of welfare. The morality of self-government and optimization is cast as ethical and correct conduct from which people extract a sense of self-worth and a role in society. For Vietnamese women who traditionally rely on the socialist state for the assurance of rights and empowerment, morality is also derived from the idea of femininity and reproductive labour that is continually promoted by the socialist state as it reduces state welfare programmes. Thus, the idea of ethical citizenship, while it is associated with the logic of self-government, is also derived from the feminised labour and identity that are embedded in the socialist and Vietnamese collectivist culture. Drawing from my research into the life history of Vietnamese women working in non-governmental organisations (NGOs), this paper looks at women’s choices to work in the NGO sector, consumption and wealth sacrifice to reveal the symbolic and moral values of women’s sacrifice and giving for the collective welfare. It shows that morality, while accentuating the women’s prestige, also reproduces their inferiority as per the cultural and gender norms approved by the state coupled with the pressures of competition produced by the process of marketisation and privatization in Vietnam. This paper presents one of the main themes of my PhD research on personhood and civil society and is drawn from an analysis of women’s narratives and life histories regarding working in the NGO sector, taken from fieldwork I conducted in Hanoi in 2016 and 2017