Big Money, New Money, and ATMs: Valuing Vietnamese Currency in Ho Chi Minh City

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Research in Economic Anthropology

ISSN: 0190-1281
Series editor(s): Dr. Donald Wood

Subject Area: Sociology and Public Policy

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Document Information:
Title:	Big Money, New Money, and ATMs: Valuing Vietnamese Currency in Ho Chi Minh City
Author(s):	Allison Truitt
Volume:	24 Editor(s): Norbert Dannhaeuser, Cynthia Werner ISBN: 978-0-76231-225-2 eISBN: 978-1-84950-354-9
Citation:	Allison Truitt (2006), Big Money, New Money, and ATMs: Valuing Vietnamese Currency in Ho Chi Minh City, in Norbert Dannhaeuser, Cynthia Werner (ed.) Markets and Market Liberalization: Ethnographic Reflections (Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 24), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.283-308
DOI:	10.1016/S0190-1281(05)24010-6 (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Article type:	Chapter Item
Abstract:	Reforms of the Vietnamese economy have been widely credited for stabilizing the value of the state-issued currency in the marketplace. Nevertheless, how people evaluate the Vietnamese dong as a symbolic form can be read as a symptom of shifting economic and political forces, above all in Ho Chi Minh City, a city associated with commerce. Through three ethnographic cases – the introduction of “big money,” the scarcity of “new money” in 2002, and the campaign to build Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), this paper analyzes the contentious politics around symbolic exchange that shape confidence in Vietnamese currency.