Papers
Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Maatschappij en Recht, Nov 10, 2018
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SSRN Electronic Journal
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Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Maatschappij en Recht, Sep 1, 2019
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The City at Eye Level in Asia, bookchapter, 2020
Over the last thousand years, Asian cities have grown into diverse urban settings. Today the regi... more Over the last thousand years, Asian cities have grown into diverse urban settings. Today the region boasts both ancient, sacred cities and more pragmatic cities serving everyday habitats. It is here where the terms fluid and formal come into place. The fluid city is understood here as being dominantly open, characterised by behaviours which may shape dynamic, unpredictable and non-linear processes. The formal city is understood here as being dominantly closed, referring to planned interventions, which do not involve people but rather governments and their more linear policies and regulations. The fluid and formal city are both part of an urban setting; their relationship defined by the local contexts of each city. In Asia the fluid is very vivid, and its interplay with the formal is what gives these cities their distinct characters. Yet, the Asian city is under increasing pressure of formalisation in Asia. Could we develop an ethical code for city planning, in which there is an ethical connection between the urbanist [the planner, the formal] and the urbanite [the people, the fluid]? For Asian cities, this would mean protecting and designing not only tangible Asian heritage (as is often done at present) but also giving space for Asia’s intangible (socio-cultural) structures — which would include giving more voice to the people and their capability towards self-governance.
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The City at Eye Level for Kids, bookchapter, 2019
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The Routledge Handbook of Informal Urbanization, 2019
Drawing on the informally developed housing sector in Hanoi, this chapter explores what it means ... more Drawing on the informally developed housing sector in Hanoi, this chapter explores what it means to secure space in a post-reform communist city that has recently integrated with the global economy. The study sheds light on the means by which citizens have secured living space with relatively few constraints from the party-state. Building on discourses that highlight how political engagement works through multiple levels, as a continuity between various spheres of life, this chapter shows how ordinary citizens employ non-confrontational tactics in order to achieve their right to the city, and have succeeded in changing government legislations and practices, ultimately leading to a normalization of informal housing in Hanoi. The chapter concludes by situating how this case from post-reform Hanoi contributes to the understanding of emerging forms of political engagements in our global urban world.
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City and Society, 2018
Drawing on two years of fieldwork in Hanoi, this paper explores what it means to be young and pol... more Drawing on two years of fieldwork in Hanoi, this paper explores what it means to be young and politically engaged in a post‐reform communist city that has recently integrated into the global economy and international culture. We suggest that many young people's desire to assert more playful urban lifestyles and to live their “lives as art” contributed to their engagement in the Tree Hug Movement that swept Hanoi in the spring of 2015. Using interviews with youth who were active in the Tree Hug Movement and ethnographic observations of how young people succeeded in “being” in public spaces, this paper suggests that play can easily transform into politics. Looking at the intertwinement of digital and physical urban spaces, we note how youth mobilized the Tree Hug Movement by drawing upon the same non‐confrontational tactics that they first developed to carve out a space for themselves in urban public spaces: “quiet encroachment,” affective arguments, and conflict avoidance. This, we conclude, contributed to creating new forms of political engagement that can be observed elsewhere in the global urban world.
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Over the last decade Hanoi has seen the emergence of a Creative Movement in which artists are inc... more Over the last decade Hanoi has seen the emergence of a Creative Movement in which artists are increasingly finding public spaces to exhibit individual expressions of artistic creativity. This growth in the Vietnamese creative sector has been led for the most part by postwar , post-reform youths who use non-confrontational tactics to secure public spaces for contemporary art forms. In doing so they gradually stretch the socio-political constraints. This paper presents the four specific tactics the younger generation of artists deployed to normalize their presence in Hanoi: gradual encroachment, conflict avoidance, informal engagement and affective relationships. These tactics contribute to new forms of socio-cultural engagement known as " tactical urbanism " , an engagement that has also been observed in other global cities.
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Pacific Affairs, 2016
Starting in the 2000s, there has been a rise in youth-led appropriation of public spaces in Hanoi... more Starting in the 2000s, there has been a rise in youth-led appropriation of public spaces in Hanoi, Vietnam. Through case studies of skateboarders and traceurs (practitioners of parkour) in two of the city's formal public spaces, we explore and analyze the tactics deployed by these young urbanites to claim a part of the characteristically overcrowded and socio-politically restrictive public spaces of the Vietnamese capital. These case studies show that, by seeking to access public spaces for their new activities, skaters and traceurs have had to confront multiple sets of rules, imposed by not only the state, but also corporate actors and resident-driven surveillance. We find that skateboarders and traceurs deal with these forms of control largely through small-scale, non-ideological, and non-confrontational tactics. As a result, these youth practices have become normalized in Hanoi's public spaces. These findings broaden the discourses on everyday urbanism and social-political transformations in post-socialist urban contexts, and shed light on the ways in which contemporary youths engage with the city.
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Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, 2013
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Book
The self-organizing city in Vietnam : processes of change and transformation in housing in Hanoi, 2007
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Urban life and political action
This project brings together Canadian and Vietnamese researchers and an NGO to examine the provis... more This project brings together Canadian and Vietnamese researchers and an NGO to examine the provision and use of formally-designed public spaces in Hanoi in relation to the use, needs, and aspirations of youths aged 18-25 years old. In this research, we have described the evolution of public spaces since the year 2000 (in terms of overall spatial distribution, available areas, quality, and usage) and explored some of the driving forces behind these changes. We have also analyzed how a variety of youth users (male, female, couples, groups) access, use, and relate to public parks and gardens in the Vietnamese capital city. The research relied on a mixed-method approach. This includes qualitative case studies of three parks respectively located in the inner city (Lenin Memorial Park), a new suburban area (the 34T Plaza of Trung Hoa Nhân Chinh) and the outer edge of the city (Hoa Binh Park). It also includes a geographic information system (GIS) mapping of geographic data about the evolu...
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City & Society, 2018
Drawing on two years of fieldwork in Hanoi, this paper explores what it means to be young and pol... more Drawing on two years of fieldwork in Hanoi, this paper explores what it means to be young and politically engaged in a post-reform communist city that has recently
integrated into the global economy and international culture. We suggest that many
young people’s desire to assert more playful urban lifestyles and to live their “lives as
art” contributed to their engagement in the Tree Hug Movement that swept Hanoi in
the spring of 2015. Using interviews with youth who were active in the Tree Hug
Movement and ethnographic observations of how young people succeeded in “being” in
public spaces, this paper suggests that play can easily transform into politics. Looking at
the intertwinement of digital and physical urban spaces, we note how youth mobilized
the Tree Hug Movement by drawing upon the same non-confrontational tactics that
they first developed to carve out a space for themselves in urban public spaces: “quiet
encroachment,” affective arguments, and conflict avoidance. This, we conclude,
contributed to creating new forms of political engagement that can be observed
elsewhere in the global urban world.
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Book Reviews
BOOKREVIEW: SKATEBOARDING AND URBAN LANDSCAPES IN ASIA: Endless Spots. Consumption and Sustainability in Asia, 2023
Duncan McDuie-Ra's Skateboarding and Urban Landscapes in Asia: Endless Spots is an illuminating s... more Duncan McDuie-Ra's Skateboarding and Urban Landscapes in Asia: Endless Spots is an illuminating study on the diversity of urban landscapes in Asia through an ethnographic mapping of (skate) "spots" observed in skate videos. Despite contributing greatly to the circulation of knowledge of urban landscapes, skate videos have largely been overlooked by urban studies. Duncan McDuie-Ra convincingly argues that by enrolling spots, skate videos provide a rich archive of non-expert knowledge of the urban landscapes that host them.
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Urban life and political action
integrated into the global economy and international culture. We suggest that many
young people’s desire to assert more playful urban lifestyles and to live their “lives as
art” contributed to their engagement in the Tree Hug Movement that swept Hanoi in
the spring of 2015. Using interviews with youth who were active in the Tree Hug
Movement and ethnographic observations of how young people succeeded in “being” in
public spaces, this paper suggests that play can easily transform into politics. Looking at
the intertwinement of digital and physical urban spaces, we note how youth mobilized
the Tree Hug Movement by drawing upon the same non-confrontational tactics that
they first developed to carve out a space for themselves in urban public spaces: “quiet
encroachment,” affective arguments, and conflict avoidance. This, we conclude,
contributed to creating new forms of political engagement that can be observed
elsewhere in the global urban world.
Book Reviews
integrated into the global economy and international culture. We suggest that many
young people’s desire to assert more playful urban lifestyles and to live their “lives as
art” contributed to their engagement in the Tree Hug Movement that swept Hanoi in
the spring of 2015. Using interviews with youth who were active in the Tree Hug
Movement and ethnographic observations of how young people succeeded in “being” in
public spaces, this paper suggests that play can easily transform into politics. Looking at
the intertwinement of digital and physical urban spaces, we note how youth mobilized
the Tree Hug Movement by drawing upon the same non-confrontational tactics that
they first developed to carve out a space for themselves in urban public spaces: “quiet
encroachment,” affective arguments, and conflict avoidance. This, we conclude,
contributed to creating new forms of political engagement that can be observed
elsewhere in the global urban world.