This is a humanityoriented research carried out with an aim to explore the neoliberal self and selfrealisation in context of Vietnam, and how they are constructed in the popular annual award WeChoice Award (WCA) presented by VCCorp, a Vietnamese media, and communication company. Adopting the Foucauldian’s theories of discourse analysis, this thesis reconstructs the historical conditions that have given rise to the neoliberal self in Vietnamese society. This is achieved through a process analysing a series of historically situated practices, with an emphasis on the economic reformation (Doi moi) launched in 1986 with the introduction of the market economy, marking the entrance of neoliberalism in Vietnam. Central to the study is the attempt to identify technologies that the awardwinning individuals, called the “Inspiring persons”, of WCA, use to constitute themselves through transformative narratives. It also tries to explain what selfrealisation means in this specific context. The findings of the study reveal that the wave of Westernisation and cultural enlightenment in the early twentieth century, the Economic reformation (Đổi mới), followed by the wave of globalisation have given rise to the preference to the new kind of self that is the combination of neoliberal theories and socialist theories about the self. It also reveals that WCA awards have constituted the self based on four technologies, which are (1) rationality, (2) autonomy and responsibility, (3) entrepreneurship, and (4) selfesteem and positivity. As for selfrealisation, the program almost equals this to dreamrealisation, with an emphasis on authenticity and a kind of fullness that reconciles personal and collective interests. However, how WCA presents these discourses is rather too idealistic, lacking senses of specificity and practicality.
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF LINGUISTICS & CULTURES OF ENGLISH SPEAKING COUNTRIES GRADUATION PAPER NEOLIBERAL SELF-REALISATION IN VIETNAM AND THE CASE OF WECHOICE AWARD Supervisor: Nguyễn Diệu Hồng, M.A Student: Trần Mỹ Linh Course: QH2015.F1.E2 HÀ NỘI - 2019 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA NGÔN NGỮ VÀ VĂN HỐ CÁC NƯỚC NĨI TIẾNG ANH KHĨA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP SỰ HOÀN THIỆN BẢN THÂN THEO CHỦ NGHĨA TÂN TỰ DO Ở VIỆT NAM: TRƯỜNG HỢP CỦA WECHOICE AWARD Giảng viên hướng dẫn: ThS Nguyễn Diệu Hồng Sinh viên: Trần Mỹ Linh Khoá: QH2015.F1.E2 HÀ NỘI - 2019 ACCEPTANCE PAGE I hereby state that I: Trần Mỹ Linh, QH2015.F1.E2, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper Signature Date i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I could not have brought this thesis to life without the help and support of many people I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my supervisor, Ms Dieu Hong for your great support and guidance throughout the process I thank you for your endless patience and understanding until the end that keep me going even when I was meant to give up on this project I am also very grateful for your critical and insightful questions, detailed and constructive feedback, as well as invaluable advice that help me untangle many concepts and ideas step by step I would also like to thank, allow me to call you my grandpa, grandpa Thua Hy You shed light on and showed me the way when I was all lost and hopeless Thank you teacher Tu for helping me to find my inner peace and keep sanity Thank you, Jack, for having been there for me, challenged me intellectually, and supported me emotionally Your unconditional love, support, and trust mean a lot Finally, I am in debt to my family and friends Words cannot express my gratitude my mom, dad, aunt Lan, to my sisters Bu, Tom, Jo; my friends Quynh, Quyen, Remy, and Leonie Thank you for being so understanding and taking so well care of me Especially, mom, thank you for always doing the extra work so I can focus on my project I am forever grateful for you Thank you ii ABSTRACT This is a humanity-oriented research carried out with an aim to explore the neoliberal self and self-realisation in context of Vietnam, and how they are constructed in the popular annual award WeChoice Award (WCA) presented by VCCorp, a Vietnamese media, and communication company Adopting the Foucauldian’s theories of discourse analysis, this thesis reconstructs the historical conditions that have given rise to the neoliberal self in Vietnamese society This is achieved through a process analysing a series of historically situated practices, with an emphasis on the economic reformation (Doi moi) launched in 1986 with the introduction of the market economy, marking the entrance of neoliberalism in Vietnam Central to the study is the attempt to identify technologies that the award-winning individuals, called the “Inspiring persons”, of WCA, use to constitute themselves through transformative narratives It also tries to explain what self-realisation means in this specific context The findings of the study reveal that the wave of Westernisation and cultural enlightenment in the early twentieth century, the Economic reformation (Đổi mới), followed by the wave of globalisation have given rise to the preference to the new kind of self that is the combination of neoliberal theories and socialist theories about the self It also reveals that WCA awards have constituted the self based on four technologies, which are (1) rationality, (2) autonomy and responsibility, (3) entrepreneurship, and (4) self-esteem and positivity As for self-realisation, the program almost equals this to dreamrealisation, with an emphasis on authenticity and a kind of fullness that reconciles personal and collective interests However, how WCA presents these discourses is rather too idealistic, lacking senses of specificity and practicality iii TABLE OF CONTENT Acceptance Page Acknowledgement ii Abstract iii Table of Content iv List of Figures vi Key to Abbreviations vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .1 1.1 Background of the Research .1 1.2 Research Problems and Questions 1.3 Theoretical Framework .4 1.4 Mode of inquiry 1.5 Significance of the Study 1.6 Overview of the Chapters CHAPTER 2: THE CONCEPTION OF THE SELF AND SELFREALISATION 2.1 The Conception of the Self .8 2.2 Self-realisation 2.3 The Constitution of the Self & Self-realisation in Neoliberal Discourse 11 CHAPTER 3: A HISTORY OF THE CONCEPTION OF THE SELF AND SELF-REALISATION IN VIETNAM 15 3.1 The First Half of the 19th Century and Earlier: Confucianism and the Constrained Self 15 iv 3.2 The Late 19th Century and Early 20th Century (1858 – 1945): 17 the Cultural Enlightenment and the Self-Liberation Movement 17 3.3 From 1945-1986: 20 War and Individual Freedom 20 3.4 From 1986 until Now: 22 Neoliberalism and the Continuity of the Self-liberation Movement 22 CHAPTER 4: THE CONSITUTION OF THE SELF AND SELFREALISATION IN WECHOICE AWARD 28 4.1 The Constitution of the Self in WCA 30 4.2 Meaning of Self-realisation to Neoliberal Individuals 37 4.3 Discussion on WCA’s Constitution of the Neoliberal Self and Selfrealisation .40 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 42 REFERENCES 45 APPENDIX ……………………………………………………………… 52 v LIST OF FIGURES Table 1: The gender divide by sectors among WCA's “Inspiring persons KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS WCA WeChoice Award vi CHAPTER INTRODUCTION In this chapter, I give a brief account of the background of my research, announce the research problems and questions, describe my mode of inquiry, discuss the significance of my study, and offer an overview of the chapters 1.1 Background of the Research By the mid-1980s, the newly reunified Vietnam had been facing serious macroeconomic imbalances that were evident in macroeconomic instability, hyperinflation, budget deficit, chronic food shortages and widespread poverty (Turner & Nguyen, 2005) In respond to these challenges, the Communist Party, in 1986, mandated the Economic Reform policy (Đổi mới), shifting the centrally planned economy to the market oriented one This had been proven to be a wise and timely move, as shortly after the implementation of Đổi Mới, at the national level, Vietnam underwent a remarkable economic growth spurt, along with social and cultural liberalisation (Freeman, 1996; Nguyen & Turner, 2005) Simultaneously, at the individual level, Đổi offered new selfhood to many of the Vietnamese population, especially the young (Nguyen, 2017; Turner & Nguyen, 2005) To be more specific, it opened up more opportunities, while also presented new set of demands for each person By the time, adopting the slogan “prosperous people, strong nation”, the government emphasized that one could contribute to the wealth of the country by becoming affluent individually In such spirit, it went further to articulate its intention to “place young entrepreneurs at the forefront of socio-economic development” (Turner & Nguyen, 2015) That is to say, in the era of Đổi mới, Vietnamese people started to gain and exercise greater power to decide their destiny according to their free will Meanwhile, they were also required to be more autonomous, or, in other words, more self-contain, self-reliance and to have more self-responsibility Accordingly, the people of this new age of Vietnam needed to be self-made ones Such perception has become more and more popular over the past two decades in Vietnam, evident in the seemingly ceaseless rise in demand for and the ubiquity of personal development courses, self-help books, or the public admiration for successful self-made entrepreneurs These successful individuals have been recognised in different ways, namely via broadcasted talk shows such as Talk Vietnam, and Contemporaries (Người đương thời), and a wide range of national and private awards WeChoice Award, the selected case of this study, is one among those awards In 2014, WeChoice Award (WCA) was introduced to the Vietnamese public by VCCorp, a Vietnamese media, and communication company, primarily as an annual award that honours persons and projects that inspire and have a positive impact on the community Besides the humanitarian values, WCA also claims to be the voice of Vietnamese youth, acknowledging and promoting positive trends among the young generation (wechoice.vn, 2018) For such purpose, they include award categories, such as After the course of four years, WCA only gains more popularity From 2017 to 2018 alone, the number of nominations submitted has increased by 520%, from 500,000 to 2,600,000 nominations This development is attributable to VCCorp’s collaboration with VTV24, the Vietnamese national news centre, officialising WCA as a national TV program Two subprograms, including The inspirational journey (Hành trình truyền cảm hứng) and WeTalk, which are the weekly broadcasted TV show and monthly talk show at university respectively are also added, spreading the popularity of WCA From 2014 to 2018, each year, WCA follows a specific theme, namely “Be different to be successful (Khác biệt để thành công)”, “The inspiring journey” (Chuyến xe cảm hứng), “The inspiring boat” (Cánh buồm cảm hứng), “Calm” (Bình tĩnh sống), and “The heart’s hidden sun” (Mặt trời ẩn tim) With such themes, centre to the awards are still the categories of the “Inspiring persons” and the “Inspiring ambassadors” The “Inspiring stories”, accomplishment is insufficient if it is only bring out self-contentment There has to be an impact Indeed, impact is half of what the award is about, indicated in its title “Inspiring persons” Thus, although first, it’s about making their dreams come true, in the end, such dreams, or the process of realizing their dreams have to contribute to the community in one way or another The contributions can be tangible, such as the improved conditions of living for children in the mountainous area in Phan Anh’s story, doctor Thang’s new cure for cancer, the artists’ high quality work of art They can also be intangible, such as a change in the attitude, or the the belief and inspiration to go against all odds to make their dreams come true They spread the message that with giving comes fulfillment Some of the subjects even take helping others as their priority or primary motivation This act of altruism is manifested in Phan Anh’s charity campaign, and teacher Binh Phuc’s educational project for children on Hon Chuoi Island The somewhat balanced importance of personal success and contribution to the community to one neoliberal individual in Vietnam is understandable Indeed, here, just as neoliberalism was juxtaposed with Marxism and Leninism in the political sphere, neoliberalism has always been fused with nationalism – a more conventional ideology embedded since dawn of the twentieth century, when it comes to the constitution of the concept of the “self” and “individual” (Nguyen, 2015) This has strengthened the Rose (1999)’s claim that neoliberalism is not a substitution of collectivism in formally collective states but reconciles with the collective interest in various way 4.3 Discussion on WCA’s Constitution of the Neoliberal Self and Selfrealisation 4.3.1 The problematic idealisation of “following your dream and passion” Throughout its operation, WCA systematically idealises dream, passion, and the process of pursuing and realizing them Passion and dreams are 40 constituted as essential to one’s existence Indeed, the stories of success it tells can be simply translated into the story of making one’s dream come true The meaning of the dream to the selfhood is not limited to the goal to achieve but also a purpose that brings meaning to one’s life, an incentive for all courses of actions Dream and passion is an ideal that is worth risking and fighting for However, the main problem with WCA’s constitution of this ideal is that it lacks specificity and practicality Regarding the former, most of the subjects claim to “realise”, “follow”, and “pursue” their dreams and passion their whole life, while sometimes fail to articulate what exactly their dreams are As for the latter, the process of making the dream come true is rather too idealistic In fact, WCA creates the impression that as long as one dream passionately, and work hard and persistently enough, they can overcome all sorts of difficulties This formula for success is only ideal, for, in real life, we know that this is not always the case 4.3.2 The idealisation of the people The nature of awards is to recognise and honour those who best qualify a set of criteria set by the organisers That is to say, award-winning individuals cannot be expected to offer the reality of the whole group, community, race, culture, or generation that they belong to Instead, they are only the representatives of their group, and of what the organisers value and wish to promote publicly In WCA, they are trying to market a group of successful people as the role models of individuals in the current context of Vietnam Along the way, they seem to have fallen into the trap of creating a false projection of perfection Indeed, in their articles, they mainly highlight the good side of the individuals with little effort made into discussing the not-as-good side 41 CHAPTER CONCLUSION I begin my discussion on the topic of the thesis by presenting an attempt to untangle the complexity of the concept of the self in general and specifically in neoliberal discourse My findings reveal that generally, the concept of the self, concepts ‘individual’, ‘self’, and ‘person’, regardless of its distinct nature, is indeed interrelated to the concepts of “individual” and “person”, which are all inextricable aspects that constitute a human being From this notion, I assert that self-realisation, which can be understood roughly as to become all that one is capable of being, cannot become sensible in isolation with the pari passu processes on the individual and the person I have also presented the construction of self-realisation based on five subsections, which are authenticity, fulfillment, freedom, self-realisation, and self-externalisation Only when satisfying all of these aspects can one attain true self-realisation I find that these notions of selfrealisation are aligned with what is claimed by neoliberals in conceptualizing the neoliberal self I have provided a genealogical account of how the concepts of the self and self-realisation are established, maintained, and steered from the constrained, collective end to the more individual and liberal end throughout the course of Vietnamese history until the modern time Accordingly, our history can be divided into four main periods, each of which has distinguishable and critical roles in the transformation of the concept of the subject matter of the thesis It turns out that the notion of liberal and autonomous self only entered Vietnam with exposure to the Western forces since the latter half of the nineteenth century Before then, Vietnamese individuals tended to constitute highly collective identities, thus the self was rather a constraint and was always put down and below the common interest The path to the liberation of the self in Vietnam was not an easy and linear one due to incessant warfare, as well as 42 social, economic and political struggles However, since 1986, when Vietnam carried out its comprehensive transformation, marked by the launch of the Doi moi policy, the neoliberal concept of the self entered Vietnam and only became more and more popular ever since In the neoliberal climate, Vietnamese individuals’ response positively to the requirement of a new type of individual autonomous, and entrepreneurial- while maintaining specific collectivistic features that are distinctive of Vietnam It can be seen that WeChoice Award is promoting this neoliberal ideal of the self and self-realisation They dedicates the main category to honour the “Inspiring persons”, who, throughout the course of five years, have been constituted as rational, autonomous, responsible, entrepreneurial, positive individuals They have relentlessly promoted the qualities of authenticity throughout the process They have also highlighted a kind of fullness that fuses the private and public satisfaction The kind of self and self-realisation here is rather idealized, though In other words, they are projecting a somewhat unrealistic perfection of dream, passion, and of people This can result in a counterproductive effect to what they are aiming – inspiring people to stand up and live a meaningful life In fact, to the audiences, when constantly looking up for things that are not actually real or just pretending to be real, or more perfect than real like role models, they could develop a sense of dissatisfaction with their own conditions, deprive themselves of the permission to take their whole self in own being This can be the cause for the not-enoughness in the culture, which might be healthy, as it encourages changes, but also detrimental, as it diminishes one’s well-being To speak about the limitations of this thesis, I admit that the findings are context-specific and should not be applied to interpret or project the self in general terms in the context of Vietnam It should be also noted that as I, due to the limit of time and capacity, study only on the published articles about the 43 “Inspiring persons” and choose not to include other platforms offered by WCA, being the audiovisual materials, I may not provide a comprehensive analysis and interpretation of the 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Behaviour, 87(1), 120-144 Walkerdine, V (2006) Workers in the new economy: Transformation as border crossing Ethos, 34(1), 10-41 wechoice.vn (2017) Trang tin tức - WeChoice Award s 2017 Retrieved from http://wechoice.vn/wechoice-awards-2018.htm 50 Weidner, J R (2009) Governmentality, capitalism, and subjectivity Global Society, 23(4), 387–411 Winnicott, D W (1965) The maturational process and the facilitating environment New York: International University Press 51 APPENDIX WeChoice Award winners in the “Inspiring persons” category from 2014 - 2018 Name Sex DOB Job Sector 2014 Võ Hoài Linh M 1969 commedian Art/ Entertainment Sơn Tùng MTP M 1994 Singer Art/ Entertainment Chi Pu F 1993 Singer, Actor Art/ Entertainment Văn Như Cương M 1937 Teacher Education Đỗ Nhật Nam M 2001 Scholar/ young writer Education Nguyễn Hà Đông M 1985 Programmer Engineering and Informatic Toshiya Miura M 1963 Coach Sports Lại Bắc Hải Đăng M 1979 Producer Art/ Entertainment Mỹ Tâm F 1981 Singer Art/ Entertainment 2015 Model Miss Universe Vietnam Social Impact/ Service community Phạm Hương F 1991 Đông Nhi F 1988 Singer Art/ Entertainment Nguyễn Duy Thăng M 1964 Doctor Health and Medicine Mặc Văn Mỹ M 1950 Father Social Impact/ Service community Trần Khắc Ân M 1977 Street worker Worker Ánh Viên F 1997 Swimmer Sports Tiên Tiên F 1991 Singer/ Composer Art/ Entertainment 52 Trần Mai Anh F 1973 Journalist Communication Aiden M 1992 Producer Art/ Entertainment M Fashionista/ Stylist/ Designer 1988 Editor for fashion magazine Art/ Entertainment Hoàng Ku 2016 Noo Phước Thịnh M 1988 Singer Art/ Entertainment Trần Lập M 1974 Singer/ Rocker Art/ Entertainment Phan Anh M 1981 MC Art/ Entertainment Hồng Xn Vinh M 1974 Sports Trần Bình Phục M 1972 Teacher Education Đội tuyển bóng đá U23 M 1995 Football players Sports Suboi F 1990 Rapper Art/ Entertainment Lê Minh Châu M 1991 Painter Art/ Entertainment 2017 Social Impact/ Service community Cụ Xuân F 193x Not specific Ngô Thanh Vân F 1979 Actor/ Director/ Producer Art/ Entertainment Sơn Tùng M-TP M 1994 Singer Art/ Entertainment Min F 1988 Singer Art/ Entertainment Chi Pu F 1993 Singer/ Actor Art/ Entertainment Only C M 1988 Chang Makeup F 1994 Beauty blogger Singer/ Composer/ Producer 53 Art/ Entertainment Art/ Entertainment Trần Đặng Đăng Khoa M 1987 Traveller Social Impact/ Service community 2018 Park Hang-Seo M Football Coach H'Hen Niê F 1992 Miss Universe VN Art/ Entertainment Hương Giang F 1991 Miss world LGBT Art/ Entertainment Huỳnh Lập M 1993 Producer (web dramma) Art/ Entertainment Phạm Đình Quý M 1972 Architect Engineering Châu Bùi F 1997 Art/ Entertainment Justatee M 1991 Singer/ Composer Art/ Entertainment 54 Sports ... HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA NGƠN NGỮ VÀ VĂN HỐ CÁC NƯỚC NĨI TIẾNG ANH KHĨA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP SỰ HỒN THIỆN BẢN THÂN THEO CHỦ NGHĨA TÂN TỰ DO Ở VIỆT NAM: TRƯỜNG HỢP CỦA WECHOICE AWARD Giảng... of Vietnam, and how they are constructed in the popular annual award WeChoice Award (WCA) presented by VCCorp, a Vietnamese media, and communication company Adopting the Foucauldian’s theories... one among those awards In 2014, WeChoice Award (WCA) was introduced to the Vietnamese public by VCCorp, a Vietnamese media, and communication company, primarily as an annual award that honours