Allison Truitt
Biographic Data
| ID | 87093 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Allison Truitt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Allison |
| FAMILY NAME | Truitt |
| SIGNATURE | TRUITT A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Tulane University |
| ORCID | 0009-0006-2123-6815 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 90 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Past performance is no guarantee of future results
A response to the promotional pack on Four Alternative Currencies and their Worlds
Monetary Authorities
In March 2023, the secretary of the US Treasury and the chair of the Federal Reserve reassured customers of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank that their deposits would be made whole and the bank managers removed. This act of state authority in securing money raises the question, What does monetary authority look like elsewhere when the currency is not backed by the “full faith and credit of the US government”?Allan E. M. Lumba's book Money A…
Banking on gold in Vietnam
Today central bankers regard gold as an asset but not as money. Does this distinction still hold in a period of financial globalization? This question has taken on great urgency since the 2008 global financial crisis when assets have become more liquid and transferable. In this essay, I examine a series of monetary policies in Vietnam that culminated in commercial banks mobilizing privately held gold, an experimental monetary design I call ‘banki…
Money
Guide to Further Reading
This chapter introduces students to anthropological literature on money. The concern has been less about money and more with how "encounters" with money produce anthropological understanding. While people transact with money all the time, not all such transactions generate an "encounter". For ethnographers, money is often a source of both knowledge and trouble; because money tends to be deeply symbolic and subtly coded, it offers ethnographers re…
Money
Money is a formidable subject — an intimate object in our everyday lives, a claim over resources, and a topic of academic inquiry. Textbooks define money by its various functions, e.g., as a medium of exchange, a means of payment, a unit of account, and a store of value. While anthropologists also reckon with these functions, they are equally concerned with money as a social process, a material object, and a political token, concerns that lead th…
Film and Video
Film reviewed in this issue. Ghost Tape #10 (Băng ghi âm ma)
Bringing Buddha to the City
In contrast to claims of the secular city, the cityscape of New Orleans has long been shaped by the power and visibility of its Catholic institutions. These institutions played an early role in resettling Vietnamese refugees after 1975, and even today, the most prominent Vietnamese institutions are Catholic churches. Not all Vietnamese in the metropolitan area, however, identify as Catholic. I focus on the efforts of one Buddhist association to b…
The Highs and Lows of Money, Finance, and Technology
Nationalizing gold
The popularity of gold in India and Vietnam is attributed to either cultural values or an undeveloped financial sector. Yet gold also serves as an important reserve asset for central banks, more so than ever following the 2008 financial crisis. By way of exploring this juxtaposition, I turn to recent campaigns in each country to promote a national gold form, the SJC bar in Vietnam and the Indian Gold Coin. Although the campaigns have been framed …
Quán Thế Âm of the Transpacific
Bodhisattvas are an essential element of the Pure Land branch of Mahayana Buddhism practiced in Vietnam and its diaspora. Many Vietnamese lovingly refer to Bodhisattva Quán Thế Âm as a “gentle mother,” and the circulation of her name and image constitutes a spiritual geography of the transpacific in distinctly Buddhist terms. Through a reading of two miracle tales, I argue that Quán Thế Âm mediates the divergent histories of Vietnamese refugees w…
Not a Day but a Vu Lan Season
One of the most important observances of the Vietnamese Buddhist calendar is Vu Lan, an annual ceremony framed by Confucian notions of filial piety. Through an ethnographic analysis of the festival at four different Buddhist institutions along the U.S. Gulf Coast, I show how Vu Lan cultivates devotion to motherhood and nationhood, generating both affective ties and material support from lay participants. I pay particular attention to how gendered…
Dreaming of Money in Ho Chi Minh City
The expanding use of money in contemporary Vietnam has been propelled by the rise of new markets, digital telecommunications, and an ideological emphasis on money's autonomy from the state. People in Vietnam use the metaphor of "open doors" to describe their everyday experiences of market liberalization and to designate the end of Vietnam's postwar social isolation and return to a consumer- oriented environment. Dreaming of Money in Ho Chi Minh C…
The Price of Integration
The fight against inflation is a defining feature of neoliberalism and structural adjustment policies. Since the 1970s, inflation has been cast as a threat greater than unemployment because it destroys the pricing mechanism on which the flow of information in markets depends. In Vietnam, high rates of inflation in the 1980s led the government to implement reforms of the economy under the slogan Ðổi mới (Renovation). These reforms included anti-in…
Vietnamese Visions of Reform in the Charterization of New Orleans Schools
This essay examines the role of charter schools for promoting the interests of diasporic communities. It focuses on the opening of a charter school in a Vietnamese neighborhood in post-disaster New Orleans. While the school's opening testified to the Vietnamese community's increasing visibility in the recovery process of post-disaster New Orleans, the charter school as a vehicle for addressing the specific needs was still fraught with problems. T…
The Viet Village Urban Farm and the Politics of Neighborhood Viability in Post-Katrina New Orleans
Viability emerged as a contentious political term in post-Katrina New Orleans. While initial expert-led proposals defined neighborhood viability in terms of topography, community-based groups emphasized the cultural and historical aspects that defined neighborhoods as viable. This analysis focuses on the politics of neighborhood viability with regarding to a specific neighborhood, Village de l'Est, well known for its sizeable Vietnamese populatio…
Tradition, Revolution, and Market Economy in a North Vietnamese Village, 1925–2006 by Hy Van Luong
On the back of a motorbike
Mobility" is a key concept in understanding processes of globalization and class formation. In this article, I examine motorbike mobility in Ho Chi Minh City and its role in reordering social stratification in urban Vietnam. In the years following trade liberalization, motorbikes emerged as exemplary symbols of purchasing power, displaying both monetized and motorized power. In response to the exponential increase in the number of motorbikes, Vie…
The Making of National Money
The Making of National Money: Territorial Currencies in Historical Perspective Eric Helleiner (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003)The Internationalization of Palace Wars: Lawyers, Economists, and the Contest to Transform Latin American States Yves Dezalay and Bryant G. Garth (The Chicago Series in Law and Society) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002
On the back of a motorbike
Mobility" is a key concept in understanding processes of globalization and class formation. In this article, I examine motorbike mobility in Ho Chi Minh City and its role in reordering social stratification in urban Vietnam. In the years following trade liberalization, motorbikes emerged as exemplary symbols of purchasing power, displaying both monetized and motorized power. In response to the exponential increase in the number of motorbikes, Vie…
Nationalizing gold
The popularity of gold in India and Vietnam is attributed to either cultural values or an undeveloped financial sector. Yet gold also serves as an important reserve asset for central banks, more so than ever following the 2008 financial crisis. By way of exploring this juxtaposition, I turn to recent campaigns in each country to promote a national gold form, the SJC bar in Vietnam and the Indian Gold Coin. Although the campaigns have been framed …
The Viet Village Urban Farm and the Politics of Neighborhood Viability in Post-Katrina New Orleans
Viability emerged as a contentious political term in post-Katrina New Orleans. While initial expert-led proposals defined neighborhood viability in terms of topography, community-based groups emphasized the cultural and historical aspects that defined neighborhoods as viable. This analysis focuses on the politics of neighborhood viability with regarding to a specific neighborhood, Village de l'Est, well known for its sizeable Vietnamese populatio…
Monetary Authorities
In March 2023, the secretary of the US Treasury and the chair of the Federal Reserve reassured customers of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank that their deposits would be made whole and the bank managers removed. This act of state authority in securing money raises the question, What does monetary authority look like elsewhere when the currency is not backed by the “full faith and credit of the US government”?Allan E. M. Lumba's book Money A…
Banking on gold in Vietnam
Today central bankers regard gold as an asset but not as money. Does this distinction still hold in a period of financial globalization? This question has taken on great urgency since the 2008 global financial crisis when assets have become more liquid and transferable. In this essay, I examine a series of monetary policies in Vietnam that culminated in commercial banks mobilizing privately held gold, an experimental monetary design I call ‘banki…
Bringing Buddha to the City
In contrast to claims of the secular city, the cityscape of New Orleans has long been shaped by the power and visibility of its Catholic institutions. These institutions played an early role in resettling Vietnamese refugees after 1975, and even today, the most prominent Vietnamese institutions are Catholic churches. Not all Vietnamese in the metropolitan area, however, identify as Catholic. I focus on the efforts of one Buddhist association to b…
Not a Day but a Vu Lan Season
One of the most important observances of the Vietnamese Buddhist calendar is Vu Lan, an annual ceremony framed by Confucian notions of filial piety. Through an ethnographic analysis of the festival at four different Buddhist institutions along the U.S. Gulf Coast, I show how Vu Lan cultivates devotion to motherhood and nationhood, generating both affective ties and material support from lay participants. I pay particular attention to how gendered…
Past performance is no guarantee of future results
A response to the promotional pack on Four Alternative Currencies and their Worlds
Quán Thế Âm of the Transpacific
Bodhisattvas are an essential element of the Pure Land branch of Mahayana Buddhism practiced in Vietnam and its diaspora. Many Vietnamese lovingly refer to Bodhisattva Quán Thế Âm as a “gentle mother,” and the circulation of her name and image constitutes a spiritual geography of the transpacific in distinctly Buddhist terms. Through a reading of two miracle tales, I argue that Quán Thế Âm mediates the divergent histories of Vietnamese refugees w…
The Making of National Money
The Making of National Money: Territorial Currencies in Historical Perspective Eric Helleiner (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003)The Internationalization of Palace Wars: Lawyers, Economists, and the Contest to Transform Latin American States Yves Dezalay and Bryant G. Garth (The Chicago Series in Law and Society) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002
The Making of National Money
The Making of National Money: Territorial Currencies in Historical Perspective Eric Helleiner (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003)The Internationalization of Palace Wars: Lawyers, Economists, and the Contest to Transform Latin American States Yves Dezalay and Bryant G. Garth (The Chicago Series in Law and Society) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002
On the back of a motorbike
Mobility" is a key concept in understanding processes of globalization and class formation. In this article, I examine motorbike mobility in Ho Chi Minh City and its role in reordering social stratification in urban Vietnam. In the years following trade liberalization, motorbikes emerged as exemplary symbols of purchasing power, displaying both monetized and motorized power. In response to the exponential increase in the number of motorbikes, Vie…
Tradition, Revolution, and Market Economy in a North Vietnamese Village, 1925–2006 by Hy Van Luong
The Price of Integration
The fight against inflation is a defining feature of neoliberalism and structural adjustment policies. Since the 1970s, inflation has been cast as a threat greater than unemployment because it destroys the pricing mechanism on which the flow of information in markets depends. In Vietnam, high rates of inflation in the 1980s led the government to implement reforms of the economy under the slogan Ðổi mới (Renovation). These reforms included anti-in…
Vietnamese Visions of Reform in the Charterization of New Orleans Schools
This essay examines the role of charter schools for promoting the interests of diasporic communities. It focuses on the opening of a charter school in a Vietnamese neighborhood in post-disaster New Orleans. While the school's opening testified to the Vietnamese community's increasing visibility in the recovery process of post-disaster New Orleans, the charter school as a vehicle for addressing the specific needs was still fraught with problems. T…
The Viet Village Urban Farm and the Politics of Neighborhood Viability in Post-Katrina New Orleans
Viability emerged as a contentious political term in post-Katrina New Orleans. While initial expert-led proposals defined neighborhood viability in terms of topography, community-based groups emphasized the cultural and historical aspects that defined neighborhoods as viable. This analysis focuses on the politics of neighborhood viability with regarding to a specific neighborhood, Village de l'Est, well known for its sizeable Vietnamese populatio…
Dreaming of Money in Ho Chi Minh City
The expanding use of money in contemporary Vietnam has been propelled by the rise of new markets, digital telecommunications, and an ideological emphasis on money's autonomy from the state. People in Vietnam use the metaphor of "open doors" to describe their everyday experiences of market liberalization and to designate the end of Vietnam's postwar social isolation and return to a consumer- oriented environment. Dreaming of Money in Ho Chi Minh C…
Not a Day but a Vu Lan Season
One of the most important observances of the Vietnamese Buddhist calendar is Vu Lan, an annual ceremony framed by Confucian notions of filial piety. Through an ethnographic analysis of the festival at four different Buddhist institutions along the U.S. Gulf Coast, I show how Vu Lan cultivates devotion to motherhood and nationhood, generating both affective ties and material support from lay participants. I pay particular attention to how gendered…
Quán Thế Âm of the Transpacific
Bodhisattvas are an essential element of the Pure Land branch of Mahayana Buddhism practiced in Vietnam and its diaspora. Many Vietnamese lovingly refer to Bodhisattva Quán Thế Âm as a “gentle mother,” and the circulation of her name and image constitutes a spiritual geography of the transpacific in distinctly Buddhist terms. Through a reading of two miracle tales, I argue that Quán Thế Âm mediates the divergent histories of Vietnamese refugees w…
Nationalizing gold
The popularity of gold in India and Vietnam is attributed to either cultural values or an undeveloped financial sector. Yet gold also serves as an important reserve asset for central banks, more so than ever following the 2008 financial crisis. By way of exploring this juxtaposition, I turn to recent campaigns in each country to promote a national gold form, the SJC bar in Vietnam and the Indian Gold Coin. Although the campaigns have been framed …
Film and Video
Film reviewed in this issue. Ghost Tape #10 (Băng ghi âm ma)
Bringing Buddha to the City
In contrast to claims of the secular city, the cityscape of New Orleans has long been shaped by the power and visibility of its Catholic institutions. These institutions played an early role in resettling Vietnamese refugees after 1975, and even today, the most prominent Vietnamese institutions are Catholic churches. Not all Vietnamese in the metropolitan area, however, identify as Catholic. I focus on the efforts of one Buddhist association to b…
The Highs and Lows of Money, Finance, and Technology
Money
Guide to Further Reading
This chapter introduces students to anthropological literature on money. The concern has been less about money and more with how "encounters" with money produce anthropological understanding. While people transact with money all the time, not all such transactions generate an "encounter". For ethnographers, money is often a source of both knowledge and trouble; because money tends to be deeply symbolic and subtly coded, it offers ethnographers re…
Money
Money is a formidable subject — an intimate object in our everyday lives, a claim over resources, and a topic of academic inquiry. Textbooks define money by its various functions, e.g., as a medium of exchange, a means of payment, a unit of account, and a store of value. While anthropologists also reckon with these functions, they are equally concerned with money as a social process, a material object, and a political token, concerns that lead th…
Banking on gold in Vietnam
Today central bankers regard gold as an asset but not as money. Does this distinction still hold in a period of financial globalization? This question has taken on great urgency since the 2008 global financial crisis when assets have become more liquid and transferable. In this essay, I examine a series of monetary policies in Vietnam that culminated in commercial banks mobilizing privately held gold, an experimental monetary design I call ‘banki…
Monetary Authorities
In March 2023, the secretary of the US Treasury and the chair of the Federal Reserve reassured customers of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank that their deposits would be made whole and the bank managers removed. This act of state authority in securing money raises the question, What does monetary authority look like elsewhere when the currency is not backed by the “full faith and credit of the US government”?Allan E. M. Lumba's book Money A…
Past performance is no guarantee of future results
A response to the promotional pack on Four Alternative Currencies and their Worlds
Vietnamese History and Culture Studies (10 works) · Economics (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Vietnamese (6 works) · History (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies (5 works) · Economic Theory and Policy (4 works)