Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-9klzr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-16T16:03:30.167Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Introduction to the Special Issue: Food Charity, Religion, and Care in Vietnam

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Le Hoang Anh Thu  and
Sara A. Swenson
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This introduction to the special issue on food charity, religion, and care in Vietnam compares grassroots philanthropy in Vietnam with broader trends toward religious humanitarianism happening across Asia. The co-editors of the special issue examine why food charity has become popular in urban areas like Ho Chi Minh City by exploring how food holds spiritual, moral significance for both donors and recipients. This survey illuminates how grassroots philanthropy in Vietnam can offer a comparative study for spirituality, ethics, and food practices across Asia, as well as religious humanitarian- ism globally.

Keywords

VietnamBuddhismReligionCharityHumanitarianismPhilanthropyGenderAffectEmotionCare
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , February 2024 , e4
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2024

References

Avieli, Nir. 2002. Rice Talks: Food and Community in a Vietnamese Town. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Bray, Francesca. 2019. “Health, Wealth, and Solidarity: Rice as Self in Japan and Malaysia.” In Melissa L. Caldwell & Angela Ki Che Leung, eds., Moral Foods: The Construction of Nutrition and Health in Modern Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Caldwell, Melissa & Leung, Leung Angela Ki. 2019. “Introduction: Food and Health: Fortification and Modern Asian State Making.” In Melissa Caldwell & Angela Ki Che Leung, eds., Moral Foods: The Construction of Nutrition and Health in Modern Asia: 1–22. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Chaisinthop, Nattaka. 2014. “Volunteering, Dana, and the Cultivation of ‘Good People’ in Thailand.” Anthropological Forum 24(4): 396–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Di Febo, Aura. 2020. “‘To Benefit Others is to Benefit Yourself’: Patterns of Social Exchange and Care Provision in a Japanese Lay Buddhist Organization.” Asian Ethnology 79(2): 217–238.Google Scholar
Ehlert, Judith. 2019. “Obesity, biopower, and embodiment of caring: Foodwork and maternal ambivalences in Ho Chi Minh City.” In Judith Ehlert & Nora Katharina Faltmann, eds., Food Anxiety in Globalising Vietnam: 105–136. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ehlert, Judith & Faltmann, Nora Katharina. 2019. “Food Anxiety: Ambivalences around Body and Identity, Food Safety, and Security.” In Judith Ehlert & Nora Katharina Faltmann, eds., Food Anxiety in Globalising Vietnam: 1–40. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faltmann, Nora Katharina. 2019. “Between Food Safety Concerns and Responsibilisation: Organic Food Consumption in Ho Chi Minh City.” In Judith Ehlert & Nora Katharina Faltmann, eds., Food Anxiety in Globalising Vietnam: 167–204. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Figuié, Muriel., Moustier, Paule., Bricas, Nicolas., & Loc, Loc Nguyen Thi. 2019. “Trust and Food Modernity in Vietnam.” In Ehlert, Judith & Faltmann, Nora Katharina, eds., Food Anxiety in Globalising Vietnam: 139–165. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fountain, Philip & McLaughlin, Levy. 2016. “Salvage and Salvation: Guest Editors’ Introduction.” Asian Ethnology 75(1): 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fu, Jia-Chen. 2019. “Confronting the Cow: Soybean Milk and the Fashioning of a Chinese Dairy Alternative.” In Caldwell, Melissa & Ki, Angela Leung, Che, eds., Moral Foods: The Construction of Nutrition and Health in Modern Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Hoang, T. Huong, Nguyen, T Trang, & Reynolds, Jerry F. 2018. “Buddhism-Based Charity, Philanthropy, and Social Work: A Lesson from Vietnam.” International Social Work 1(13).Google Scholar
Huang, Chien-yu Julia & Weller, Robert. 1998. “Merit and Mothering: Women and Social Welfare in Taiwanese Buddhism.” The Journal of Asian Studies 57(2): 379–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kawanami, Hiroko. 2020. The Culture of Giving in Myanmar: Buddhist Offerings, Reciprocity and Interdependence. New York: Bloomsbury.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurfürst, Sandra. 2019. “Urban gardening and rural-urban supply chains: Reassessing images of the urban and the rural in Northern Vietnam.” In Judith Ehlert & Nora Katharina Faltmann, eds., Food Anxiety in Globalising Vietnam: 205–232. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoang Anh, Le. 2020. “Doing Bodhisattva's Work: Charity, Class, and Selfhood of Petty Traders in Hồ Chí Minh City.” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 15(4): 4–32.Google Scholar
Hoang Ngoc, Le. 2018. “Once Bodies Have Remembered: Lived Experience, the Body, and Citizenship Under Vietnamese State Leprosy Care during the Subsidy Period (1975-1986).” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 13(4): 48–70.Google Scholar
Leung, Leung Angela Ki. 2019. “To Build or to Transform Vegetarian China: Two Republican Projects.” In Melissa L. Caldwell & Angela Ki Che Leung, eds., Moral Foods: The Construction of Nutrition and Health in Modern Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
London, Jonathan. 2014. “Welfare Regimes in China and Vietnam.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 44(1): 84–107. doi: 10.1080/00472336.2013.822988CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luong, Hy Van. 2005. “The State, Local Associations, and Alternate Civilities in Rural Northern Vietnam.” In Robert P Weller, ed., Civil Society, Globalization and Political Change in Asia: Organizing between Family and State: 123–147. London and New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mintz, Sidney W. & Du Bois, Christine M. 2002. “The Anthropology of Food and Eating.” Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 99–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nguyen, Dat Manh. 2020. “Unburdening the Heart: Urban Therapeutic Buddhism and Youth Well-Being in Hồ Chí Minh City.” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 15(4): 63–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nguyen, Huong. 2016. “Mental Health Care for Elderly People at Formal Mental Health Systems and Buddhist Temples in Vietnam: Making a Case for Mindful Elder Care in Vietnam.” Ageing International 41: 394–413. doi: 10.1007/s12126-016-9263-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nguyen, Minh T. N. 2018. “Vietnam's ‘Socialization’ Policy and the Moral Subject in a Privatizing Economy.” Economy and Society 47(4): 627–647.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orsi, Robert. 2010. Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Salemink, Oscar. 2006. “Translating, Interpreting and Practicing Civil Society in Vietnam.” In David Lewis & David Mosse, eds., Development Brokers and Translators: The Ethnography of Aid and Agencies: 101–126. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.Google Scholar
Samuels, Jeffrey. 2016. “Buddhist Disaster Relief: Monks, Networks, and the Politics of Religion.” Asian Ethnology 75(1): 53–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sidel, Mark. 1997. “The Emergence of a Voluntary Sector and Philanthropy in Vietnam: Functions, Legal Regulation and Prospects for the Future.” Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 8(3): 283–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swenson, Sara A. 2020. “The Affective Politics of Karma among Buddhist Cancer Charities in Vietnam.” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 15(4): 33–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weller, Robert P.; Huang, Chien-yu Julia; Wu, Ke- ping. & Fan, Lizhu. 2017. Religion and Charity: The Social Life of Goodness in Chinese Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zigon, Jarrett. 2007. “Moral Breakdown and the Ethical Demand: A Theoretical Framework for an Anthropology of Moralities.” Anthropological Theory 7(2): 131–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar