Translocal Households and Family Visions in Contemporary Vietnam

In relation to the international academic debate on global neoliberal ideology and its influence on individual subjectivities, this paper examines family visions among the older and younger members of translocal households in contemporary rural Vietnam. Data from a longitudinal study of seven rural Vietnamese communities from 2000 to 2016 suggest that people in rural Vietnam consider the care of the young and the old, including its financial aspects, primarily an individual and family responsibility. They define a good life in terms not only of material and modern comfort, but also of family relations and responsibilities. While neoliberalism constitutes one ideological strand in contemporary Vietnamese policy circles, this paper suggests that it is ahistorical and simplistic to attribute people’s emphasis on individual and family responsibilities in caring for the young and the old to neoliberalism.