Ashley Carruthers | The Australian National University (original) (raw)
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Papers by Ashley Carruthers
Transfers, 2018
After declining in status and mode share sharply with the popularization of the motorcycle, cycli... more After declining in status and mode share sharply with the popularization of the motorcycle, cycling in Vietnam is on the rise. Urban elites who pursue sport and leisure cycling are the most visible of Vietnam’s new cyclists, and they bring their sense of social mastery out onto the road with them by appropriating the nation’s new, automobile-focused infrastructures as places for play and display. While motivated by self-interest, their informal activism around securing bicycle access to new bridges and highways potentially benefits all and contributes to making livable cities. These socially elite cyclists transcend the status associated with their means of mobility as they enact their mastery over automobile infrastructures meant to usher in a new Vietnamese automobility.
When cyclist meets driver on the road, both are notionally equal individuals encountering each ot... more When cyclist meets driver on the road, both are notionally equal individuals encountering each other in a democratic, rule-governed and neutral public space. But only if the driver chooses to make it like this. Otherwise, they are in a deeply asymmetrical relation, both physically and culturally.
There are a staggering 20 million motorcycles in Vietnam today, and the market keeps growing by 2... more There are a staggering 20 million motorcycles in Vietnam today, and the market keeps growing by 2 million per year, giving the nation perhaps the highest per capita rate of motorcycle ownership in the world. Motorbikes have, as a result, become synonymous with the Vietnamese city, and have even left their imprint on the nation’s culture and history. In Static Friction, Phunam, Matt Lucero and Tuan Andrew Nguyen of The Propeller Group turn the spotlight on this quintessential agent of Vietnamese mobility, asking us to engage more deeply with these machines as ciphers of change, alienation, resistance and the current status of the right to the Vietnamese city.
Anthropology Today, Jan 1, 2012
To someone from Sydney, Los Angeles, Paris or Vancouver there is something quite peculiar about t... more To someone from Sydney, Los Angeles, Paris or
Vancouver there is something quite peculiar about the
experience of eating Indochinese food in Singapore. In
these former locations, it exists as a largely inexpensive
ethnic cuisine, the low cost and perceived authenticity
of which are underwritten by the presence of communities
of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao refugees and
migrants. In Singapore, by contrast, Indochinese food is
a chic, expensive, romantic, Frenchy, artsy, edgy, hautecuisine.
Given that Singapore is Vietnam’s second largest
foreign investor, and that Ho Chi Minh City is a mere
eighty minute budget flight away, why should Indochinese
food be such a rare and exotic commodity in the island’s
multicultural culinary market? Drawing on material from
participant observation, interviews with restaurateurs
and patrons, and electronic materials such as restaurant
reviews and blogs, this article will address the question of
just why Indochinese food signifies in such a striking and
singular way in Singapore.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Identities: Global studies in culture and power, Jan 1, 2002
Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, Jan 1, 2008
In the wake of reform in Vietnam and the end of the cold war, overseas Vietnamese are returning t... more In the wake of reform in Vietnam and the end of the cold war, overseas Vietnamese are returning to their former homeland in increasing numbers. For most of the first generation in the diaspora, memories of wartime Saigon are now being augmented by a touristic experience of contemporary Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. This essay asks how the co-presence of these differently spatialized and temporalized ways of knowing the city affects the production and consumption of images of Saigon in overseas Vietnamese communities in the West. Based on media ethnography carried out in Vietnamese households in Sydney, the paper argues that changes in the way Saigon is represented in overseas Vietnamese popular culture reflect a shift in the larger politics of diasporic identity. While narratives of exile and refugeehood remain potent forms of affective (if not instrumental) politics in overseas Vietnamese contexts, transnational forms of consciousness and identification are beginning to enter into diasporic public culture, albeit in a highly contested way.
… the Sea: Cosmopolitanism and Anti-Cosmopolitanism …
Few studies have taken the crossing of minority:minority cultural boundaries in liberal multicult... more Few studies have taken the crossing of minority:minority cultural boundaries in liberal multicultural societies as their focus, perhaps because the power of the majority culture of the host nation appears to loom so large. Such interculturalisms are however of great potential interest. They may turn out to be the site of everyday multiculturalisms that are not organised around the dominant paradigms of migrant assimilation and the "cosmopolitan" consumption of minority cuisines. Further, the zones of intercultural contact formed by engagements between members of ethnic minority communities may offer opportunities for cross-cultural exploration that are denied to people effectively excluded spatially and socially from high status metropolitan translocalities.
Amerasia Journal, Jan 1, 2010
Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast …, Jan 1, 2008
positions: east asia cultures critique, Jan 1, 2004
The idea for this essay came to me while interviewing a Vietnamese journalist and small businessm... more The idea for this essay came to me while interviewing a Vietnamese journalist and small businessman in Oimachi, just off Tokyo's Yamanote line. He had been telling me, with resignation, that after more than a decade of activism for Vietnamese and other migrant community causes in Japan, he had finally given up in the face of official immovability and indifference. A little like a traditional Vietnamese mandarin in times of trouble, he had retreated into scholarly pursuits. After a pause, he brightened up as he began to describe the recent emergence of a Japanese craze for things Vietnamese, telling me with some pride how not long ago he had had a camera crew from NHK television in his tiny shop. Pulling a magazine out of his desk drawer, he bemusedly translated the text on the cover into Vietnamese. One of the bold headlines read "[Let's go] To 'cheap' 'cute' things paradise Vietnam." 1 positions 12:2
Transfers, 2018
After declining in status and mode share sharply with the popularization of the motorcycle, cycli... more After declining in status and mode share sharply with the popularization of the motorcycle, cycling in Vietnam is on the rise. Urban elites who pursue sport and leisure cycling are the most visible of Vietnam’s new cyclists, and they bring their sense of social mastery out onto the road with them by appropriating the nation’s new, automobile-focused infrastructures as places for play and display. While motivated by self-interest, their informal activism around securing bicycle access to new bridges and highways potentially benefits all and contributes to making livable cities. These socially elite cyclists transcend the status associated with their means of mobility as they enact their mastery over automobile infrastructures meant to usher in a new Vietnamese automobility.
When cyclist meets driver on the road, both are notionally equal individuals encountering each ot... more When cyclist meets driver on the road, both are notionally equal individuals encountering each other in a democratic, rule-governed and neutral public space. But only if the driver chooses to make it like this. Otherwise, they are in a deeply asymmetrical relation, both physically and culturally.
There are a staggering 20 million motorcycles in Vietnam today, and the market keeps growing by 2... more There are a staggering 20 million motorcycles in Vietnam today, and the market keeps growing by 2 million per year, giving the nation perhaps the highest per capita rate of motorcycle ownership in the world. Motorbikes have, as a result, become synonymous with the Vietnamese city, and have even left their imprint on the nation’s culture and history. In Static Friction, Phunam, Matt Lucero and Tuan Andrew Nguyen of The Propeller Group turn the spotlight on this quintessential agent of Vietnamese mobility, asking us to engage more deeply with these machines as ciphers of change, alienation, resistance and the current status of the right to the Vietnamese city.
Anthropology Today, Jan 1, 2012
To someone from Sydney, Los Angeles, Paris or Vancouver there is something quite peculiar about t... more To someone from Sydney, Los Angeles, Paris or
Vancouver there is something quite peculiar about the
experience of eating Indochinese food in Singapore. In
these former locations, it exists as a largely inexpensive
ethnic cuisine, the low cost and perceived authenticity
of which are underwritten by the presence of communities
of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Lao refugees and
migrants. In Singapore, by contrast, Indochinese food is
a chic, expensive, romantic, Frenchy, artsy, edgy, hautecuisine.
Given that Singapore is Vietnam’s second largest
foreign investor, and that Ho Chi Minh City is a mere
eighty minute budget flight away, why should Indochinese
food be such a rare and exotic commodity in the island’s
multicultural culinary market? Drawing on material from
participant observation, interviews with restaurateurs
and patrons, and electronic materials such as restaurant
reviews and blogs, this article will address the question of
just why Indochinese food signifies in such a striking and
singular way in Singapore.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Identities: Global studies in culture and power, Jan 1, 2002
Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, Jan 1, 2008
In the wake of reform in Vietnam and the end of the cold war, overseas Vietnamese are returning t... more In the wake of reform in Vietnam and the end of the cold war, overseas Vietnamese are returning to their former homeland in increasing numbers. For most of the first generation in the diaspora, memories of wartime Saigon are now being augmented by a touristic experience of contemporary Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City. This essay asks how the co-presence of these differently spatialized and temporalized ways of knowing the city affects the production and consumption of images of Saigon in overseas Vietnamese communities in the West. Based on media ethnography carried out in Vietnamese households in Sydney, the paper argues that changes in the way Saigon is represented in overseas Vietnamese popular culture reflect a shift in the larger politics of diasporic identity. While narratives of exile and refugeehood remain potent forms of affective (if not instrumental) politics in overseas Vietnamese contexts, transnational forms of consciousness and identification are beginning to enter into diasporic public culture, albeit in a highly contested way.
… the Sea: Cosmopolitanism and Anti-Cosmopolitanism …
Few studies have taken the crossing of minority:minority cultural boundaries in liberal multicult... more Few studies have taken the crossing of minority:minority cultural boundaries in liberal multicultural societies as their focus, perhaps because the power of the majority culture of the host nation appears to loom so large. Such interculturalisms are however of great potential interest. They may turn out to be the site of everyday multiculturalisms that are not organised around the dominant paradigms of migrant assimilation and the "cosmopolitan" consumption of minority cuisines. Further, the zones of intercultural contact formed by engagements between members of ethnic minority communities may offer opportunities for cross-cultural exploration that are denied to people effectively excluded spatially and socially from high status metropolitan translocalities.
Amerasia Journal, Jan 1, 2010
Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast …, Jan 1, 2008
positions: east asia cultures critique, Jan 1, 2004
The idea for this essay came to me while interviewing a Vietnamese journalist and small businessm... more The idea for this essay came to me while interviewing a Vietnamese journalist and small businessman in Oimachi, just off Tokyo's Yamanote line. He had been telling me, with resignation, that after more than a decade of activism for Vietnamese and other migrant community causes in Japan, he had finally given up in the face of official immovability and indifference. A little like a traditional Vietnamese mandarin in times of trouble, he had retreated into scholarly pursuits. After a pause, he brightened up as he began to describe the recent emergence of a Japanese craze for things Vietnamese, telling me with some pride how not long ago he had had a camera crew from NHK television in his tiny shop. Pulling a magazine out of his desk drawer, he bemusedly translated the text on the cover into Vietnamese. One of the bold headlines read "[Let's go] To 'cheap' 'cute' things paradise Vietnam." 1 positions 12:2
The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 2021
