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Market Shrines and Urban Renewal in Hanoi
- Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Volume 33, Number 2, July 2018
- pp. 291-318
- Article
- Additional Information
Abstract:
Drawing on ideas of a "clean and green city", recent municipal development policies in Hanoi have resulted in the demolition of a number of traditional marketplaces in favour of high-rise buildings. In its efforts to implement environmentalist policies, the city government and investors find themselves confronted with agentive forces of spirits and other non-humans, which play a significant role in negotiating and protecting urban space in a society increasingly characterized by the manifold dynamics of market socialism. An approach referring to the ecologies of urbanism permits examination of encounters between urban renewal and the spirit world.