Fishers, Monks and Cadres: Navigating State, Religion and the South China Sea in Central Vietnam by Edyta Roszko (review)

Discourse on rising tensions in the South China Sea invariably focuses on inter-state relations—more specifically, between the dominant power, China, and the much weaker Southeast Asian claimants. However, little has been written about the fishermen whose lives are intertwined with the coastal areas and who have been drawn into the territorial and jurisdictional disputes. Edyta Roszko’s book, Fishers, Monks and Cadres: Navigating State, Religion and the South China Sea in Central Vietnam, is thus a well-timed contribution.

Drawing from her years of ethnographic research in Vietnam’s central province of Quang Ngai, Roszko meticulously examines the way fishing communities interact with the “triad of contested categories” (p. 15)—the state, religion and village—in a changing environment marked by escalating challenges to the geopolitical order. By incorporating the three analytical concepts of semiotic ideology, purification and indiscipline, the book explores how fishermen navigate their religious practice between different binaries: land versus sea, religious versus secular, fishers versus farmers, male versus female, and ancestors versus ghosts (p. 200). Some binaries are particularly captivating. For example, the interdependent relationship between farmers and fishermen is illustrated by the ties between rice and fish sauce (p. 105), a connection widely acknowledged by those who have lived long enough in central Vietnam.

Yet instead of viewing the binaries through the usual religious-secular dichotomy, Roszko examines how various actors—including cadres, religious figures, fishermen and women—enact, debunk and re-enact these relations (p. 197). For example, from the severe suppression of religion during the High Socialism period (1976–79), when all performances of rituals and worship were forbidden, the state has since reinterpreted selected religious practices as an expression of Vietnamese “culture” and “national heritage” (p. 64), while suppressing other unauthorized practices as “superstitious” (me tin) or “heterodox” (di doan) (p. 76) in the Doi Moi era. The fishermen in Ly Son, for instance, have navigated through this changing landscape and shifting language, and linked their ancestor worship with the commemoration of the Paracels flotilla, to receive the state’s official recognition (p. 138).

However, not all efforts are successful, as shown in Chapter Five which examines the case of a village lineage’s failed attempt to elevate their female ancestor to the status of local heroine. From this point, Roszko brings in an intriguing analysis in Chapter Six, of how women in peripheral, coastal areas transcend their ritual exclusion and marginality in a male-dominated culture to construct and validate their gendered practice of ritual identity (p. 195). They cleverly navigate between the state and religion to criticize the prohibition of women’s participation in village rituals as “feudal” and “outdated”. One of the best quotes in the book comes from a female villager who said, “The goddess has to accept the reality and follow the progress of modern society!” (p. 178)

Structurally speaking, the book is well organized with six main chapters, an Introduction and a Conclusion. Chapters One and Two provide a solid historical and geographical background for the book’s ethnographic research. By tracing the Vietnamese party-state’s policies towards religion over the years, the author shows how the state has attempted to channel the discourse on Vietnam’s identity into new directions after the withdrawal from a socialist modernity (p. 69). Chapter Three describes how the fishermen—thanks to the growing demand for marine products and the consequences of the South China Sea dispute—move up the social hierarchy and play a more important role in the religious life of the coastal area. Chapter Four details how the fishers, monks and cadres encountered, contested and negotiated the relocation of a Buddhist statue. Roszko’s account of the dialogue between the state official and head monk is excellent, vividly illustrating the competing agendas of state agents and religious authorities, while the villagers navigate their religious practices in between (pp. 124–25).

Chapter Five deals...