In a “Half-dark, Half-light Zone”: Mobility, Precarity and Moral Ambiguity in Post-Reform Vietnam’s Urban Waste Economy

• In Event: 190. Mobility and Everyday Moralities in Contemporary Vietnam

Abstract

This paper discusses the waste trading practices of a mobile network of waste traders originating from a rural district in Northern Vietnam, locating it in an expanding waste economy spanning across major urban centres. Based on recent ethnographic research, I explore the ways in which the expansion of the network is foregrounded by how the traders deal with the precarious nature of waste work rooted in the ambiguity and instability of the urban waste economy. Characterised by waste traders as a ‘half-dark, half-light zone’, the waste economy is unevenly regulated, made up of highly informalised economic ties and relatively hidden from the public. It is, therefore, rife with opportunities for creating wealth but also full of dangers for the migrant waste traders, whose second-class citizenship and occupation of marginal urban spaces make them socially inferior and easy targets of rent-seeking state agents. Their everyday practices suggest creativity and resilience, but at the same time reveal strong moral ambiguity. I argue that moral ambiguity is central to the increasing precaritisation of labour and economy in Vietnam today.

Author

• Minh Nguyen, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology